UFC 90 – Thoughts About Silva/Cote And Two Stellar Undercard Fights
Thanks to Cactus Jim for logging the play by play of last night’s UFC 90.
About a week ago, I wasn’t so sure that I was going to order UFC 90. There was really two matches that looked outstanding on paper. I was sure that Tyson Griffin and Sean Sherk would be excellent, and I was sure that Josh Koscheck and Thiago Alves would be good as well. But do you spend $45 a show ($50-55 in HD) on two good undercard matches? No, you don’t. You pay for the main event. And on paper, Anderson Silva vs. Patrick Cote was severely lacking.
The undercard match-ups delivered. Griffin vs. Sherk was a stand-up war and those guys were hitting each other hard. They were throwing great combinations, highlighted by Griffin throwing a high kick and then following up with an off balanced right hand, which landed. But Sherk was too strong. Griffin made the fight, but in making the fight, he was in Sherk’s wheel house. Griffin pressed the action and was the more active fighter, but Sherk’s striking was a tad bit more pinpoint.
Koscheck was his cocky self until he got hit with a left hook that dropped him to a knee. (Photo by East817) After that, he was pretty much done. I give him all the respect in the world for coming back and continuing to fight. But at that moment, he went from someone who probably thought he was going to win, to someone who didn’t think he was going to be able to win. Thiago Alves has the perfect nickname. He was a pit bull in the ring. He almost looked like a machine rather than a human being. I started to wonder who would be the next big match-up for Alves. If George St. Pierre and BJ Penn are fighting in January, the next fight for either guy would probably be April/May. Alves will need to fight again between then. I was thinking that a rematch against Jon Fitch could be interesting. Fitch is so big, Alves wouldn’t simply be able to punch right through him. Or, if Jake Shields joins UFC, that could be a great fight for both guys.
The reason I actually decided to buy the show was because I felt that if I missed this show, I would miss one of the greatest fighters ever in his prime. Just I could watch Michael Jordan play against anyone, I didn’t want to miss Silva. And I think he knew that was the fact with many of us. If you watched, he was definitely trying to put on a show, as well as win the fight. I get the feeling that if he wanted to, he could’ve ended it in the first or second round. But he was trying to entertain the crowd, knowing that many of us were there to watch him. And it backfired. Cote came out in the third round and his knee just crumbled, sending the fans home without the greatness that they expected to see.
It was a good show on the whole, but without that performance we were expecting in the main event, it felt a little lacking.
