UFC 128 was one of the MMA events that I anticipated with great interest. And it delivered big time. Don't have the time and the will to do a thorough review of the whole card, so let's focus on the main event - Rua vs Jones.
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| Mauricio Shogun Rua |
Wow! Talk about turning the haters into believers. I was so *NOT* sold on Jon Jones before this fight. All that pre-fight Bones hype seemed to be without coverage to me. I knew that Jones had a ton of potential with his huge reach, his unorthodox style and everything but I never even suggested that he could be that dominant against a fierce fighter and an MMA legend like Mauricio Shogun Rua.
From the very beginning to the very end of the fight this lanky 23-yers-old kid was using Shogun for his toy. He totally outgamed the Muai Thai expert in the stand-up and successfully countered every BJJ attempt as well.
It was one of those ridiculously one-sided fights where you rub your eyes in disbelief and just wonder wtf is going on.
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| Jon Bones Jones |
Jesus fucking Christ... Shogun looked BAD during the whole fight. He was slow as fuck and so fucking out of shape! He gassed in the first and from then on the question no longer was "if" he'd get smashed by Jones but "when" exactly it would happen. It happened in the third as Shogun was fighting for his life underneath Jones, getting pummeled with huge elbows. He managed to scramble out but on his way up he received a brutal knee to the liver. A short second later, while Shogun was backign up, Jones landed a left hook to the liver and as Shogun was collapsing down in pain, a fast and furious knee to the face shattered any hopes forcing Herb Dean stop the fight while Rua was tapping out.
This shit was surreal to watch.
Shogun tapped to strikes and it was just as bad as the shit Brock lesnar pulled when Velasques smashed his head in.
With Fedor Emelianenko losing two times in a row and sporting a 1:2 record in Strikeforce, with Mirko CroCop getting his ass KO-ed on a regular basis, with Wanderlei Silva's less than impresive performances in the UFC, Mauricio Shogun Rua was the last Pride FC fighter standing.
Him losing his UFC title tonight to Jon Jones means one thing: Pride FC is officially dead.
I will have to deal with it.
