TUF Season 13: Lesnar vs Dos Santos Discussion Thread *Spoilers*

[David]

First of all, the Facebook prelims. I watched most of it and was very impressed by Reuben Duran in the opener. An exciting fight to kick off proceedings.

 

Scott Jorgensen looked to be in trouble early on as Ken Stone showed good movement and striking, managing to keep the smaller fighter away, but Scotty's class showed through in the end. Would like to see Stone given another fight or two though, he looked good.

 

Shamars fight was enough to send me to sleep. When people are critical of Gray Maynard they should remember this fight. This was a classic case of just laying on someone and grinding out the win. He used virtually no offense at all.

 

The main show was pretty excellent I reckon. I was really impressed by Chris Cope. He's never going to be a world-beater, but he's not an easy fight for anyone. He's improved a lot since the show, showing good footwork and striking. Poor Chuck never really got a chance to get into it.

 

Clay Guida put on a complete masterclass in offensive wrestling. He continually scored with takedowns, but was constantly looking to improve position on the ground, and constantly looking cause damage so he was never in danger of being stopped and stood up. Brilliant showing from him which surely puts him up there with the title challengers?

 

I wasn't really into the TUF finals to be honest. Tony strikes me as just another average winner. I doubt he'll really do much in the division.

 

Out of the entire show I think Cope showed more character, and more importantly, more improvement in his skills.

 

Some odds & ends regarding bonuses etc;

 

Tony Ferguson, Reuben Duran, Kyle Kingsbury and Fabio Maldonado each earned $40,000 "Fight Night" bonuses for their performances at The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale.

 

Ferguson earned the night's "Knockout of the Night" award, Duran picked up the "Submission of the Night" bonus, and Kingsbury and Maldonado took home "Fight of the Night" honors.

 

MMAjunkie.com learned of the bonus winners and award amounts while at TUF 13 Finale post-event press conference.

 

The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale took place Saturday at The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. The night's main card aired on Spike TV, and the preliminary card streamed for free on Facebook.

 

Ferguson earned his award with a first-round knockout of fellow finalist Ramsey Nijem. The victory came via left hook at the 3:54 mark of the opening round. It also earned him the championship of "TUF 13," a 14-man, 16-slot welterweight tournament.

 

Duran won the submission award by default. In the night's opening fight, the KOTC vet picked up his first UFC victory after submitting fellow bantamweight Francisco Rivera. After a back-and-forth two rounds, Duran took his opponent's back and wrapped up the fight-ending rear-naked choke at the 1:57 mark of the final frame.

 

Kingsbury and Maldonado fought in a closely contested main-card bout. With both light heavyweights bruised and bloodied in the slugfest, Kingsbury ultimately got the unanimous-decision nod via scores of 29-28. The rising contender now has won four straight fights in the UFC.

The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale, which took place Saturday night at The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, drew a reported 1,857 attendees for a live gate of $429,000.

 

MMAjunkie.com learned of the numbers while at the event's post-fight press conference, though the official figures will be verified by the Nevada State Athletic Commission early next week.

 

The 11-bout event concluded the latest season of the UFC's reality series, "The Ultimate Fighter," and aired on Spike TV.

 

While the number of comp tickets was not released, the reported figures indicate an average revenue of $231.02 per ticket issued. By comparison, December's The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale drew an official 1,903 spectators for a $380,025.

[RepoMan]

Have to agree and give Cope the performance of the night out of the TUF guys. He really brought it, and has clearly worked on his overall game very hard since the show was done with.

 

Didn't care about the two end guys in the end, and that fight didn't convince me otherwise. On a personal level I didn't want Tony to win, but I just wasn't behind either man in all honesty.

 

Guida really impressed me, as I went in looking forward to seeing what Pettis could do, and came out thinking he definitely has some work to do. There were small flashes of potential brilliance but Guida took it to him, and had some great escapes.

[Egg Shen]

couple of other thoughts on the main card...

 

* Great win for Ed Herman, it didn't really answer many questions cause it only lasted a minute but it's gotta be a confidence booster for him. Herman's a stalwart, nice to see him get back in there. Not sure where Credeur goes from here? as a trainer he might not feel the need to continue to fight?

 

* Maldonado/Kinsbury was fight of the night for me...brutal, brutal stuff. Maldonado is similar to the Nogueira brothers in that he's prepared to eat ridiculous punishment to land his own strikes, he was getting blasted and dind't take a backward step and slowly he started to break Kingsbury down. His body attack was awesome. I have no doubt that if this has gone an extra round Maldonado would have won it, but a Kingsbury decision was about justified, his fast start won him the fight. Kingsbury proved that he can gut it out when it gets tough in there. Maldonado i think could be better suited going down to 185.

[pryko]

I'm gutted, I ended up going for for an underdog treble on Guida, Cope and Maldonado. I had Maldonado winning the fight 29-28, I was suprised all 3 judges gave it to Kingsbury. Then again maybe I was being biased, i'll probably rewatch it later as it was an interesting fight.

 

For some reason, my bet on Guida to win has gone down as a loss? That's the only bet I made, but would never have bet on Cope winning. He did well though for sure. Not sure it should have been a main card fight though

[hbk4life]

I'm gutted, I ended up going for for an underdog treble on Guida, Cope and Maldonado. I had Maldonado winning the fight 29-28, I was suprised all 3 judges gave it to Kingsbury. Then again maybe I was being biased, i'll probably rewatch it later as it was an interesting fight.

 

For some reason, my bet on Guida to win has gone down as a loss? That's the only bet I made, but would never have bet on Cope winning. He did well though for sure. Not sure it should have been a main card fight though

It was just the last couple of quid in my betting account, so I thought i'd stick it on the 3 outsiders, I came really close to getting all 3 though. I still had O'Neil in my predictions, not that I got much else right with those.

 

A lot of betting sites have a live chat feature or you can phone/e-mail them, i've had a couple of bets that have been settled wrongly with Stan James and I just went onto the live chat and they've fixed them within about half an hour. I wouldn't panic, it should just be an error.

[Egg Shen]

agree that Chris Cope looked good. Considiring he's a guy who no one expected to win a fight in the house he now finds himself at 1-0 in the UFC with arguably the biggest crowd response out of the whole cast. The WOOOOO thing is kinda stupid but it's little things like that that make people remember you. Having said all that, whilst Cope looked good, you also have to consider that Chuck looked f'n horrible. It was basically the same Chuck that fought Tony in the house. He seems to lose all belief when he starts losing and he just goes through the motions in there, he didnt look like he had any real intention of winning that fight after round 1. He just emotionally checks out.

[Egg Shen]

oh, and Josh Grispi must feel like shit, he's gone from having a co-main event taken from him on a ppv to losing 2 prelims in his first two ufc fights...that might be it for him? I mentioned something about experience in the cage in the UFC 131 thread and it applies 100% to Grispi, he's got a mint record but all his fights ended in the first round...now he's been taken out of that comfort zone twice in the UFC and the guy's got pounded. These guys need to sterner tests before they step into the UFC.

[bobbins]

All Guida did was jump around and lay and pray. It was horrible to watch and a real shame as everyone had been looking forward to that fight.

Yep. When are people going to learn, between every Guida fight they forget how awful and defensive he's become and get all excited that he's going to have a great fight. Don't know how he's still so popular despite stinking the place up for years.

 

Thought the Kingsbury decision was fucked up.

[Egg Shen]

Guida's been stinking the place up for years? are you a complete fucking retard? when was the last time Guida was in anything resembling a bad fight? Guida didn't fight defensively, he fought aggresively for 3 rounds he just did it from a position that kept him out of Pettis' most advantagious position. Guida's always fought from a wrestling base, like i said before it's when people can stop him using his wrestling that he ends up being in the fight of the year type deals...how does dominating a fight mean in anyway that he's awful?

[Dead Mike]

Yeah Ebb, well that's all well & good but I think you seem to have overlooked the fact that WHERE WAZ DA SICK NOKOUTZ?

[mikey]

I see both sides. Whilst he finished the last three, he had a long pedigree of decisions where he won by being a complete limpet.

[METAL ON METAL]

The standards of his fights has certainly wavered since joining Greg Jackson (who's doesn't under him?), but to say it was awful is going way too far.

[Astro Hollywood]

At least he's got the belching. That's something.

[wandshogun09]

Guida's been stinking the place up for years? are you a complete fucking retard? when was the last time Guida was in anything resembling a bad fight? Guida didn't fight defensively, he fought aggresively for 3 rounds he just did it from a position that kept him out of Pettis' most advantagious position. Guida's always fought from a wrestling base, like i said before it's when people can stop him using his wrestling that he ends up being in the fight of the year type deals...how does dominating a fight mean in anyway that he's awful?

 

There's a thread about this on Cage Warriors. It seems like a lot of people are turning on Clay after this last fight. I was the only one in the thread who was pro Clay Basically if Clay wasn't doing enough on the ground then it's up to the ref to tell him or stand them up. For the most part though I'm not a fan of stand ups, if you can't get the guy off you then tough shit.

 

I agree with what you're saying completely. Everyone knows Clay's game is to overwhelm his opponents with his wrestling, I dunno why people would've expected him to fight any different. And like you say if guys can make the wrestling hard for him it usually turns into a war cause Clay then tries to walk through strikes to land one back or clinch up. With Pettis' last 2 fights against wrestlers I was thinking he'd be one of these who could neutralize the wrestling for a bit and we'd get a crazy fight. It's a credit to Clay that Pettis couldn't stop the takedowns.

 

As for him stinking things up Clay's been in 3 of my all time favourite fights in MMA with Sanchez, Huerta and Griffin. His fight with Gilbert Melendez from Strikeforce was really good too. And it's not like in wrestling where one guy can carry a lesser skilled opponent to a good match, it takes 2 people to have a great fight in MMA or it'll be a short night. I've enjoyed pretty much all Clay's other fights aswell.

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

Clay fought a great wrestling match against Pettis. Oh wait, it was supposed to be a MMA match. Where was the advancing position? The ground and pound? The submission attempts... well Pettis never stopped attacking with submissions the whole fight, and almost had it locked at the end of the second. Guida couldn't handle Pettis standing, so he took him down, held him there and Fitched the shit out of him. The only reason it didn't get stood up was due to some half hearted shoulder bumps from Clay that somehow count as tangible offense. Just because a guy is on top, doesn't automatically mean he is winning, he needs to be offensive from the top position. No different from the terrible Torres/Johnson decision from last weekend. Nothing resembling the mixture of martial arts from Guida, nothing resembling a fight in a match held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship.