UFC 95 Recap

Welcome back to “MMA Authority Blog,” with UFC 95 over and done with I am here to give you my recap on how I felt about last Saturday’s fights. I’ll start off with quick results for the preliminary card.

Paul Kelly defeats Troy Mandioniz via unanimous decision. Evan Dunham defeats Per Eklund via technical knock out. Mike Cienolevicz defeats Neil Grove via leg lock. Junior Dos Santos defeats Stefan Struve via technical knockout. And lastly, Terry Etim defeats Brian Cobb via technical knockout. So now to the main card, in the opening bout of the night it was former TUF standout Josh Koscheck going up against UFC newcomer Paulo Thiago. I’ll be the first to admit when I am wrong, and I was defiantly wrong about Paulo, I didn’t think he had what it takes to come in and beat a fighter like Kos in his UFC debut, but he went in there and TKO’d Koscheck with a beautiful left hand in the third minute of the first round. I’m really interested to see who the UFC will throw at Paulo next, and I also wonder what could be next for Koscheck, with the only thing I see for him being a possible fight with Karo. In the next match of the night it was Brazilian Jujitsu expert Demian Maia taking on Chael Sonnen. Like I predicted in my previous blog, Maia took this fight pretty easy, winning by submission in the second minute of the first round. Next up was Nate “The Great” Marquardt versus Wilson Gouveia. Marquardt looked extremely well in this fight, mixing up his strikes well using kicks and knees, and even paid tribute to Shonie Carter by getting a spinning back fist in there. Nate won by technical knockout in the third minute of the third round. The next fight on the card was the return of “The Outlaw” Dan Hardy taking on Rory Markham. Before this fight, Rory was making comments saying that Hardy had no punching power, but Hardy made him eat his words by knocking him out in the very first minute of the first round with a right hand. And lastly, the main event of the night pitted Joe “Daddy” Stevenson against the man making his lightweight debut, Diego “The Nightmare” Sanchez. Let me tell you, Sanchez is going to be a threat to the lightweight division, he went in there against Stevenson who is one of the very top lightweights in the UFC, and wore him out for three rounds to eventually win by unanimous decision.

So overall for the card, I went 7-3 on my picks. In two weeks the UFC will be presenting UFC 96: Jackson vs. Jardine from Columbus, Ohio, so be looking out for my preview blog early in that week, where I will also provide an update on things going around in the UFC such as future match ups, backstage controversies, and an update on the Fedor/Lesnar negotiations.