Nunes vs. Rousey: I fail hard at the prediction game

I made myself go on the record in yesterday's blog entry about last night's UFC championship fights.

Wow, did I blow it.

I went with my heart in choosing Rousey to beat Nunes.  I argued that Nunes would not have the self-discipline to use the game plan she would need to beat Rousey.  Nunes didn't have the chance to display self-discipline.  From the moment she closed on Rousey, Nunes owned the ex-champion.  Rousey looked like she didn't know how to fight.  She made every mistake she made in the Holm loss, only faster, and Nunes hit harder.  Forty-eight seconds after the fight started, it was over, with a TKO-d Rousey looking utterly and totally disoriented.

At this point, Rousey has two reasonable choices:  retire, or seek a new camp with coaches good enough to rebuild her game.  I don't believe she will do the latter, so I  hope she does the former.

Rousey was a formidable athlete who helped make women's MMA what it is today, and she inspired joy and awe in millions of fans, including me.  The sport, though, has passed her by, and without new coaches, she will keep on losing against the top competitors.  I will always remember her string of victories with joy and respect and awe, but they are over.

In the other championship bout, challenger Cody Garbrandt did to champion Dominick Cruz what Cruz had done to every previous opponent:  made him look bad.  Garbrandt had the speed, cardio, footwork, and head motion to outwork Cruz where Cruz is strongest, and Garbrandt flat out hits harder.  He's the new boss at 135, and I look forward to him fighting T.J. Dillashaw, the logical next contender and a fighter who also won in convincing style tonight.

The card was mostly good, but these two fights definitely did not go as I expected and, in the case of Rousey, hoped.

I have huge respect for all the athletes involved.

Nunes vs. Rousey: my pick

For those who don't follow the UFC in particular or MMA in general, tonight is one of the more intriguing fight cards of the year, because it features the return, after more than a year away from the octagon, of Ronda Rousey, the former women's bantamweight champion.  Undefeated until she lost her belt to Holly Holm in November of 2015, Rousey was arguably the most popular figure in MMA and a fighter who a lot of people, including myself, thought would retire undefeated.  Instead, Holm perfectly executed a game plan that exposed flaws in Rousey's strategy and ultimately knocked out the former champ.

The big question tonight is, is Rousey back, or will the current champion, Amanda Nunes, capitalize on those same flaws and hand Rousey her second loss?

The oddsmakers slightly favor Rousey, but not by much.

In online articles, other MMA fighters and analysts seem to give Nunes the nod.

My head tells me Nunes.  My heart votes for Rousey, a character I've long liked.

To force myself to go on record with a pick, I'm writing and posting this entry before the fights start and saying that I'm going with my heart and picking Rousey.

I'll report back after the fights with what really happened.

My reasoning in this selection goes like this:  Nunes has the power and the skill and the coaches to execute the same type of game plan as Holm and beat Rousey.  What Nunes lacks, I believe, is the self-discipline that Holm possessed.  Nunes loves to charge ahead and whale at people.  I believe personality will win out over planning and Nunes will go straight at Rousey.  If she does, I think Rousey is likely to last long enough to get her hands and hips on Nunes, and at that point, I believe it'll be all Rousey.

So, I'm choosing Rousey to win.

Note that nowhere did I say I thought Rousey had improved her striking--attack and defense--because I don't believe she has.  She has the same bad coach as before, so I expect her to come in with no better striking than before.

We'll know in six or so hours.

While I'm in the prediction business, I'll say that I believe the other championship fight will go to the current champ, Dominick Cruz, over the undefeated contender, Cody Garbrandt.  Garbrandt has the power to knock out Cruz, but I don't believe he'll get to land any power shots on the elusive champ.

I'll let you know on this one, too.

The Hurt Business

is a documentary about mixed martial arts (MMA) that played for one night at a local theater as a Fathom Events offering.  A small group of us went to check it out.  I confess that I expected it to be an attack piece, because so many documentaries these days seem to exist to push the agendas of their creators.

I was wrong.

The Hurt Business pursued no single narrative.  Instead, it chose to give a quick overview of just about every narrative in the MMA press today.  From steroid use to concussions, from fights as acts of barbarism to fighters as noble warriors striving to be the best, the filmmakers chose to cover every key topic lightly.  You won't find depth in this movie, but you will find information on a lot of different aspects of the sport.

I walked out with almost no new knowledge, which left me a bit disappointed, but I still enjoyed seeing what the filmmakers had created.  If you're new to MMA, though, I expect you'll leave with a great deal more info than you had before.

Lars and the MMA fights

Last night, we ate take-out barbecue while watching an odd pairing: Lars and the Real Girl, and then the UFC's latest pay-per-view event.

Lars definitely won't appeal to everyone, and the amount of suspension of disbelief it requires is high, but I quite liked it. Ryan Gosling was superb in the lead role, and all the actors in it delivered excellent performances. I'm a fan of tales of alienation and redemption, as perhaps you can tell from my writing, so this was right up my alley. I recommend it highly.

The UFC show was the first one to occur in Canada, and the fans were clearly ready for it. The main event featured hometown fighter, Georges St. Pierre (GSP), who is one of the most skilled and accomplished MMA practioners today. He was fighting the current welterweight (170 lb. limit) champ, Matt Serra, who had surprised the MMA world by beating St. Pierre about a year ago to capture the title. GSP, who is one of the fighters I most like, completely dominated Serra. His takedowns were astonishgly fast, he never looked in trouble on the ground against a great BJJ guy, and he won with what looked like ease. All the fights on the card were good. If you're at all an MMA fan and didn't see this one, catch it on reruns or on DVD later.

Last night's WEC show

As my late-evening break last night, I watched the WEC fight show that I had DVR'd when it ran earlier that evening on the Versus network. All the bouts they showed were entertaining, and some were way above normal.

Two particularly interesting fights were the ones involving Jens Pulver and Uriah Faber.

Pulver, who just left the UFC (which owns the WEC) so he could drop down to his natural fighting weight of 145 pounds, is known for his heavy striking, particularly his left. His opponent, Cub Swanson, was in most forums I read considered to be the better-rounded fighter. Pulver dispatched Swanson quickly--but not with a knock-out. Instead, to everyone's surprise he submitted the much younger man with a choke.

Faber, the WEC featherweight (145 pound weight limit) champion, looks like a surfer dude--a heavily muscled surfer dude. He typically runs right through his opponents, but in this fight he actually spent much of the first round on his back. (Despite that typically bad position, he never looked upset in any way; one close-up of his face showed he was completely relaxed.) In the second round, he punished his opponent, Jeff Curran, and then won with a choke submission--even though Curran is a well-regarded Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt. Faber is simply amazing.

If you're into MMA and have a chance to catch this show on a rerun, don't miss it.

Anderson Silva is amazing

Last night, a few of us gathered to watch the latest UFC PPV offering. The main event was a fight between the middleweight (185 lb.) champion, Anderson "Spider" Silva, and the former champion, Rich "Ace" Franklin. Silva won the title from Franklin about a year ago in a fight that ended in the first round with Silva demolishing Franklin. Franklin, who had previously looked unstoppable, spent a long time regrouping (and having his nose reconstructed), then won a couple of fights on his way to earning this rematch. Every MMA fan I know felt Silva would win, but we all hoped Franklin would make it a real contest.

He did--for all of a few minutes.

Then, Silva took over. He nearly won the fight in the first round, and he destroyed Franklin early in the second.

After the fight, Silva bowed to his opponent, treated him with great respect, and only praised him (via a translator). Silva is a class act, an amazing fighter, and pound for pound possibly the best in the MMA world. If you're at all into MMA and get a chance to catch this fight on replay, don't miss it.