UFC 98 Bonuses, Thoughts
Ouch. Hurts me just looking at this.
Wow.
What an impressive showing by Lyoto Machida, who likely won over legions upon legions of fans with his dynamic performance last night. Not only did Machida do what no one could do, defeat Rashad Evans, he turned his lights out. Evans was the man who KO’ed Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin in back-to-back fights. In Machida’s last two fights, his opponents combined record was 32-0-1. Wow.
Perhaps the musical chairs that has been the 205lb Champion will now finally stop. Next up for Machida, is Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, although the UFC may opt to put the two through TUF to build the fight a bit.
The battle of the Matts was finally put to rest, as Matt Hughes survived an errant first round headbutt to the chin to grind out a decision win over Matt Serra. After 50 fights, you’d think Matt Hughes would work on his striking a bit. In Hughes’ build-up to his Royce Gracie fight at UFC 60, he said he didn’t need to worry about Gracie’s striking…well, that goes for him too. His striking consists of a lunging paw. Not a jab, but a paw. Nonetheless, it was enough get the job done against Matt Serra.
Drew McFedries won in McFedrian fashion, clipping Xavier Foupa-Poukam and blitzing him with shots until Professor X was on queer street. The ref had to jump in to prevent some more black-on-black crime.
The Chael Sonnen/Dan Miller fight was all about Sonnen, as he took Miller down at will and grinded him down. Sonnen had a few scary moments when Miller locked on the guillotine, but was able to pop his noggin out. Sonnen took the bout by decision.
The ppv opener had former 155lb Champion Sean Sherk taking on the scrappy Frankie Edgar, and for some bizarre reason Sherk insisted on showing the world his improved striking ability. Sherk, who is bigger and stronger, and likely the better wrestler, came out and wanted to strike with Edgar, who despite also being 5′ 6″, had a 5″ reach advantage. By the time Sherk realized it and listened to his corner, he was down in the scorecards and too tired to fully commit to the shot to take Frankie down. I thought for sure he’d take a page out of Gray Maynard’s book and constantly take Edgar down and grind him out, but it wasn’t the case. Apparently, a distraught Sherk ran out of the building after the decision loss, bolding down the Vegas strip. He eventually returned, and submitted a urine sample.
Bonuses, worth $60,000 for each fighter.
Fight of the Night: Matt Hughes vs Matt Serra
Submission of the Night: Brock Larson (beautiful arm triangle on late replacement, Mike Pyle)
Knockout of the Night: Lyoto Machida (Duh. look at the photo above)
