#ufc 191

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After Further Review: UFC 191

Joey

September 11th, 2015

Alright so here's "After Further Review", something I've done a few times (like ONCE) in the past. Today I got the chance to rewatch UFC 191 before the NFL season kicked off and I came away with 12 thoughts I have after the show ends. The show, no longer fresh in my mind, was given a chance to sit and collect dust before I had the chance to pour my thoughts into it. Ultimately this is what I came out with:

1- Let's address the main event real quick. I watched the fight live and marveled at what Mighty Mouse can do. I watched it again on Thursday and still marveled but I also walked away with perhaps a better understanding of how fans feel about Mighty Mouse. Live, I was so enthralled by what he was able to do against an elite opponent. It was a masterclass performance where Mighty Mouse honestly made very few flaws. The ones he did make were covered up so well by expert movement and a great sense of timing that you wouldn't of bat an eye at them. At the same time, there's a sense of formality with Mighty Mouse and watching the fight again, you can get how a casual fan would feel. "It's all a formality---the question is whether he gets the finish." Mighty Mouse is a tremendous fighter and he's the kind of guy who you appreciate for mastery but he doesn't have that sense of "WOW" for fans. You know a Ronda fight is a formality but she's so magnetic that you want to know all the details. You want the how and the why. With a guy like Jon Jones, he's such a marvel of an athlete and such a violent fighter that you just feel so enthralled by what he does. With Mighty Mouse, it's like "okay you know what? Finish this guy so  I can get back to doing my thing." Sometimes he gets it and sometimes he doesn't but for people who aren't in love with technique and footwork and etc, he's just a great athlete who doesn't enthuse them. The opponents don't help either.

2- Another thought I had: Does it matter if Mighty Mouse ever becomes a star? Context here; the UFC will break a lot of financial records in 2015. It's been aa great year for them and that's WITH Mighty Mouse headlining two PPVs. Maybe Demetrious Johnson is the anchor of the UFC but you know what? Who cares? It doesn't effect us and if the UFC has to hurt its product because of two Mighty Mouse dud PPVs then maybe they need to wrap this thing up and head home.  The company is fine with Mighty Mouse being what he is---a tremendous champion who can save an event but isn't going to be a massive revenue generator. If he's the UFC's Andre Ward, I think they'll survive overall. Maybe we just need to stop hoping he'll be something more than just that. You can't expect everybody to be a star and Demetrious is just one of those guys who will probably never be a star to the masses. Oh well.

3- I don't want to call the genius of Jacksons MMA into question but...what necessarily WAS the gameplan going into this fight? I went back to Fight Pass and rewatched Dodson vs Makovsky and he legitimately fought the same there as he did at UFC 191. It looked like Mighty Mouse had scouted this fight to a point of overexposure where as Dodson's gameplan was to try and guess right on Mighty Mouse's flurries. Overwhelmed, overmatched and outcoached.  That's a horrible trio of fail from a top flight coach. Maybe Mighty Mouse wins 10/10 no matter what but Dodson showed no sort of notion he ever had a chance.

4- Rewatched the two "controversial" fights and walked away thinking they weren't that controversial. Pearson clearly won vs Felder (take your pick on 30-27 or 29-28) and Mir beat Arlovski 29-28. In the case of the former, Pearson just was more active and more composed with his strikes. For Mir/Arlovski, you split a few more hairs but Frank did more damage overall, had some takedowns and landed the better shots on the ground. Neither was a robbery or what have you but if you thought Mir won, in my estimation you were right.

5- Frank Mir's gameplan worked. It worked so well that he almost seemed confused/worried that it was working so well. The idea was to turn Arlovski into the Arlovski of 2009 to  2012. Basically turn him into a sloppy slow methodical worried one two combo guy. Mir had the power combination scouted but never tried to press the issue. He lunged int he first round a ton but slowed his game down and got too complacent in order to avoid a KO loss. It hurt him on the scorecards but great plan regardless.

6- I mentioned this on Saturday night but the spinning backfist KO by Paul Felder may have been the worst thing to happen to him. He goes back to that well far too often when he applies pressure. He tried to spin far too often and now fighters are hip to it. Dennis Siver could land a few spinning back kicks before people got hip to his game and he had to adapt. Felder either needs to learn to turn that aggression into better combinations or develop a semblance of a wrestling game to keep himself from getting entirely one dimensional.

7- As for Ross Pearson? Fool me once etc etc etc. Ross has burnt me far too often against top competition for me to feel comfortable picking him against better guys. I did see some marked improvement (head movement was on point and he moved better than he has in plenty of fights) but I'm still waiting ffor him to put the total package together. Maybe Pearson is what he is and there's nothing wrong with being an exciting top 15 guy in a division like 155 lbs.

8- A lot of people have been trying to overanalyze Rivera vs Lineker and what it means. I say we just enjoy it as a tremendous brawl and respect that brawls, technical fights, title fights and everything in between encompass the total package that is MMA. Let's not overthink things, folks. You can like both technical wizardy and a sloppy violent brawl.

9- One of the things Rocky Pennington has never gotten a tough of credit for, mainly due to her youth and meh record, is how good she is at adjustments. Even if it's incrementally, she slowly figures people out and normally ends the fight strong. In the case of Andrade, she slowly found something that worked and just kept going to it until it paid the ultimate dividends. She's just SO raw though.

10- Speaking of raw fighters, Corey Anderson made his fair share of mistakes in there vs Jan Blachowicz. The one thing, a theme for the night, was the willingness to lunge into shots to try and get takedowns. Against Blachowicz, Anderson walked into shots knowing full well that he needed to change levels to get in close. One thing of note: Anderson's cardio held up really well over three rounds and shouldn't be a weakness going forward. He looked crisp and fresh even though he had his moments of technical inferiority.

11- Do you think there's a part of Rumble that kind of enjoys being the asshole? Like some guys are assholes and don't really know it. You get the feeling Anthony Johnson just enjoys being a dckhead and not the endearing Michael Bisping kind either.

12- Watching Paige Van Zant fight, it's hard to get a grasp on her. I think the one thing that stands out about PVZ is that she's insanely tough and I feel like there's a part of her that seems to thrive on dog fighting because it showcases some kind of point she has to prove. Like she fights mean in a manner that almost says "yeah I'm pretty but I enjoy dishing out heartless violence". She fights ugly which is such a strange contrast. Paige has the wrestling and the cardio to trouble a lot of people but she needs to learn how to better get inside on fighters. Again, Cain Velasquez needed to learn how to get inside on fighters more easily as well. Paige needs a boxing coach who will work with her heavily on how to a) change levels a little better and b) use better head movement. Being entirely upright and eating hooks won't do it all the time. On the ground, her positional awareness seemed worlds better.