Title Writing: Mopping The Mats 9 "UFC on FOX 2, MFC 32, It's Showtime 2012""

Mopping the Mats is a weekly Monday feature meant to recap the weekend that was in mixed martial arts. The weekend was packed with action, starting Friday evening with MFC 32, continuing with a star studded It's Showtime kickboxing event on Saturday morning (for us west coasters) and finishing with the big UFC on FOX card on Saturday afternoon/evening. Where to begin?

THE EVENTS: MFC 32: Bitter Rivals, It's Showtime Leeuwarden, UFC on FOX

The MFC 32 card was held in the promotions home base of Edmonton and there were four former UFC fighters on the card: Wilson Gouveia, Antonio Mckee, Ryan McGillivray and Bryan Cobb. In terms of up and coming talent, Dheigo Lima, brother to Bellator stand out and former MFC welterweight champion Douglas Lima was on the card as well.

Kickboxing has fallen on hard times recently, forced to cancel the 2011 World Grand Prix for the first time since it's inception in 1993. The earthquake in Japan has certainly contributed to these hard times but it was more of a death blow, as seemingly poor financial management has plagued K-1 for years. 12 of the best heavyweights in the world competed in Leeuwarden, so this show was likely as good as it's going to get for awhile for top level heavyweight kickboxing.

Aside from the much anticipated matches on the FOX card, the UFC had a few relevant matches on the under card, including Evan Dunham vs Nik Lentz in a lightweight battle and Mike Russow vs Jon Olav Einemo in a heavyweight test. I know some people might roll their eyes at my assertion that Russow/Einemo was relevant but like it or not, Russow entered the bout on a three fight win streak, joining Frank Mir and JDS as the only UFC heavyweights who could make that claim. A win for Russow would surely ensure a big step up in competition.

The results and takeaways after the jump.

THE RESULTS:

Starting with the UFC and moving backwards, I think everything that needs to be said was said in our own Earl Montclair's recap of the main UFC on FOX card. Okay, I do disagree with his assertion that Rashad Evans "is a dead man walking and highlight reel fodder for Bones." To me, Evans looked like a master engaging in a sparring match with his top student. Waiting to see what Davis would attack with and always having the correct counter. This is what I said before the fight:

Evans believes the way he'll beat the Martian Manhunter is by avoiding the ground at all costs and out pointing him in a kickboxing match. If my sleuthing proves correct, Evans will surely test out the strategy against Davis. I'm not sure this fight will be particularly exciting if that is the case but I do think Evans will execute perfectly.

I expected Evans to kick the legs of Davis; he threw one kick the entire fight, according to Fight Metric. I was dead wrong about that but I think I deserve some credit for identifying that Evans would prefer to keep the fight on the feet. He stayed on the outside and never initiated a take down off his own striking, taking what Davis gave him in the form of sloppy kicks and putting him on his back from there. He showed Jones that if he wants to kick him, he just might spend the rest of the round on his back. Can he beat Jones in the same fashion? I think he can.

As for the under card there were some good fights. Formerly of Strikeforce, Lavar Johnson made a statement to the UFC heavyweight division, becoming the first man to stop Joey Beltran. Charles Oliveira pulled off a super sweet submission in his featherweight debut, Michael Johnson squeaked by Shane Roller, Mike Russow won his fourth straight UFC fight and Evan Dunham signalled his return to the upper echelon of the 155 pound division with a stoppage victory over Nik Lentz in what was the best fight of the night. Much more on him in the Takeaways section of this post.

It's Showtime Leeuwarden featured the final kickboxing match of legendary Badr Hari. Earlier this week, user nabmtk1 wrote a nice fanpost featuring 24 of Hari's key kickboxing matches. If you aren't familiar with the sport of kickboxing or Hari, set a few hours aside and work your way through it. It's become a bit of a joke/meme, thanks to Joe Rogan's overuse of it, but Badr Hari embodies the term "K-1 level striking". He's also a bit of a wild man. Okay, he's a complete wild man, the likes of which are rarely seen in the 21st century. In his final bout, Hari stopped Gokhan Saki (a bonafide savage himself) by TKO in just under three minutes.

Running through the other heavyweight bouts on the card, Ben Edwards took out Ricardo van den Bos by decision, Tyrone Spong decisioned Melvin Manhoef, Braddock Silva overcame Michael Duut by decision, Errol Zimmerman quickly mowed through Rico Verhoeven by KO in the first minute and Daniel Ghita took out Hesdy Gerges in the first round to win the It's Showtime Heavyweight championship. The belt is not particularly meaningful; it has only been in circulation since 2009 and the original champion, Hari, did not so much as lose the belt as hand it to Gerges. Hari was disqualified after kicking a downed Gerges, one of the most blatant and ridiculous fouls ever seen in combat sports.

Meanwhile the MFC event had mixed results. The former UFC fighters went 3-1, with Gouveia and McGillivray scoring finishes over their opponents (Dwayne Lewis and Diego Bautista respectively) while Cobb lost to McKee. The big story from the event actually took place outside the cage, with McKee missing weight by 7 pounds, being stripped of his championship and being cut from the organization, win or lose. McKee has a career record of 27-4-2 but his wrestling-centric style combined with his brash character has really cost him some goodwill in situations where he falls short.

The top prospect in MFC is likely Dheigo Lima and he suffered his first career loss (he is now 6-1) to Nathan Coy. While this isn't great for Lima, it should be noted that Coy is a solid wrestler from Team Quest who has victories over current UFC welterweights Rick Story and Mike Pierce during their pre-UFC days. He also took Tyron Woodley to a split decision in 2010, so he was a tough fight for Lima. By no means is Dheigo any less of a guy to watch because of this fight and if anything he will learn from this become better.

THE TAKEAWAYS: Dunham back in the title hunt. Is the UFC using FOX in the correct manner?

As I mentioned earlier, I thought that Evan Dunham and Nik Lentz were the best of the UFC offerings. The fight had a high pace from the beginning, with each man taking the other down. Lentz worked for submissions while Dunham focused on ground and pound. The second stanza saw Dunham start to dominate the fight on the feet and when it hit the mat late in the round with Dunham on top, he used a vicious elbow to slice Lentz below the eye, which would end up forcing the doctors to stop the fight in between rounds.

Dunham is 6-2 in the UFC but most people agree that he beat Sean Sherk, so he probably should be 7-1, with a lone loss to Melvin Guillard when Guillard was performing at his absolute best. The fight I'd like to see Dunham get is Edson Barboza. Dunham needs another chance against a dynamic striker, while Barboza needs to be tested against a fighter with a ground game. Both of them have some momentum and both have been in really high paced fights recently, so I really see this fight as a no brain-er.

All in all it was a good weekend for those of us already ensconced inside the MMA world. As for those on the outside that we would like to join us? I have to admit that I'd rather they have not watched. I'll be posting a piece shortly with more on that. Until then, as always, thanks for reading.