UFC 98 Review

Ahhh full release. Ok not so much, but I did finally get a heafty helping of Mixed Martial Arts action in my diet last night and it was worth the wait. UFC 98 Machida vs Evans kicked off last night with an excellent fighter card that what certainly promised to be more entertaining than UFC 97 Leites vs Silva.

The anticipation for UFC 98 seemed endless, Lace came into town, of course James from MMA Punk was in the building along with Sangalicious and the constantly over caffiened Mike from Daily Shot of Coffee was in the building too.

Every hour seemed like it took three hours to go by, we decided to pass the time by playing the newly released UFC Undisputed video game for ps3. James and Mike cheated their way through something like five straight victories before I had to get technical on their ass and hand out some beat downs. In all honesty my fight streak wasn’t as long as theirs and I have a long way to go in that game. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most of you didn’t come hear to listen to me talk about the results from our UFC Undisputed bouts, so maybe I will get down to my UFC 98 Review.

After ripping through some Undisputed to pass the time away a little faster than it had been going, we were ready. James was going to be posting UFC 98 Results live and Lace was all over the MMA Punk Twitter last night with excellent pictures from the fight as well as instant results, I want to thank everyone that was tweeting with us and following the UFC 98 Live Results we all appreciate it and had a blast doing it last night. If you do not already follow MMA Punk on Twitter and your a UFC fan I would consider following MMA Punk before UFC 99, we actually tweet back unlike many of the other MMA Twitter folks.

Sean Sherk vs Frankie Edgar – Results
The night kicked off with Sean Sherk vs Frankie Edgar, even though I was pulling for Frankie Edgar in this fight I have a tremendous ammount of respect for the fighter that Sean Sherk is, and Sean Sherks training is crazy. I felt that Edgar would have a few advantages in this fight, speed being one of them but the largest was Edgar’s ability to mix up his game. This fight was pretty good, it lacked explosives for the most part which was one of the things I was really hoping to see in this fight.

Chael Sonnen vs Dan Miller – Results
This was another quality fight on the card, it included some excellent ground and pound but this fight also failed to offer any severe knockouts or any true fireworks.

Drew McFredirs vs Xaiver Foupa-Pokam – Results
Anytime Drew McFedries fights I hope for a nasty knockout, Xavier seemed to talk a pretty good game before this fight and even offered a cute little dance on the way to the ring. This fight was a quick banger that came out of the gate on fire, let’s just say it’s a good thing that Xavier did his dancing before the fight.

Matt Hughes vs Matt Serra – Results
Now we are getting dwon to business, this is the fight I have been waiting to see for a while, as I stated in my Serra vs Hughes Predictions ever since Matt Hughes was a coach on Ultimate Fighter I can’t stand him. Before this fight started and as Bruce Buffer announced the two fighters my palms got sweaty, I would finally have a chance to see Matt Serra bust Matt Hughes in his grille.

Without getting in to too much detail I will say that I got to see exactly what I wanted to see, Matt Serra did an excellent job in the first round dropping Hughes and following up with some nice punches. Serra also did a very good job of not rushing in for the kill and getting caught, Serra and Hughes clashed heads which dropped Hughes. Hughes even asked his corner between rounds if he had been dropped, the second round featured alot of Matt Hughes failing to advance his postion and holding Serra down for the majority of the round. In my opinion the fight should have been brought back to it’s feet numerous times in that round, however that didn’t happen until there was something like 15 seconds left in the round.

Round three was a back and forth round with Serra being taken down, as well as Serra doing a nice reverse and taking Hughes down. The live results have more detail than what I am giving here but I will say that Serra out worked and advanced his position more in the third round than Hughes did, when it came to the judges score cards they served up a little “Hall of Fame” present for aging Matt Hughes. Someone sent me a tweet that said, “A Hall of Fame Gift” so I really can’t take credit for the line, but a very good line indeed. Regardless of how it was scored and how it went, Matt Serra not only came to fight but showed Hughes that he is certainly in the Top 20, something Hughes had claimed Serra was not part of.

Lyoto Machida vs Rashad Evans – Live Results
I really can not explain to any of you how happy that I am that we were treated to this fight instead of an over hyped Rampage Jackson vs Rashad Evans fight. I have been saying for a long time now that Lyoto Machida is the real deal, however he stayed under the radar and in the background and waited patiently before he had the chance to display his art in a Championship fight.

It is no secret that I felt that Lyoto Machida would easily dismantle Rampage Jackson, or Rashad Evans had he been given the chance to fight either one of them. In my UFC 98 Predictions I stuck to the heart as I always do with my picks, in addition to choosing Lyoto Machida with my heart I felt that on paper Machida had what it took to beat Rashad Evans and easily.

My sweaty palms increased to being able to barely control myself, constantly shouting, clapping like a five year old at a play and my heart was racing as if I was just invited to an all girls cheerleader camp. I wanted Lyoto Machida to not only beat Rashad Evans but to do it in brilliant fashion, the same way he won any of his previous bouts. Lyoto Machida delivered and delivered in a huge way, Rashad Evans was not only frustrated early by Machida, he also looked very confused about how to handle Machida’s fighting style.

Lyoto Machida is the real deal and anyone that watched UFC 98 Live last night knows it, there are already discussions about Lyoto Machida facing Rampage Jackson next. In my opinion Rampage Jackson will be in worse shape and even more confused and frustrated than Rashad Evans was by Machida. I think what honestly needs to happen is a fight between Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva, I could care less about what weight they fight at or for what title, I just want to see them fight. It may very well be one of the more boring fights that could be offered up by the UFC due to the two very odd fighting styles of Machida and Silva. I feel that if nothing else, Machida will force Anderson Silva to fight and engage which is something that Silva has really failed to do in any of his recent bouts.

The UFC offered up a few more bouts during the UFC 98 pay per view, you can find those UFC 98 results here which include results on Brock Larson’s fight. Overall another excellent night of fighting delivered by the UFC, their pay per view events seem better managed and produced every time I see one. What did you think of UFC 98?

UFC 99 is next on the chopping block when it hits Germany on June 13, 2009. As excited I am for another night of excellent fights and another UFC event that brings us closer to the monumental UFC 100 in July, the fight card for UFC 99 leaves a little to be desired. Here is a look at the main events on the UFC 99 Fight Card from Germany, don’t forget to Subscribe to my RSS Feed or follow me on twitter to be notified when I post my UFC 99 Predictions.

UFC 99 Fight Card
Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva
Heath Herring vs. Cain Velasquez
Ben Saunders vs. Mike Swick
Marcus Davis vs. Dan Hardy
Spencer Fisher vs. Caol Uno

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