Best Matches Seen August 2020 |
UFC Fight Night 175 8/29/20: Ricardo Lamas vs. Bill Algeo 3R. It's weird seeing Lamas fighting a newcomer after all the top 10 fighters he's faced in the past decade, but he's coming back from a losing 3 out of 4 with a broken jaw against Calvin Kattar & getting toward the end of his career, openly contemplating retirement after the fight. While the stats slightly favored Algeo in round 1, Lamas was the much more impressive fighting because of his variety, disguise, and combos. That's really where his high level experience showed, as you can't just bang with the elite guys, you really have to set things up, be hard to read. The right calf kick was Lamas' base weapon, setting up the high kick, but he used the left kick well to maintain distance, and was able to follow the kicks with the punch to the head. Algeo had a good flurry of two left hands and a short elbow right at the end of the round, which definitely did the most damage, but didn't sway me to give him the round. Algeo carried the momentum into the 2nd though, doing well when he was able to press forward, finishing combinations with high kicks, and landing elbows on the inside. That being said, his big shot was an amazing knee to counter Lamas' right hook, which I'm surprised Lamas didn't go down from. Algeo also busted Lamas' nose up with a left hook. Lamas was increasingly trying to wrestle in the 2nd, but after a brief early takedown, didn't have much success. As much as it drives me crazy seeing anything pop up on the screen when I'm trying to concentrate on a fight, seeing Aljo twet about Algeo was worth a chuckle. Lamas needed a big 3rd round because the best case scenario is the fight was even, but he came out really loose and fluid, throwing solid kicks to open up flashy kicks, and while these mainly missed, it opened up the takedown, and he was now able to keep Algeo down and score with some solid ground and pound. To me, the new scoring system has actually wound up making things worse because it's somehow managed to get us further away from the goal. While Lamas landed some solid shots on the ground, none of them hurt Algeo or came close to ending the fight, and while he took Algeo's back, he never even locked a choke. This round was one-sided numbers wise, but only because it's easier to strike from the top. And that's my problem with this new 10-8 scoring, it really encourages and rewards more of the good old lay and pray because in a good 5 minutes of standup, you might outland the opponent by 12, whereas if you just hold them down, you can overwhelm them with 40 meaningless pitty pat strikes to 5 and get rewarded for not actually getting a near finish or even passing or anything. Not saying that Lamas wasn't fighting here, this was a solid round for him where he was active and trying to win, but still I'd have the fight as a slight 29-28 win for him with Algeo definitely landing the signature shots & coming closest to finishing whereas all 3 judges had it 29–27 based on takedowns leading to a 34-14 striking advantage in the 3rd after he was marginally outstruck in the 1st 2 rounds. Good match.
UFC on ESPN 15 8/22/20: Trevin Jones vs. Timur Valiev R2 1:59. Crazy match with Jones taking the fight at the last second when Mark Streigl tested positive for COVID on 8/20, getting destroyed & nearly finished in the definition of a 10-8 1st round, but then coming back & scoring the KO early in the 2nd. The match was competitive for the first 3 1/2 minutes though Valiev was the one who was mostly leading and getting off, but then Valiev hurt Jones with a kick to the midsection and began to unleash a series of brutal body hooks then elbows to the head, going all out for the rest of the round trying to put Jones away. I have no idea how Jones lasted, Valiev really mixed it up, working in a high kick, a few flying knees, whatever he could think of to be unpredictable & work around Jones' guard. Jones finally ducked a spinning elbow into a takedown to survive. Jones recovered shockingly well, but Valiev was still doing such a great job with his fakes & feints, switching stances and just being unpredictable that Jones was basically stuck watching & waiting. Finally, Jones was able to cut Valiev off, and Valiev seemed to hesitate a bit. You felt like Valiev needed to switch to circling left, but he stuck to his plan of circling right, and Jones faked the left then nailed him with a right hook to the chin & just brought the heat on the ground. Valiev was trying to hold him close initially, but was too stunned to get guard or move, and once Jones landed on the ground, he pretty much had free reign to bomb away until the stoppage. Good match.
NJPW 6/14/93 Top Of The Super Junior IV Final:
Pegasus Kid vs. El Samurai 18:44. Jushin Thunder Liger's injury truly threw the tournament into disarray, causing Scorpio to essentially wrestle a tournament to get to the finals, going through Scorpio & Dean Malenko earlier in the night, who along with Eddy Guerrero & Liger each had 12 points during the league portion. That's one of the big problems with this high impact workrate match, it's a total one off final that's structured exactly like any other notable juniors match of the time, despite the obvious story of Benoit being fresh & Samurai being worn down. There's no sense that Samurai needs to win quickly, and he neither gets off to a fast start from being warmed up (they always do the fast start into the matwork, and while the initial chain wrestling is better than usual, the matwork is probably worse with only Samurai's typical Russian leg sweep into the ground manjigatame being of note) nor gets overwhelmed and put into the big underdog roll from being beaten down (Benoit doesn't overwhelm him any more than the typical opponent). Benoit's power and roughhousing advantages are established early on, and definitely his exceptionally high impact on even the most pedestrian moves such as the bodyslam are highlights of the early portion, with Samurai getting one big running elbow to get him hope in the striking exchanges. Samurai is just great on the move, definitely the slicker worker in this match, and part of the problem is the first half typically devotes too much time to matwork that neither excels at rather than to Benoit overwhelming Samurai with power, which tells not only a story, but a logical one given the circumstances. Once the match gets going, they really let loose, stepping up the big move quotient for the final including 3 avalance style moves down the stretch, which was really a lot at the time. There's several minutes of exchanging big moves before that, and this is probably hurt by the post produced commentary, which both mutes a lot of crowd noise and has the energy of a golf match, but you can see the wide array wrestlers at ringside, which includes all the tournament participants as well as many of the native heavyweights, are particularly into it, with Masahiro Chono even climbing onto the ring apron when Samurai hits his signature avalanche style Frankensteiner, ready to rush the ring to congradulate him on his victory. Benoit not only survives that, but also an avalanche style backdrop. Samurai doesn't know what it's going to take to beat this guy, and winds up going to the well one too many times, with Benoit turning his 3rd avalanche style move into a ridiculous powerbomb off the top for the instakill! The finisher, which Samurai did a stretcher job for, was so off the charts at the time that it not only made up for a lot of the flaws of the match, but made the bout an instant sensation. It doesn't hold up as well as move sets have advanced and there's not enough reacting and countering to really bring out the best in both, but everything they did was crisp & well if not brutally executed. Pegasus' win made him the first foreigner to take the tournament, with Guerrero in 1996 being the only other before the junior division was gutted by just pushing every native to "heavyweight" ASAP. ****
UFC Fight Night 174 8/8/20: Kevin Holland vs. Joaquin Buckley R3 0:32. Both fighters bring the action, but in very different ways as Holland is a relaxed & fluid 6'3" fighter who understands how to use his reach and time counters, while Buckley is an angry little slugger who puts everything he has into every punch, which makes them pretty deadly, but also a lot easier to avoid. Buckley, who is making his UFC debut after defeating Jackie Gosh at LFA 87 last weekend, seems a tailor made opponent for Holland, who can utilize his 6" reach and thus make Buckley have to press all fight to get in range, which will eventually slow him down & make his haymakers that much easier to not only avoid, but counter for the precise shot. When Buckley waited, Holland picked him apart with single kicks, but what Buckley did really well is work the body when he got inside with his blitz. Buckley was mostly punches, but by mixing his combos to all quadrants rather than simply being a headhunter, he forced Holland to rely heavily on his movement because Buckley when Buckley was able to throw 3 or 4 punches on the inside, some were going to land. Holland dropped Buckley late in the 1st with a "sneaky" lead right cross. Buckley's corner urged him to use the jab rather than loading up on everything, but while he scored more with low kicks in the 2nd, he didn't really change his boxing style. He also wasn't able to blitz as much, and Holland can do some really nice things when given time, for instance a right front kick/right straight combo that knocked Buckley's mouthpiece out. Holland's timing & movement continued to be on point, with crisp direct shots. Early in the 3rd, he was able to knock Buckley and his mouthpiece out following the jab with the right straight. Good match.
UFC Fight Night 173 8/1/20
Bobby Green vs. Lando Vannata 3R. Big action rematch of a Fight of the Night. Both guys kepts their hands low & threw bombs in the pocket, relying on dodging & leaning for defense. They countered well, but the difference, again, was that Green was a little quicker & able to lead successfully, scoring with the jab, the inside leg kick, and getting a few takedowns. Lando had his moments when they exchanged heavy shots, but there was nothing that scored consistently for him, and it was hard for him to get going because Green was doing a nice job of countering his jab. The first round was the closest, and Green really didn't take over until a minute into the 3rd when Lando tried to punch his way out of Green's thai clinch, but Green switched from knees to a big right elbow for the knockdown. Good match.
Vicente Luque vs. Randy Brown. Luque did a great job of using the calf kick to negate Brown's reach advantage, totally taking Brown out of his jab game. The match was somewhat one-sided due to this, but Luque is always high volume & action, and Brown was not without ideas & options. Brown finally closed the distance, only to get dropped with an overhand right counter. Brown began focusing more on his movement, and started to sneak the jab in later in the 1st, but Luque applied a lot of forward pressure, and would have dropped him with a left hook when he backed Brown into the cage had Brown not grabbed the cage to stay up. Brown tried to start the 2nd fighting long with the front kick, but again, Luque came forward chopping the lead leg to stop Brown's jab. Brown's best weapons were his left hand and left leg, but the left leg was already giving out from the calf kicks a minute in, forcing Brown to fight orthodox a lot more than he wanted to. Brown kept trying different things, and in the 2nd, he began allowing Luque to get inside and trying to take advantage of his height through clinch knees. He used the right uppercut. He caught a kick & answered with a spinning elbow. Brown wasn't going down easily, but the lack of an answer for the calf kick was just killing him, and one of the things that makes Luque great is his ability to pull away by staying technical & winning the game of attrition. Luque got a front facelock at the end of the 2nd, and Brown tried to play the game of making himself a downed opponent by reaching, but Luque held him up & got the knee in too quickly, stunning Brown enough with a single knee that he was able to finish Brown firing a series of punches while leaning over him. Good match.
