Superlist: UFC 78 - Validation

1. "I'm a full grown man...he's going to have his hands a little more full [with my weiner]."
Everyone's favorite whiner Ed Herman settled a score that no one knew (or cared) he had last Saturday when he avenged a loss against "El Dirte" Joe Doerksen. Having all the charisma of a dribble of spit dangling from a man's lip (say now...) Herman seems to think that the way to make an impression is to walk, talk, and fight like you have a huge chip on your shoulder. Someone should clue him in--Chris Leben, the Diaz brothers, Tim Sylvia, Rashad Evans, Phil Baroni, Karo Parisyan, and Manny Gamburyan all have the same shtick. It wouldn't be so bad, even, if the whole thing didn't apparently originate from draft day on TUF 3, when Tito Ortiz didn't recognize Herman and his credentials, let alone pick him for the team. Ol' "Short Fuse" spent the rest of the season on Shamrock's team crying about how he didn't care about Tito anymore, and that he was going to prove Tito wrong. It was like watching a girl talk about how much she hates a guy, when you know all she does is pop girl-wood when she thinks about him.

2. Old dog...
learned a new trick last Saturday, when Jason Reinhardt learned to fight someone with a winning record. He also learned to lose. Buh-haw-haw-haw! Eh.... Honestly, listening to guys like Reinhardt go on about how old school they are, and how they have been fighting since someone like Joe Lauzon was 12 is so irritating. They become caricatures of themselves, and it just damns them further once they get smoked. I wonder if they really believe in what they're saying, or if they figure that they don't have any other advantage going for them, so they just invoke their seniority, and start telling really long stories that don't go anywhere in an effort to impress us. In addition to angry explanations about how far he walked to school in the winter, Reinhardt's presence in the UFC is further confusing because he normally fights at 135. And Zuffa-owned WEC has a 135 pound weight class. Joking aside, I'm sure he's a good guy, and ought to be given a legitimate chance to flourish at a weight class he can at least physically, if not in terms of performance, measure up to.

3. Me so Sleepy
When the fight card for 78 was announced, there were basically two camps: one that said this was the worst card ever (based mainly on the weakness of the main event) and another that insisted that while there was no big-ticket fight, all of the matches were compelling, and it would be a great event anyway. I was part of the latter group, but now I don't know how to feel. Not a single one of the fights had the fireworks that I expected. I guess they were just bad style match-ups. Parisyan/Chonan was particularly boring, despite my affinity for both fighters. Oddly enough, the most reviled fight on the card, the main event of Evans/Bisping, played out to be one of the more exciting fights.

4. Captain Obvious
It seems like pretty much everyone but the man himself saw it coming: Houston Alexander would lose by getting put on his back. His post-fight antics after knocking Keith Jardine out didn't win him any favor with me, but since then I've grown to really like him, and was pulling for him to win. Imagine my excitement followed by immediate disappointment, then, when Alexander lifted Thiago Silva up (by his chin, no less) and slammed him to the mat, only to be quickly reversed and TKO'd. Many figured that as a BJJ black belt, Silva would keep Alexander on the mat until he finished him, but I didn't think it would come so apparently easy. Alexander appeared totally clueless on his back, making no discernibly significant moves to improve his position. This is strange to me, considering that everyone leading up to this fight seemed to spot where the disparity in talents between the two fighters lay. Had he tried a basic escape, only to fail because of Silva's developed ground game, I wouldn't fault him as much, but it looked like Alexander barely trained beyond his normal routine. Why, man?! WHY?! I told my friends and family about what a destroyer this guy was, and now they think I'm some sort of learning-deficient goof. The moral of the story is to never talk to your family about Houston Alexander.