Issue 102
June 2013
St Pierre’s strength, Arlovski’s abashment, Rickels’ roar, Cooper’s comeback and Melo’s madness.
The Doctor will see you now: Georges St-Pierre, UFC 158
Which Canadian athlete is known as ‘the excellence of execution’? Bret Hart (pro wrestler), but it might as well be UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre. Yet another GSP title defense (this time against Nick Diaz at UFC 158), yet another clinical dissection of a challenger’s skillset. In their March main event meeting, St Pierre dictated near enough the entire fight, handing out the lion’s share of his punishment on the ground – especially from side ride, where he also neutralized any chance of a Diaz kneebar by crossing a shin over the back of Diaz’s ankle. The guy’s like a mixed martial arts MD or something.
Most one-sided beatdown: Jimmy Wallhead, BAMMA 12
There wasn’t much judo on the part of ‘Judo’ Jimmy Wallhead as he trounced former UFC lightweight Matt Veach at BAMMA 12 in March, but there was a significant amount of arse kicking. Benefitting from, by his own admission, one of the first fully professional fight camps of his career, Wallhead didn’t give his US wrestler opponent even a whiff of victory during their 3:05 scrap. He dropped him in short order, introduced some heavy leather to his face, then ultimately transitioned to finish Veach with a rear naked choke. This proves once and for all that when Jimmy Wallhead is on the ball, he’s one fierce fighter.
Maddest celebration: Luis Melo, Bellator 94
Frankly, Brazil’s Luis Melo looked mental celebrating his third-round arm triangle win at Bellator 94. He was literally rolling on the canvas, laughing maniacally for a good 10 seconds after the referee pulled him off. Don’t get us wrong, the finish was sweet as a nut – moving to pass welterweight opponent Trey Houston’s guard, Melo smoothly spotted and pounced on an arm triangle on the opposite side. Plus both chaps were evidently exhausted after just over 10 minutes of scrapping. That, mixed with relief, release, and happiness, all after nearly getting finished in the second, can do strange things to a man (we’re not even counting him trying to pick up the referee and camerawoman post-fight). But, still, going all Joker on the floor for over 10 seconds? A little creepy.
Best comeback: Brett Cooper, Bellator 92
Knocked down 10 seconds into the fight, and hammered in the second, somehow Brett Cooper rallied for a stunning knockout finish at Bellator 92. Fighting in the semi-final of the middleweight tournament, Cooper, easily down two rounds, took his corner’s advice before the third and went for the finish. The bearded Kings MMA product caught opponent Dan Cramer on the attack with a right uppercut, having wobbled him, Cooper found a solid home for a left and two carefully launched right hands to make Cramer fall forward and force referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy to stop the contest. And all in just a few seconds. Fantastic.
Lightning strikes twice: Waachiim Spiritwolf, Bellator 93
When you’ve hit a home run with a name like Waachiim Spiritwolf it’s inevitable some bad luck has to redress the balance. The former Strikeforce welterweight suffered at least his third unfortunate fight ending in as many years at Bellator 93 recently. Facing off with UFC veteran Marcus Davis, Spiritwolf took a blast to the balls three minutes in that (according to Marcus Davis’ Twitter, at least) induced a panic attack in the 37-year-old and meant the fight had to be ruled a no-contest. That’s after Marius Zaromskis accidentally poked him in the eye in 2010 inside six seconds, and controversy over a cut TKO suffered by Spiritwolf marred their 2012 rematch. Lucky guy…
Best walkout: David Rickels, Bellator 94
Give a media entity (Spike TV) a reason to promote you (fighting your way into the Bellator season eight lightweight tournament final) when you’ve got a colorful nickname (‘The Caveman’) and anyone can tell you you’ll enter the biggest fight of your career walking an enormous T Rex puppet to the cage. It’s obvious. Good thing David Rickels backed that and several other prehistoric promos up by emerging the victor from his up-down two-round barnstormer with Saad Awad at Bellator 94 to earn a 155lb title shot. Even if his TKO ‘W’ was a little controversial for coming right on the closing bell of the second. His walkout music? Walk The Dinosaur, of course.
Boomerang: Marlon Moraes, World Series of Fighting 2
The MMA gods love irony. In August last year, Tyson Nam became seriously hot property. He KO’d the previously unstopped Bellator bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas in 96 seconds in a non-Bellator bout in Brazil. Cue a brief skirmish for his contract rights and a bout with Marlon Moraes at World Series of Fighting 2 in March. MMA fate being what it is, Nam couldn’t leave New Jersey with a win, could he? Nope, he ate a right high kick that Moraes was faking low, then some gravy strikes while groggy on the ground for a stoppage loss. Everyone’s a highlight for someone else…
Wardrobe malfunction: Andrei Arlovksi, World Series of Fighting 2
Erm, bit awkward, but Andrei Arlovski was wearing UFC gloves in the main event of World Series of Fighting 2 in Atlantic City. If the absurdity of that hasn’t already slapped you in the face like Nick Diaz at the end of a round we’ll spell it out: Arlovski was wearing gloves with the wrong promotion’s logo. Granted, the UFC mitts kind of look like acronym-ed World Series of Fighting fist pillows, but the highly unusual move was credited to the size of Arlovski’s arm hooves. Apparently, no other pairs to hand in the available time scale, aside from the UFC’s, would fit. Bizarre.
Hello, ladies: Ryan Scope, BAMMA 12
If you were watching Ryan Scope’s BAMMA 12 bout with TUF alumnus Luke Newman at home on TV you would have learned two things. One, Ryan Scope is good at fighting. Two, as commentator Michael Schiavello brought to viewers’ attention, Ryan Scope draws a great deal of female attention. In fact, FO has it on good authority a blushing female patron was overheard exclaiming to her friends her intentions to, ahem, personally communicate her affections to ‘The Playboy’ later that evening following his win. (A no-holds-barred peek into the life of an MMA groupie for you there.) Women falling at fighters’ feet is commonplace but Scope’s skills aren’t. Not only did he squeeze some nifty groundwork into his four-minute triangle choke win, he managed to recover from being felled due to a knee to the body. You couldn’t ask for a better statement on national television, really.
So striking: Jordan Mein and Bobby Voelker, UFC 158
Don’t know if you’ve noticed but a lot of the Strikeforce fighters the UFC welcomed recently have kind of been nailing it. Of late, there’s been Bobby Green, Tyron Woodley, Nah-Shon Burrell, and Caros Fodor cleaning house or putting on classic scraps. At UFC 158 in March there were two more: Jordan Mein and Bobby Voelker. Neither man is a stranger to these pages (Mein made this very spread a while ago, and we had a Q&A with Voelker just after his last Strikeforce bout), but impressed nonetheless. Mein ran through never-stopped UFC veteran Dan Miller with a first-round TKO after escaping an early armbar, and some feel Voelker should have got the better of a split judges’ decision to Patrick Cote after crushing the Canadian with ground strikes in the third. Did people really used to say Strikeforce fighters weren’t UFC caliber?
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