Before that however, I feel it important to discuss the lead-in for TUF5, that being another installment of Ultimate Fight Night, this time headlined by TUF2 champion Joe 'Daddy' Stevenson vs Melvin 'The Young Assassin' Guillard. I thought this was a good show, with Kenny Florian earning a strong submission win over Dokonjonosuke Mishima (btw, kudos to Bruce Buffer for making Mishima's name sound fluid during the introductions).
But any discussion of Kenny Florian must lead to the inevitable discussion of nicknames. Nicknames in the UFC have now officially reached the point of absurdity. Kenny 'KenFlo' Florian is one thing. It sounds like an actual nickname, and the kind of thing that Florian has been called for years. Sure it's a stupid nickname, but at least it doesn't seem contrived or forced. But the second fight on the card featured Antoni Hardonk vs Justin McCully. McCully's nickname? The Insane 1. 1! How brutal is that? And then, when they had some time to kill before the main event, they showed a dark match featuring Nate Mohr vs Kurt 'Batman' Pellegrino. Batman. BATMAN! The guy is calling himself BATMAN! And I won't even get into Pellegrino's post-victory "break dancing" routine
This whole nickname trend in the UFC has to stop. It stopped being cute with Chris 'The Crippler' Leben and Ed 'Short Fuse' Herman. You don't give yourself a nickname unless you're George Costanza, and even then, you're more apt to end up with Coco than T-Bone. Chris Benoit earned the nickname 'Crippler' when Sabu broke his neck on a botched move in ECW. And that was in pro wrestling, where personalities and storylines are part of the SCRIPTED nature of the sport. If the UFC wants to embrace the fake nickname aspect of pro wrestling, then they need to accept all the other baggage that goes along with it.
If Chris Leben wants a nickname he earned, how about Chris 'Overrated Crybaby' Leben or Chris 'Perennial Midcarder' Leben? Same with Ed Herman. How about Ed 'Tito Stalker' Herman, or Ed 'Closet Homosexual Using MMA As A Beard' Herman? All these stupid nicknames just distract from the sport, and in my opinion, make it seem bush league. Names like Randy 'The Natural' Couture or Quentin 'Rampage' Jackson work. But Diego 'Nightmare' Sanchez? Unh-unh. Sorry Diego, it's always going to be Diego 'Dirty' Sanchez.
BTW, The Insane 1 beat Hardonk (in a bout of sophomoric humour, I kept hearing hardon during this fight and giggled like a child) in one of those slow lumbering heavyweight fights that were the trademark of Tim Sylvia's excruciating title reign (speaking of nicknames, any discussion thereof must always include the all too regrettable 'Maine-Iac').
And oh yeah, there was a main event. To be honest, I haven't been that impressed with Joe Stevenson since he was unable to put away Luke Cummo to win TUF2. And Melvin Guillard has seemed pretty good, so I was expecting a good fight. Instead, Joe showed that he is comfortable at 155, even though he really didn't have much time to showcase what he can do. Melvin just made a bad mistake, gave Stevenson his head when getting up off the mat, and submitted to a guillotine choke. Without that mistake, who knows what would have happened, because the match didn't even last 30 seconds. And Guillard will be back. But Joe shut Melvin up, and hopefully the next time we see Melvin, he'll try to be a little less boastful.
What really impressed me about Joe Stevenson was how he conducted himself after the fight. In his interview with Joe Rogan, he was humble, he was funny, and he didn't rub the loss in Melvin's face, even though the trash-talking before the fight would have led you to believe he would. Sure he made the obligatory nonsensical shoutout to the troops for 'defending our freedom,' but hating an American for blindly supporting the military is like hating a baby for crapping in its diaper.
Last night's Ultimate Fight Night wasn't an outstanding show, but it demonstrated the state of the UFC right now. Light guys give entertaining fights, big guys are boring and plodding, and a good time to go to the bathroom. But since UFC cleverly designs all of their events with lots of time and useless filler between fights (last night's show feature 'exclusive' previews of not one, not two, but THREE upcoming releases, those being Grindhouse, GRAW2, and, in an interesting cross-promotion, given the contentious relationship between Spike TV, UFC and WWE, 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin's upcoming The Condemned) finding time to go to the bathroom is never a problem.
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