By Micheal Owens
Well, despite the early promise of and awful few hours of sloppy desert fatigue-fests last night’s UFC was not half bad. Back-and-forth action, a bit of weirdness and a huge KO} to put an exclamation point on the evening. As is the tradition here on MMA Plus, let’s consider who should be next for the winners…
Roy Nelson
That was another in the long line of Big Country overhand right KOs and it was great. We all know the drill with Nelson. Put him up against someone with athleticism and a good jab and he’ll fall to a wide decision loss. Put him against a man who can be hit and he’s on his way to a bonus cheque. There’s maybe one exception and Dan Hardy suggested it last night. Pit the big man up against Mark Hunt. Two fan favourites with granite chins, iron fists and huge hearts. Make it five rounds and we could have another Hunt/Bigfoot-type affair. Everyone’s a winner.
Clay Guida
That was a much better fight than I had imagined from The Carpenter, though still a fight that he should have won handily given the clash of styles. Now that he’s broken his losing run it’s time for him to target some of the better guys in the division, but not one of the exciting fighters that could have a streak ruined by some more blanket behaviour… at least not one that is ineffective off his back. How about Charles Oliveira? Do Bronx packs a threatening, multi-limbed assault on the feet and has the guard game to threaten from the bottom. Maybe that will finally herald the return of the exciting iteration of Clay Guida. Conor Mcgregor would be great, but that’s absolutely not a fight the UFC will make.
Ryan LaFlare
Ignoring the absurdly horrific groin shot, this was another efficient dismantling of a solid welterweight scrapper. The young prospect needs a bigger test now. Gunnar Nelson would provide that. I’d usually shy away from matching two undefeated prospects with each other, but while both fighters are very good and promise much, neither are riding a wave of unstoppable hype that would be unrectifiable dented with a loss.
Ramsey Nijem
Nijem is the kind of fighter that will probably always follow a win or two with a loss or two. He’s going there to hurt or be hurt and certainly not bring any titles to the middle east. Still, he’s a fun addition to the main card of a fight night or the top end of a pay-per-view prelim card. Action fights are the name of the game with this guy, so Steven Siler is not a bad idea. He’s coming off a loss, but who cares. Bombs would get thrown
…and one loser – Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Big Nog got knocked out completely cold for the first time in his career and it was not hard to see that coming. He’s getting older, slower, less durable and the broken arm, multiple hip surgeries, multiple knee surgeries, and partial blindness in one eye have added together to make him far from a going concern in the UFC heavyweight division. Sure he could probably fight one more scrub for one last hurrah in Rio, but he does not deserve that lack of respect and at this point you could not count out the possibility of one of the weaker UFC fighters cleaning his clock. Please Dana, sit him down and talk retirement. It’s only right.
