What a night Saturday turned out to be, ladies and gents. We went into UFC 226 Saturday night with a lot of expectations, but after knockouts, submissions, some blood AND Brock Lesnar, it certainly lived up to the hype.
Before getting into all the awesomeness, I do want to apologize to everyone that read our 226 preview. I told you to have your popcorn ready for the Derrick Lewis/Franis Ngganou scrap. I should have told you to bring an alarm clock for what ended up being a snooze fest. It appeared that Lewis was having some trouble with his back (though the switch and head kicks he threw were breathtaking), but I’m not sure what was going on with Ngganou. The UFC Heavyweight Division is much more exciting with killer Francis looking to headhunt and he just wasn’t that guy on Saturday night. Admittedly, when you have two savages with this much power squaring off, there is some gun shy-ness and this fight was packed with that.
On the flip side of Lewis/Ngganou would be the insanity that was Paulo Costa/Uriah Hall. These two brought the pain especially Costa who got the TKO victory about midway through the second round. Early in the fight, Hall’s jab was eating Costa up, but that only kept the Brazilian at bay for so long. Costa would eventually bull up, eat those jabs, and get in close to Hall for some big boy power shots. Paulo moves to 12-0 now with 11 wins coming by knockout. If Uncle Dana could go ahead and book Costa vs. Israel Adesanya (14-0), that would be great.
For me, the fight of the night may very well have been Showtime Pettis/Michael Chiesa. Showtime needed a great performance and boy did he deliver. This was Showtime Pettis flowing once again and it was beautiful to watch. Pettis stunned Chiesa in the second round, then got the finish after some tough scrambling and jiu jitsu work. This was probably Showtime’s best performance since 2014. For Chiesa, this was a bummer of a day. He came in overweight and admitted this would be his last fight at Lightweight before being finished early in the second round. It’ll be interesting to see who both of these guys match up with moving forward.
Other than DC (we’re getting there) or Showtime, the guy that left feeling the best post-show may have been Mike Perry. His fight with Paul Felder had everyone in a frenzy though it wasn’t really the rock’em, sock’em we expected. It was a fun fight with Perry gashing Felder open with one of the strongest punches I’ve ever seen landed. But, the jump up in weight affected Felder’s style. He was still throwing that spinning shit. But, he just didn’t seem to be the same Paul Felder we’ve been blessed with at Lightweight. Still, that’s a big win for Perry and should open him up for another banger of a fight by early 2019.
Alright it’s time to talk DC/Stipe/Brock.
I expected DC to win this fight because of his track record. But, I didn’t see him winning the way he did. A short right out of the clinch put Stipe on his ass and after a couple of shots on the ground put DC in the discussion as the G.O.A.T. before we ever made it out of the first round.
Cormier is now 21-1 and is the second man to ever hold UFC titles in two different weight classes at the same time. So after beating the only man who held the record for most consecutive Heavyweight title defenses, what else is left to be done besides calling out the WWE Universal Champion?
I can’t lie we got pretty wild for this promo at the party I was at (shoutout Rob) but there was hella Modelo and delicious BBQ flowing so take that for what you will.
Once Brock actually made his way into the cage, shit was on, y’all. He mispronounced ‘Ngannou’ before calling him a piece of shit, which is funny on so many levels. Then, he threw down the gauntlet to DC. This match-up is super interesting from a wrestling standpoint and will be a huge PPV.
But, in all honesty, I’m counting down the days until we get DC/Braun vs. Jon Jones/Brock. Whether it’s in a cage or ring, that is the real money fight, y’all.
John Mosley is the independent wrestling and TV aficionado of the SoBros Network. He graduated from ETSU with a degree in Radio, TV and Film along with a minor in Film Studies. Since graduating he’s done pretty much nothing but watch, film, edit or commentate for local wrestling promotions and is the current color commentator for Resolute Wrestling. #Preds #Titans #DefendOrVacateConor – Follow on Twitter: @SoBroMose
Check out the SoBros Shop. Subscribe to our Patreon. Give us money for no reason. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @SoBrosNetwork. Listen on SoundCloud. Watch on YouTube.
