UFC 75 in the BOOKS!

Knockouts, submissions, decisions, unifications and outright ROBBERY! What a night!

First off, thanks for letting us meet at your place dad (I don't even think he'll read this). The card was stacked and was sort of split between great fights and big let downs. Is Cro Cop being exposed as not being so great? I don't think so, but at the same time I think a lot of his fans are wondering what's up. I think the first round was the last round of that fight. Then the Bisping decision was a BIG let down. Rest assured, however, that MANY, MANY people feel just as outraged as us and Dana White and Zuffa/UFC are going to have to address this. Hamill won the fight hands down and, as someone on another site wrote, "He'll go to sleep tonight knowing he's the LOSER." We'll see how they try to rectify this mistake. At least one judge had it right (30-27 for Hamill).

Of course Hendo vs. Rampage didn't dissapoint and although Jackson went on to out point the crafty, salty Henderson, the fight was close and both of them showed why they are champs.

We missed the only knockout of the night, at least on the televised card, since we started the program a bit late (we'll just call 'em technical issues) in which Houston Alexander, the guy who knocked out Jardine, put his knee through Alessio Sakara's head, finishing him with strikes . I came home and watched it, so no big deal.

The fight of the night? Well, out of the fights we did see, it'd have to be Marcus "The Irish Hand Grenade" Davis' victory over the Brit Paul Taylor. Just when it looked like Taylor had Davis hurt, Davis reversed the position and ended up putting on a textbook arm bar.

I know it's almost over kill, but the next card is right around the corner. Ultimate Fight Night, the roughly bi-monthly free fights on SPIKE will go down Wednesday the 19th and then, that very next weekend, is UFC 76 Knockout which is PPV. I am not organizing these events necessarily, but I'll be watching both of them live or recorded.

Big shout out to Dave Tanner who found a way to watch 75 and is getting SPIKE soon. We miss ya man!
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All in all, the fights were great. I have to quote the guys at Sherdog regarding Cro Cop:

One year ago it would have been blasphemous to suggest Mirko Filipovic (Pictures) would be 1-2 in UFC competition against the likes of Eddie Sanchez, Gabriel Gonzaga (Pictures) and Cheick Kongo (Pictures). But with his uninspired performance against the underdog Kongo, Filipovic dropped his second consecutive fight inside the octagon and might have lost any chance of challenging for the UFC heavyweight belt.

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ONE MORE THING:
This guy from the sherdog forums broke down the BISPING vs. HAMILL fight pretty closely and I thought you might like to glance over it. REMATCH!

"My brakedown of round 2 :
5:00 - 4:20 Standup - Advantage Hamill - Bisping backing wildly (bouncing off the cage twice)
4:20 - 3:30 Ground - Advantage Hamill - Bisping gets taken down, neither does anything while down, Bisping is getting up and as he does Hamill gets in ~5 head shots (he does this throughout the fight) of medium power.
3:30 - 2:30 Standup - Advantage Bisping - Bisping and Hamill circling, Bisping throwing combos and kicks, nothing lands but all Hamill is doing is long jabs which aren't hitting.
2:30 - 2:00 Standup - Advantage Hamill - Hamill starts landing his jab and Bisping is backing up again. Hamill lands the only reasonable powerful looking standup shots of the round from a couple short clinches.
2:00 - 1:45 Ground - Advantage Hamill - Hamill shoots and takes down Bisping and pushes him against the cage. Rather than go to guard Hamill stands and does a one arm headlock and goes for head shots with the other arm. Note Bisping doesn't really work to his feet from this takedown, he is let up in exchange for the free shots to the head.
1:45 - 0:00 Standup - Advantage Bisping - Hamill stalking Bisping around as Bisping stays to the outside and throws combos. Hamill still throwing the long jab he beatup Bisping with in the first round. Bisping doesn't land a thing, Hamill lands a few of the jabs but Bisping still gets the advantage imo.

I think Hamill won 3-0 in rounds. Clearly he won round one (10-9 and closer to 10-8 than anything), and just as clearly round two, to me. I have seen several people say that Bisping won round two because of "aggression" and being able to stand up from the takedowns. I don't think either argument flies in the face of reason, and here is why:

-- Bisping was the aggressor! --
Bisping was the agressor for, at max, one half of the round. More over, his aggression was obviously less damaging than Hamill's. Hamill lands a half dozen quick shots to Bisping's head each time Bisping gets up, several jabs, and two powerful inside shots. Bisping lands a couple of jabs and a lot of combos to Hamill's arms.

-- Bisping was standing up at will --
There were two takedowns this round. The first was good defense, and while Hamill got off a few weak punches as they stood, it was good for Bisping. The second is a totally different story. Hamill took Bisping down and immediately stood up again, allowing Hamill to stand up in exchange for a clinch and half a dozen solid head shots.

As is shown throughout the fight, rather than trying to keep Bisping down, Hamill's strategy seemed to be to take Bisping down and then allow him back up in exchange for an unprotected clinch and pound. Much of Hamill's damage in the first round is from these over head (guillotine style clinches) and I think it must have been part of his strategy to do this, seeing as how he did it so consistantly.

Anyways, moral of the story : Hamill was robbed, Bisping sounded clueless in the post fight interview, and they should rematch asap imo."