With so much MMA on TV these days, there are going to be shows that we don’t watch live and thus, can’t do live play-by-play posts. In those cases, I’ll bring back my Rear Naked Rambings column and go over the big points from those shows.

Over the weekend, there were two shows. UFC on FX 2 was on Friday night and Strikeforce featuring the second biggest women’s fight ever in the US was on Saturday night.

Here are some quick thoughts:

• Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey lived up to all the hype and then some. They were in amazing shape and when they got inside the cage, it was one of the most action packed one-round fights of the year. Tate is absolutely tough as nails and I came away more impressed with her after this fight than after she won the title from Marloes Coenen. Both women are also super athletic and there were awesome transitions and escapes. As an actual athletic competition, it was a better fight than Gina Carano vs. Cyborg. These girls aren’t one dimensional.

• Ronda Rousey is a star. When my buddy Derek who blogs at DWizzle’s World told me a few fights ago that Rousey was going to be a star. I kind of scoffed at the time, but he sure as hell called it right. Now, I’m not sure she can beat Sarah Kauffman who is a really good all-around fighter, but Dana White has to take advantage of this right? He can’t just sit on his hands and lose her like he did with Gina Carano right?

• The Strikeforce show on Saturday overshadowed what was a lackluster UFC show on Friday. The main event featuring Thiago Alves and Martin Kampmann wasn’t a bad fight, but didn’t do much for me. Kampmann was losing the fight and caught Alves and submitted him fairly quickly. I thought Alves would try to fight it, but he just tapped. I’m not sure that fight helped Kampmann or just made people more disappointed in Alves, who three or four years ago looked like the killer of the division.

• Poor Ian McCall — I thought he was pretty clearly won his fight in the Flyweight tournament over Demetrious Johnson, but the fight was ruled in Johnson’s favor, and then later in the evening ruled a draw after one of the scorecards was misread live. Even though it’s now not a loss for McCall, it’s still the wrong decision. What’s pitiful is that these tournament fights had special rules in case of a draw. It would go to a fourth round and the winner of that round would win the fight. But because of the misreading of one of the scorecards live, they didn’t go to the fourth round that they were supposed to. I’m sure Dana White is happy about this situation.

This is one of the very few Strikeforce cards I missed, but I’ll catch it on DVR at a later date. From all that I’ve heard, it was a really good show, with a couple of upsets.

Here are the results of the live show:

1. Pat Healy defeated Maximo Blanco in round two by submission (rear naked choke).

2. King Mo knocked out Roger Gracie late in the first round.

3. Luke Rockhold beat Jacare Souza by unanimous decision to win the middleweight championship.

4. Daniel Cormier beat Big Foot Silva via KO in the first round.

5. Josh Barnett beat Sergei Kharitonov via arm triangle in the first round.

Cormier and Barnett will meet in the finals of the tournament, which is scheduled to happen early in 2012.

It seems like this fight has been in the making forever and it’s finally here. We don’t generally see this type of weight differential unless it’s in the heavyweight division, but Fedor weighed in at 16 pounds heavier than Henderson. When they were standing next to each other, there didn’t seem to be that large of a difference, but we’ll see if it matters inside the cage. Miesha Tate also tries to take the 135 women’s title from Marloes Coenen in a five round fight with five minute periods.

1. Tarec Saffiedine vs. Scott Smith

Saffiedine wins the round simply by controlling the action. He is out-quicking Smith and beating him to everything. Smith’s trying to load up on shots, but can’t really get off. Smith is cut over his left eye. Smith isn’t moving well and is pretty hittable.

Smith is a shot fighter. Saffiedine landed some wicked combinations including a shot lead left-hook and right low kick. Smith either has the worst stand-up defense or Saffiedine has tremendously fast hand and foot speed. Smith took some harsh punishment.

Saffiedine did a great job of switching back and forth in between stances, throwing off Smith’s timing. And he was just tagging him. Smith tried to press the action late, but could never catch him.

Winner: Tarec Saffiedine by way of unanimous decision

2. Tyron Woodley vs. Paul Daley

Lots of inside fighting, but the biggest shot was probably a low blow by Daley. Daley did a good job at stuffing the takedowns, but neither guy had an advantage.

Well, this one isn’t a classic. Woodley got him down and held him there for nearly the entire round. He grabbed a single and took him down, pushed him against the cage, but Daley stayed active and didn’t get in any bad positions. Near the end of the round, it was Woodley on the bottom and Daley got a couple shots in.
Continue Reading »