UFN 17 Re-cap
Anthony "Rumble" Johnson vs Luigi Fioravanti
The first televised fight of the night featured Anthony "Rumble" Johnson vs Luigi Fioravanti. The first round started with Luigi trying to get inside to negate Anthony huge reach advantage. Luigi was doing a good job of landing a straight right whenever Anthony would throw a leg kick. A few of Luigi's right hands landed, and it looked like he might have stunned Anthony for a second with one of them. They clinched against the cage and Luigi lands a solid knee to Anthony's unmentionables. The ref calls time to let Anthony recover.
After the timeout they touch gloves. Luigi was not working as hard to get inside, and was in Anthony's dange zone. Anthony landed a big right hand that almost knocked Luigi down. Anthony pounces and lands several more good shots and the ref stops it for the TKO victory.
Mac Danzig vs Josh Neer
This was a strange fight. Josh Neer was showboating from the start, and showed absolutely no respect for Mac's punching power. Mac landed some decent shots and actually knocked Neer down with one of them. Mac jumped on top, but had to let Neer back to his feet while defending an arm bar.
The second round started the same way. Neer was showboating, then he got a take down. Neer showed no fear of a submission and landed lots of nasty elbows. I was surprised that Danzig survived all of them. It looked like Neer might have wore himself out from throwing all the the elbows, and Danzig reversed him and got on top. Danzig was working some ground and pound of his own, but he was either still woozy from the elbows(or got sloppy) and got caught in a triangle.
Josh Neer won, but made no new fans with all of the showboating.
Cain Velasquez vs Denis Stojnic
This fight was absolutely dominated by Cain. Denis did alright for the first 45 seconds, and then the only thing that kept him in the fight was his unbelievable chin, or could it be Cains lack of power. In the second round Cain landed a take down. Denis has no answer for Cain on the ground and turtled up. The ref stopped it after Cain beat on him for about a minute. I can't wait for Cain to fight someone like Heath Herring, so we can truly see if he is for real.
Matt Grice vs Matt Veach
The was the best fight of the night. These two MMA fighters swapped take downs and big punches until the ref stopped it way to early. They were trading back on forth win Grice landed a huge shot that dropped Veach. Grice got on top an landed lots of hard shot, but the ref let the action continue. Somehow Veach managed to get back to his feet and they started trading bombs again. This time it was Veach who landed the big shot and dropped Grice. Veach landed a few more shots and the ref stopped it.
I would have been okay with that, but when Grice had Veach in trouble, the ref let Grice beat on him for about 40 seconds. It looked to me that Veach was hurt more that Grice during that time, but the ref let it go. When Veach landed his shot the ref was stopping the fight less than 10 seconds later. Not cool and a very bad stoppage.
The Main Event was Joe Lauzon vs Jeremy Stephens
The first round has some good back and forth. Joe was way better on the ground than Jeremy and that is where he tried to keep the fight. When Jeremy has his chances he was doing some damage, but Joe was controlling him most of the time. In the second round Joe locked on an arm bar and for Jeremy to tap. Joe did a good job a making sure the fight took place where he was better than Jeremy.
