UFC 135: Jones vs. Rampage

[Troy]

UFC 135​

Official Fight Card​

Main Card​

Light Heavyweight Championship bout: Jon Jones (c) vs. Quinton Jackson
Welterweight bout: Matt Hughes vs. Josh Koscheck
Heavyweight bout: Travis Browne vs. Rob Broughton
Lightweight bout: Nate Diaz vs. Takanori Gomi
Heavyweight bout: Ben Rothwell vs. Mark Hunt​

Preliminary Card​

Featherweight bout: Manvel Gamburyan vs. Diego Nunes
Light Heavyweight bout: James Te Huna vs. Ricardo Romero​

I am a huge fan of Jon Jones and I am still disappointed that his fight with Phil Davis was delayed. No idea what Rampage did to deserve a title shot, he faced Hammill who was never in title contention. I expect Jones to win this with ease, this won't go out the first round. ​

Matt Hughes is fighting for the first time since his 21 second loss to BJ Penn. Diego Sanchez is coming off two Fight of the Night awards and he won both those fights. Hughes will struggle in this fight. ​

I am surprised that Mark Hunt is on the maincard. His fight with Rothwell will be interesting since it won't make it to the judges and should end with a big KO.​

 

[Dademo]

Jon Jones grew on me but is slowly growing off of me, and I've always been a big Rampage fan so I'm pulling for Page in this fight. Jon Jones is becoming Cocky and I regret hating on Rashad just because he would talk shit about Jon Jones, because he's right, Jones is honestly really cocky.

Anyways I see Jon Jones winning but finishing this in the 3rd or 4th round like he finished Shogun, Rampage will be hard to put away just like Shogun was.

Hughes vs. Sanchez should be a war.

Other than that it's an OK card, but it's not even complete yet which is weird.

 

[Ben]

Sanchez is out with injury and Josh Koscheck is stepping in to take his place. Hughes was going to loose against Sanchez and Koscheck will take care of him easily. Jones/Rampage I think doesn't go past the second, think Page is going to be trying to finish and Jones is going to catch him.

 

[Dademo]

Sanchez is out with injury and Josh Koscheck is stepping in to take his place. Hughes was going to loose against Sanchez and Koscheck will take care of him easily. Jones/Rampage I think doesn't go past the second, think Page is going to be trying to finish and Jones is going to catch him.

How so? I didn't think it was that much of a lock to come to a conclusion so quick.

 

[Ben]

How so? I didn't think it was that much of a lock to come to a conclusion so quick.

The last time Hughes has looked good against strong competition was the Serra fight. Since then he beat 2 guys in Gracie and Almeida who really can't be classified has top level fighters. The Penn fight obvious put doubt in my mind seeing how he got knocked out in 10 seconds. Yea I understand guys can get caught and KO'd every now and then but at his age I think that fight was more telling of where he's at.

 

[Dademo]

Well that's alright then. Just thought it was a wee bit ignorant to just say "he was going to lose" when anything can happen in this sport, and everyone knows that.

 

[Troy]

Was confused for a second there because I thought that Dademo was having a conversation between himself due to the avatars. I had to doublecheck the names

Shame that Sanchez is out of the fight. I was looking forward to seeing him fight again and I thought that he could have used this fight to push himself closer to a title shot as I was another that thought he would win. If Koscheck vs. Hughes is signed then I really can't see Hughes winning.

Diaz vs. Gomi has been added to the card as well. Diaz is coming off two decision loses and Gomi has only won one of his past three fights so both fighters will be desperate for the win.

 

[Troy]

PPV is tomorrow and I am getting it. Looking forward to another win for Jon Jones and I am expecting a KO win for Browne.

My Picks for the maincard are.

Jon Jones (c) vs. Quinton Jackson
Matt Hughes vs. Josh Koscheck
Travis Browne vs. Rob Broughton
Nate Diaz vs. Takanori Gomi
Ben Rothwell vs. Mark Hunt

 

[Slim]

I'm heading back up to Buffalos for UFC tonight. Hoping to have a group. There should be 3 of us at least. maybe even 4. But

Jones, Koscheck, Gomi, Browne, and Rothwell are my picks for tonight.

Main event is going to be freakin awesome

 

[Big Red Jericho Punk]

I have been a bit out of the loop with UFC lately sadly. For the past few months, I haven't been into as much as I have been from like summer of 2009 to April 2011. But tonight I am very much interested and trying to get back into it. I hate Rampage with passion so that interests me but Jon Jones on the card! Now that is must watch, Jones is insane and should be fun. I don't see it being much of a contest though because Jones speed is too much. Rampage seems slow and I don't know if he has much left in the tank. You can't count him out though cause he can overpower Jones.

Matt Hughes and Nate Diaz are two guys I have my eyes on. Both to me have something to prove tonight and they have caught my eye in the past. I am really excited for this, hopefully this is the start of me getting back into UFC completely. I haven't fully been out, like I have caught replays and followed it but I haven't caught a live event in a good three to four months.

 

[Dademo]

It was a decent card tonight. Nate Diaz looked spectacular in the best performance of his career no doubt. His boxing looked amazing and yet again he showed off his subs, that transition from a triangle to an armbar was sick. Defeating the legend Gomi was impressive as well.

Travis Browne has a lot of hype but he didn't justify it tonight. I guess he just got gassed.

Speaking of gassing, Hunt vs. Rothwell was a fight of tired men. Ben came back from a long layover though, so I'll give him that, but he was not conditioned well. He looked like a zombie. Mark Hunt wins via Decision and I'm glad he decided to fight in the UFC and because of the pride deal, he didn't have to fight in the UFC to get payed. But I'm glad he decided to fight.

Josh Koscheck knocks out Matt Hughes but I didn't expect anything less of what happened in that fight. Matt Hughes should really retire but we'll see what he does in the coming weeks.

Jon Jones finishes Rampage in the 4th round with a rear naked choke. I'm a big Rampage fan so I was rooting for him in this fight, but really what happened is exactly how I expected the fight to go down, Rampage did more than I thought he did though. Jones didn't beat him as bad as Shogun, but he did tool him badly and it wasn't a good night for Rampage. One thing Jones needs to work on though is to block punches better. I noticied that when Rampage would attack (the few times he did) Jones would seem to run away a few times, admittingly himself as well. It was impressive like I said, but who expected anything less of that? Jon Jones is an animal at that weight class. When Jon Jones won the belt after 128 I was a huge supporter, but the way he handled the media and being a champion made me dislike him. He got way too cocky way too early and I feel like that's going to be his downfall if he loses at 205. I also just get annoyed that people see him as the GOAT. He's defended his belt once, sure, against top competition very impressively, but he's got a long way to go. I'm pumped for his fight against Rashad though, and I hope he fights Machida before going to Heavyweight or fighting Anderson Silva.

 

[Troy]

I enjoyed the PPV on the weekend.

Jones did it easy again in the mainevent. He only looked troubled when Rampage actually tried to swing at him but he quickly moved out of the way. I was confused by Rampage's gameplan as he didn't attack as much as I thought he would and he admitted after the fight that he didn't stick to the gameplan. He reminded me of Shields vs. GSP where Shields basically did nothing and didn't seem to have a gameplan. Looking forward to Jones vs. Rashad (surprised at the amount of heat Rashad recieved from the crowd).

Koscheck was awesome and it was a great finish with one second to go in the round. Koscheck looks good but I wonder who he faces next since he is coming off a loss to GSP before this fight.

I can't believe that Hunt/Rothwell went three rounds. No wonder both were gassed as both probably expected a first round finish. Happy for Hunt that he won.

Browne gassing earlier that Broughton shocked me as I thought it would be the other way around. Really needs to get into better shape.

That was an incredible finish by Diaz who looked fantastic.