UFC 129 Review: Canada is conquered

UFC 129 provided enough action to go around the 55,000 Canadian fans that packed into the Rogers Centre in Ontario. Here is how it went down.

JOE

UFC 129 provided enough action to go around the 55,000 Canadian fans that packed into the Rogers Centre in Ontario. Here is how it went down.

By Fergus Ryan

On what was a record breaking weekend for North American MMA, the unsuccessful challengers gained more ground than the victorious champions.

The action came thick and fast in the preliminaries with Pablo Garza’s spectacular flying triangle choke opening things up in the first bout. Following his Knockout of the Night performance in his last outing, ‘The Scarecrow’ added to his bank balance with Submission of the Night honours against a game Yves Jabouin.

The second bout finished with a contender for KO of the Night with John Makdessi’s dropping Kyle Watson with a spinning back-fist. Also putting their hands up for some KO bonus money were Jake Ellenberger, Vladimir Matyushenko and Ivan Menjivar who inserted a right angle in Charlie Valencia’s nose.

However, the cheque went to Lyoto Machida as the ‘The Dragon’ ended the career of Randy Couture with the Steven Segal inspired front kick made famous by Anderson Silva. Machida added a fake in setting up the kick that left the 47-year-old out cold early in the first round. Though he’s retired before only to return, Couture can be happy with the body of work he has left behind in a sport he helped popularise.

Ben Henderson put himself back in the lightweight title shark tank by decisioning Canada’s Mark Bocek. He’ll join a quality waiting list of Jim Miller, Anthony Pettis, Donald Cerrone, Clay Guida, Melvin Guillard and possibly Gilbert Melendez for the victor of the Frankie Edgar-Gray Maynard III title scrap at UFC 130.

Bitch

Nate Diaz might regret taunting Rory MacDonald with “C’mon bitch” during the first round of their bout. The 21-year-old Canadian responded by manhandling Diaz on route to a unanimous points victory. Diaz was tossed around like a rag doll in the third with MacDonald suplexing Jake Shields’ training partner seemingly at will. Given his age, MacDonald further enhanced his reputation as being the pretender to GSP’s welterweight crown.

For the Canadian fans in the stadium the performance of Mark Hominick in losing to Jose Aldo overshadowed the victory of Georges St-Pierre against Jake Shields. The deafening roar that accompanied the final minute of Hominick’s five-rounder, in which he ground and pounded Aldo, was in stark contrast to the boos GSP and Shields received as they closed out the main event.

The opening round saw Aldo combine a furious body shot with a thunderous leg kick over and over. Hominick started the second round faster and we saw evidence that his nickname ‘The Machine’, earned because of his incredible cardio, was genuine.

He’d also told anyone who listened that Aldo had never faced an elite level striker like him, which we began to see as Aldo swapped the leg kicks for takedowns. By the third round Aldo seemed tired and Hominick was now stuffing all attempts to take him down. Hominick was dropped in the third and again in the fourth by Aldo.

At the tail end of the fourth a ground and pound elbow of Aldo’s created a massive haematoma on the forehead of Hominick. It looked like he’d sprouted a second skull. Every time the camera angle changed on the 85 foot screens inside the stadium the enormity of the lump drew audible concern from the crowd.

However, this appeared to borne more out of a fear that the fight might be stopped than from concerns for the safety of Hominick. The crowd seemed to know there was no chance ‘The Machine’ would quit. Hominick was questioned by referee John McCarthy and the ringside doctor on two occasions about whether he wanted to continue. On both occasions the gutsy Canadian replied grimly, “Yes sir.”

In the fifth, having been rocked again, Hominick scrambled a takedown and wound up in the open guard of Aldo. For the last minute or so, fuelled on adrenaline and crowd encouragement, Hominick waded into the side and skull of Aldo but to no avail. Even with the blows raining down, the Brazilian looked relaxed and happy to see out the clock.

Unquestionably, for the most part because of Hominick’s perseverance, this was a deserving recipient of the Fight of the Night bonus.

Talented

The final tilt didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. Georges St-Pierre is the most talented and tactical fighter in the UFC and there’s not a welterweight in the world that can beat him. His risk-averse strategy is to be content with a decision win rather than to risk getting caught chasing a finish.

He went head hunting early in the fight with looping overhand rights that wobbled Shields on occasion. But an eye injury sent him back into scorecard mode as he repeatedly told his seconds between rounds he couldn’t see out of his left eye.

Jake Shields is an elite level fighter on the ground but doesn’t yet have the tools to finish a fight standing – which causes a problem if you can’t get the fight to the mat as we saw in Toronto. He hits harder than most though, and he bust up GSP’s face worse than GSP did his.

With two judges scoring the fight 47-46 to GSP it may have been a closer contest than Shields’ corner thought. Shields was told by his corner at the end of the second round that it was too early to pull guard in an attempt to get the fight on floor.

Hominick and Shields justified their title shots and will probably feature back in the title picture very shortly. Machida and Henderson put their hands up for respective title shots in the future. Everyone else on the card provided quality action befitting the record breaking night.

Results

Pablo Garza defeated Yves Jabouin via submission (flying triangle choke) at 4:31 of round 1.
John Makdessi defeated Kyle Watson via KO (spinning back fist) at 1:27 of round 3.
Jason MacDonald defeated Ryan Jensen via submission (triangle choke) at 1:37 of round 1.
Ivan Menjivar defeated Charlie Valencia via TKO (elbow and punches) at 1:30 of round 1.
Claude Patrick defeated Daniel Roberts via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).
Jake Ellenberger defeated Sean Pierson via KO (punch) at 2:42 of round 1
Rory MacDonald defeated Nate Diaz via unanimous decision (30-26, 30-27, 30-26)
Ben Henderson defeated Mark Bocek via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Vladimir Matyushenko defeated Jason Brilz via KO (punches) at 0:20 of round 1.
Lyoto Machida defeated Randy Couture via KO (flying front kick) at 1:05 of round 2.
José Aldo defeated Mark Hominick via unanimous decision (48-45, 48-46, 49-46) to retain the UFC Featherweight Championship.
Georges St-Pierre defeated Jake Shields via unanimous decision (50-45, 48-47, 48-47) to retain the UFC Welterweight Championship