The Good UFC 149 Prelims – There’s a reason why the UFC when putting together an event structures the fight card the way they do. The name fighters are placed on the pay-per-view because they are more likely to sell PPVs than the fighters on the prelims. That said, last night was the rare occasion where the prelim bouts were much better than those on PPV and were worth the money that the rest of the show wasn’t. The prelims kicked off with a fast paced three round contest between Anton Kuivanen and Mitch Clarke which was mostly contested on the ground as both men showed off their grappling prowess. Kuivanen would win a close split decision and things would only get better. After a 10 year career Antonio Carvalho picked up his first UFC win with a first round stoppage of Daniel Pineda getting the crowd on their feet. Bryan Caraway and Mitch Gagnon fought a competitive bout through two rounds but by the third Gagnon was exhausted which allowed Caraway to take him down and submit him via rear naked choke.   Things really picked up from there as Ryan Jimmo made his UFC debut a historical one as he knocked out opponent Anthony Perosh in a record tying 7 seconds of the first round. Both the KO and Jimmos ensuing robot dance sent the Calgary crowd into an uproar. The early finishes continued when Francisco Rivera ended Roland Delormes night with strikes in the first round. The prelims ended on a bit of a bad note when Nick Ring won a controversial decision against former Ultimate Fighter winnerCourt McGee in the least entertaing fight on the undercard. You know a decisons bad when the home fans booed the decision for Ring. That contest aside the preliminary fights [...]

  * Why didn’t Nick Ring stopped the judges from robbing Court Mcgee?   * Calgary crowd had the perfect geeky combination of Brazilian fan’s ruckus with the Japanese crowd’s politeness.    “Go Nick Go!”   Seriously?   * Urijah Faber should get more tittle shots as long as he keeps beating up his competition.   Last time I checked MMA was a sport, were the Bills ever denied of going to the superbowl cause of their multiple failures in winning it?   * Renan Barao is going to knock the breaks off of Dominic Cruz.   He will have easier match up with Dominic than he had with Urijah.  Color me tremendously impressed and totally glad that I didn’t put any money on Faber.   Virtually everyone of the so called experts were picking Faber to win in a mild upset, and when something is that obvious to everyone, chances are that it is really not that obvious.   * Looks like Hector Lombard is going to get his wish of facing off against Mark Munoz.  

  Adrien Broner vs Vicente Escobedo – This Saturday HBO continues the grooming process of who they hope to be the next big star in American boxing as Adrien Broner squares off with veteran Vicente Escobedo. I intend to keep this brief as I expet this contest to be a bit of a mismatch in favor of Broner but then again I thought the same of Amir Khan in his bout last weekend against Danny Garcia and we all saw how that turned out. As for this fight, love or hate him there’s no denying that the Cincinnati native is an extremely talented boxer with a world of potential. The same was thought of Escobedo at one time himself after a stellar amateur career including competing in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Unfortunately just like his run in the Olympics, Escobedo has come up short in the biggest moments of his pro career including losses to Michael Katsidis and Robert Guerrero. Broner on the other hand is unbeaten and the sports youngest world champion. Since winning a debatable unanimous decision against Daniel Ponce De Leon, Broner has won 3 straight by stoppage with all ending under 4 rounds. Given his experience advantage and pedigree Escobedo may provide Broner his toughest test but the question is will it be a problem the brash boxer can’t get by.   916Chris’ pick – Sure I completely blew it on the Khan/Garcia prediction but in all fairness I wasn’t alone in missing that call, badly. Although we have already seen a couple notable upsets this year in Josesito Lopez vs Victor Ortiz and the aforementioned Garcia/Khan fights, the difference is the winning parties were both young fighters who are still developing and obviously improving. Such is not the case with the 30 year old Escobedo [...]

The Good Danny Garcia – Predicting fights is like life sometimes, you’re gonna make some decisions that in hindsight make you look really stupid. Such was the case in my preview for Danny Garcia vs Amir Khan where I didn’t even give Garcia a punchers chance at winning. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong as one left hook from Garcia that landed on Khans neck turned both the fight and both guys careers. That punch, which short circuited Khan, took place at a time when it appeared Amir was taking over the action. Upon impact Khan went crashing to the canvas yet remarkably beat the count despite being completely unsteady on his feet. Fortunately for Khan it was late in the round and he was able to survive but the 60 second respite did little to help him recover. Khan looked shakey as the fourth round began, Garcia sensing as much rushed Khan knocking him down again. Once again Amir beat the count only to be by a hard charging Garcia who was throwing wild hooks in pursuit of a finish. However Khan not only weathered the storm but began landing shots of his own on Garcia who it seemed to have punched himself out. Both men traded power punches in an exciting round when Garcia sent Khan down for a third time with a left hook followed by a right. To his credit Khan beat the count again but referee Kenny Bayless didn’t like what he saw and waved off the contest. It was the biggest win of Garcias still undefeated career and a huge setback for Khan. Moving forward Garcia can no longer be overlooked in a division full of intriguing opponents.   David Haye – It wasn’t all bad news for British boxers this weekend as [...]

  * Thank god that while I didn’t outright pick Garcia to win the fight in our last prediction post, I made it clear that my betting account would be picking him on the upset.   Going against Amir’s chin is always a good bet when he is facing decent opposition, and especially at over +400 odds.   * Amir Khan’s fight with Danny Garcia was exciting, and Khan showed a lot of heart in trying to fight back even when he was out on fabulous street.  Call me crazy but I felt like the ref stopped the fight early.   * Last night fight between Garcia and Khan is the reason why I want the great sport of boxing to forbid holding. The exchanges that occurred inside that allowed Danny to get his shots off was due to either Amir’s lack of knowledge in holding or his insistence in not holding Garcia to punish him.  If that was Devon Alexander in there you bet your ass he would be getting his shots off first and then holding on to the arms of Garcia for a boring unanimous 12 round decision.  No holding….  AT ALL.  Rule changes are needed to catch up with the times.   * Speaking of holding, Vitali is going to have his way with David Haye.   * I feel like MMA is more exciting than boxing generally about 90% of the time.  But when there is that special fight in boxing…..  Nothing beat it.   As a lifelong boxing fan I have to admit that MMA has become a sport of actions, while boxing is now a sport of moments.