Brock Lesnar went from being “The Next Big Thing” to officially being “The Next Big Villain. Villain or not Brock Lesnar showed what ground and pound is all about. Every punch he threw had intention to hurt Mir and they did just that. After pinning Frank Mir’s arm in round 1, Lesnar unloaded with devastating punches that had Mir’s face looking worse than it did in their first fight.
Mir’s only offense came at the start of the 2nd round landing a short elbow and attempting a flying knee. Neither left any damage on the face Lesnar. Brock was able to pin him against the cage and landed punches to the side of Mir’s face for the TKO only 40 seconds into the 2nd round. Immediately after the stoppage Lesnar got in Frank Mir’s face and started talking trash to the still dazed fighter. When the boos began to reign he flipped the crowd off and told them to “keep it coming” (the boos). He might have apologized later at the post fight press conference but his “heel” character has been cemented.
Shane Carwin and Cain Velásquez wait in the wings to be heavyweight divisions next saving “face”.
In the co-main event Georges St. Pierre showed off his superior wrestling skills against a very game Thiago Alves(which ninja turtle is he again?). Alves was unable to stuff any take down attempts and mounted very little offense throughout the five round battle.
GSP was able to lay on top of his opponent and pepper him with punches to the body and head and despite taking Alves back several times he failed to put Thiago away. Georges did not walk away from the fight unscathed as he appeared to get injured in the 3rd round. St. Pierre later said ”Thiago pushed my knee down and I heard my groin, my abductor snap. I heard a noise and it was pretty bad”.
In a bout that had everyone in the Mandalay Bay Events Center cheering, Dan Henderson put Michael Bisping to sleep with a right hand for the knockout at 3:20 into the 2nd round. Dan Henderson started the fight by stalking Bisping and looking to land a big shot. Bisping was able to land more jabs but spent most of the fight back-peddling and circling into Henderson’s power punch. In between rounds Henderson told his corner that Bisping “hit like a bitch” and decided he would take whatever Bisping threw at him until he got what he wanted. Hopefully the KO humbles the bragging Brit and serves as a reality check; that he just isn’t as good as he thinks he is.
The nights other two televised fights featured Alan Belcher get robbed of a win over Yoshihiro Akiyama but did earn himself “fight of the night” honors and took a nice $100K check. Belcher landed the more effective and harder shots throughout the 3 rounder and was able to get back up after Akiyama’s take downs. He even scored a knock down in the 1st round. While Akiyama was able to land more shots none of them ever had Belcher in real trouble and was unable to do anything when taking Alan Belcher down. The judges scored it split in Akiyama’s favor and one apparently blind judge scored all three rounds for Yoshihiro Akiyama.
In the evenings last fight of the night, Jon Fitch scored another unanimous decision win over Paulo Thiago. The win puts Fitch back in line for another title shot but I’m not so sure how soon he will get it as Damien Maia and Dan Henderson are standing in front of him.
Overall UFC 100 featured a great card and great fights. I should be boasting about a 4-1 record with my predictions but due to the Belcher robbery I go just over .500 at 3-2.
