Belfort Starches Henderson: The Weekend's Best Moments

What a solid weekend of fights! Finally a true break to the fight drought we have been experiencing and which was only aided slightly by a trickle of unimportant fights in Ireland the other week.

Of course, I'm not talking about the main event between Vitor Belfort and Dan Henderson. That was as easy to predict as you would think. It started with the Internet losing his mind when an apparently chemically unassisted Belfort turned up looking about half the density of his former self. It pootled along with Henderson crouching directly into the left high kick of a man who always, always starts fights with that weapon. And it meandered into the same Internet folk going on about what a killer Belfort is even without TRT following his starching a forty-five year old man for the second time. It was expected, uninteresting, and I don't feel like I need to go into the ins and outs of a guy who always crouches to his right with his right hand low getting head kicked by a guy who always throws up the left high kick as his fight opener.

Glover Teixeira's performance on the same night was worthy of high praise. I have been keen to call Teixeira a one-note puncher, because of his constant leading with the overhand right and following with the left hook. Against Fabio Maldonado, Quinton Jackson and Jon Jones, it was this over and over again. The occasional left high kick or right low kick, but nothing to set up anything more substantial. Against Patrick Cummings though, it looked as though Teixeira had finally realized that using other punches, set ups, and combinations is not abandoning his best blows, but actually increases their odds of sneaking through. He's long in the tooth, but the improvement shown between his last fight and this one was tremendous and where I had grown tired of watching him swing wild, I am now keen to see if he has the time for one last run at that belt.

We got a few exciting techniques out of the first bout on the undercard at UFC Fight Night 77. Bruno Rodrigues—billed as Bruno Korea, I assume because of his Taekwondo chops—and Mattheus Nicolau weren't expected to do much. In fact Nicolau managed to sneak into the Octagon wearing bright orange shorts rather than the standard Reebok white-with-black or black-with-white, something which the graphics department obviously wasn't prepared for and wasn't going to make changes to accommodate.

Nicolau seemed to take control early by getting in close and dropping Rodrigues with a hard punch. In the second round, however, Rodrigues went full Korea with a Raymond Daniels special.

We're seeing jumping switch kicks catch on more and more nowadays, and the side kick to back kick is the yang to the yin of the bicycle kick. While one can jump into bicycle kicks by raising the lead leg to either push kick or side kick, the jumping back kick is considerably easier to perform if the lead leg has been raised across the body for a side kick rather than in front of the body for a push kick. If one actually throws the side kick, even weakly, there is a good chance that the opponent will parry it and begin to set his feet for a response to what he perceives as a moment of tremendous advantage, leaving him a static target for the back kick.

The end of the bout was equally unusual as Nicolau locked in a Japanese necktie. This has been around in the grappling world for a while but we don't often get to see it in MMA. The Japanese necktie serves to answer the problem of being unable to crumple an opponent's posture enough to tighten a D'arce grip to the biceps. With either the top or bottom leg of the opponent hooked, the choker drops to his side so that the back of the opponent's head is against his stomach.

To return to the colour of shorts, I can't remember the last time I struggled to keep track of which fighter was which, but it happened twice this weekend. The first was the bald, muscular and white Glover Teixeira versus the bald, muscular and white Patrick Cummings, both in black and white shorts.

The second was this fight between two bald, stubbly guys in black shorts at Glory 25.

Glory 25: Milan was a brilliant card, and a return to form for the promotion. Unfortunately it was marred by perhaps the worst decision I have seen in kickboxing as Robin van Roosmalen was gifted a victory over Sittichai in the main event. Now the bout wasn't a one sided beating, but to anyone watching it, it was clear that one man was in control and actually landing occasional effective blows. That man was Sittichai.

If you haven't seen Sittichai fight, the comparisons to Giorgio Petrosyan are apt. He moves more than most Thai fighters, using the quarter turns and pivots that Petrosyan does so effectively. The left knee and left round kick are, like Petrosyan his best weapons, and he leads the way with an irritating southpaw lead push kick. But, like the great Saenchai, Sittichai likes to use his lead leg kicks to set up jumping switch kicks as well.

After exactly what most expected—five rounds of Van Roosmalen taking blows on his guard and eating knees and left straights to the gut, while struggling to get anything of his own going—the judges awarded a unanimous 48-47 decision which made Stephen Quadros and Mauro Ranallo audibly groan. I will say that part of what makes them such a valuable and respectable pair of commentators is their freely speaking their mind.

Giorgio Petrosyan's return against Josh Jauncey was as terrific as expected and showed that The Doctor is still more than capable of shutting down anyone's A game. Jauncey's terrific combinations into low kicks got him to the dance, but he couldn't do any of that against Petrosyan. Unusually aggressive, Petrosyan's constant forward pressure negated much of Jauncey's kicking game, and his sharp counters and moves to the clinch after Jauncey's first strike mitigated the power of combination striking where most opponents Jauncey would meet would get stuck in the trap of trying to defend or cover against the blows.

It should be stressed just how good Jauncey looked for such a young fighter with so little experience compared to Petrosyan. While he was denied all of his best methods, he seemed to understand at least why that was the case. So many of Petrosyan's opponents simply looked bamboozled to the point of giving up on offence, Jauncey simply kept moving and kept trying to alleviate Petrosyan's pressure, often catching Petrosyan's trailing leg with a hard low kick when the Doctor was committing to his brilliant head movement.

The main point which we always talk about with Petrosyan, and the difference between him and everyone else, was that Jauncey was never allowed to stay on balance or in position to strike. From push kicks, to moving slightly off line, to straight up shoving—Jauncey was never allowed to commit his weight to his strikes or combinations.

Elsewhere, Vasyl Lomachenko was back in action in the boxing ring as he defended his WBO lightweight title against Romulo Koasicha. Lomachenko is a dream to watch and seems like a remarkably measured man to listen to. He remarked on his study of the greats that while there is no outright best, there is something to be learned from each. He went on to say that he wants to be known as a boxer-painter, creating art on the canvas. You should know from that statement why I'm already buying whatever Lomachenko is selling but his graceful footwork to angles and his terrific combinations better tell the story.

Of particular note is his long left uppercut to the body—that same peculiar southpaw blow that carried Lucian Bute to so many knockouts, though for Lomachenko it usually comes off of a right hook behind the opponent's lead hand and a move to a dominant angle. This uppercut sealed the deal in the weekend's bout against Koasicha.

Saving the most important fight from the most recent UFC event until last, let's meditate again on young Thomas Almeida. The man keeps winning and keeps looking skilled and creative in doing it. His remains both awkwardly stiff and delightfully fluid in equal and confusing measure. His hands are nailed to his collarbones and he looks like he has a rod up his spine half the time, but his timing is superb and when his hands start moving he's smooth and natural. His greatest strength is the same as the great Nate Corbett's, he can box with his elbows. Replacing short punches with well-timed elbows guarantees enormous damage instead of glancing blows and this fight was no different. After Almeida's usual cross counter over his opponent's jab had put Anthony Birchak on wobbly legs, a spinning elbow along the cage flowed effortlessly into a flurry of punches and Almeida had his twentieth fight and win in the bag.

Bellator hosted a solid event between its legitimate talents, and Scott Coker went Coker to the max in announcing a heap of freak show fights like Ken Shamrock versus Royce Gracie III. We're back into fight season, and with UFC 193 this weekend and a march towards McGregor vs. Aldo and Rockhold vs Weidman, it gets better every week from here.