My UFC 84 report card...

I got a chance to watch UFC 84 Monday afternoon with my brother Kevin. There were a lot of great match ups on the fight card. I forgot to print out my picks so I could track how I was doing during the fights. It's pretty easy to remember who you've picked to win, but difficult to remember the other details. Anyway, here is my "report card"...

Point Score: 172
Your Ranking: 95 out of 19355

YOUR FIGHT CARD RESULTS: = Correct Answer, = Incorrect Answer, = Bonus Points Awarded
Fight Card/ Your Choices /Winning Method /Round /Minute /Point(s)
BJ Penn Vs Sean Sherk BJ Penn Split Decision 5 5 16
Tito Ortiz Vs Lyoto Machida Tito Ortiz Split Decision 3 5 6
Wanderlei Silva Vs Keith Jardine Keith Jardine Split Decision 3 5 0
Wilson Gouveia Vs Goran Reljic Goran Reljic Technical Knock Out 3 1 22
Thiago Silva Vs Antonio Mendes Thiago Silva Knock Out 1 2 21
Rameau Sokoudjou Vs Kazuhiro Nakamura Rameau Sokoudjou Technical Knock Out 2 3 22
Jon Koppenhaver Vs Yoshiyuki Yoshida Yoshiyuki Yoshida Unanimous Decision 3 5 15
Jason Tan Vs Dong Hyun Kim Dong Hyun Kim Knock Out 1 3 15
Ivan Salaverry Vs Rousimar Palhares Rousimar Palhares Submission (Choke) 1 3 20
Christian Wellisch Vs Shane Carwin Shane Carwin Unanimous Decision 3 5 15
Rich Clementi Vs Terry Etim Rich Clementi Technical Knock Out 3 4 20
POINT SCORE: 172

(The report card indicates what my picks were and if I got them right or wrong.)

Here are the official results...

OFFICIAL EVENT RESULTS:
Fight card /Bout Winner/ Winning Method/ Round /Minute
BJ Penn Vs. Sean Sherk BJ Penn Technical Knock Out 3 5
Wanderlei Silva Vs. Keith Jardine Wanderlei Silva Knock Out 1 0
Wilson Gouveia Vs. Goran Reljic Goran Reljic Technical Knock Out 2 3
Tito Ortiz Vs. Lyoto Machida Lyoto Machida Unanimous Decision 3 5
Thiago Silva Vs. Antonio Mendes Thiago Silva Submission (Other) 1 2
Ivan Salaverry Vs. Rousimar Palhares Rousimar Palhares Submission (Arm Lock) 1 2
Rameau Sokoudjou Vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura Rameau Sokoudjou Technical Knock Out 1 5
Rich Clementi Vs. Terry Etim Rich Clementi Unanimous Decision 3 5
Jon Koppenhaver Vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida Yoshiyuki Yoshida Submission (Choke) 1 0
Jason Tan Vs. Dong Hyun Kim Dong Hyun Kim Technical Knock Out 3 0
Christian Wellisch Vs. Shane Carwin Shane Carwin Technical Knock Out 1 0

All in all, a pretty exciting night of of fights. Out of eleven fights, only 2 went to decision, and only one of those aired. Because so many fights ended early, we got to see 8 out of the 11. That's a lot of fights.

Here's my take on the fights we saw...

The Main Event. BJ and Sean both came out standing and boxing. Both looked to want to establish a stand-up game plan. BJ had a few inches of reach advantage, and that played a key roll in the early rounds. Sean's face was getting pummeled from their exchanges. BJ looked hardly touched. Sean seems to cut easily, and had cuts under both eyes by the end of the second round. BJ had one takedown attempt on Sean, and Sean had several take down attempts on BJ. In the 3rd round, both were still trading punches, Sean looked unusually tired or fatigued and after an exchange, back pedaled all the way to the cage, as he came forward from the spring of the cage, BJ is running up to him, Sean ducks, and BJ lands an excellent flying knee that puts Sean right back against the cage and on his back. BJ follows up with a flurry of punches and looks to finish the fight before the bell. The ref didn't stop the fight, the bell sounded, but Sean could not continue. BJ retains the belt, and becomes the undisputed lightweight champion. BJ was patient, he had great hand speed and accuracy. Great take down defence, and finishing skills. He saw his opening and took it.

Keith Jardine and Wanderlei Silva. This looked like it was shaping up to be a slugfest war. But once the opening bell sounded, Silva was in Keith's face, much like Houston Alexander did in his fight with Keith, and Keith found himself on his heels and then on the floor getting knocked out in less than a minute! I chose Keith in that fight. Oops.

Tito Ortiz vs. Lyoto Machida. Both fighters met at the center of the ring after the opening bell, and sized each other up. No real combinations thrown, just single shots. Lyoto seemed to land at will, Tito had a more difficult time landing anything cleanly as Lyoto was VERY ellusive and was able to avoid any real damage. Lyoto has a strong Karate backround, and uses those skills to land punches and kicks from many different angles and land those punches and kicks in many different locations. You may see the kick coming, but you don't know where it will land. Tito was very frustrated with Lyoto's elusiveness (backward and side movement), and the crowd was getting frustrated with Lyoto not standing in front of Tito to brawl. Even when the few times that Lyoto and Tito clinched, Lyoto looked pretty strong. He was able to sweep, and escape without much apparent effort. But if that's not in your game plan, and you're as diseplined as Lyoto is, it's not an option. This wasn't the most exciting fight I've ever seen, but it was nice to see someone with highly technical skills use them so effectively.

I ended up choosing quite a few UFC debuters to win their fights, and I did well with that...

-Wilson Gouviea lost to newcomer Goran Reljic. There were a lot big hits exchanged in this fight. It was Goran that added his up first, and got the TKO.

-Newcomer Shane Carwin wowed the crowd with a superfast knockout win over Christian Wellisch.

-Yoshiyuki Yoshida, making his debut a memorable one by choking out Jon Koppenhaver in under a minute as well.

-Rousimar Palhares took a little longer in finishing his debut fight against Ivan Salaverry. He ended his fight with a wicked armbar in the second minute of the first round.

-One newcomer that didn't do as well was Antonio Mendes. Thiago Silva has a perfect fight record and kept it that way by submitting Antonio in the second minute of the first round.

The next MMA fights I'll be watching...

- EliteXC on CBS Saturday, May31, 9pm eastern time. Fight card.

- WEC on Versus (cable channel), June 1, 9pm eastern time. Main event: Featherweight (145 lbs.) championship fight, Urijah Faber vs. Jens Pulver Fight card

- UFC 85 on PPV, June 7th. Here's the fight card.