UFC 97 Review

The result of UFC 97

Main Card

• Light Heavyweight bout: Steve Cantwell vs. Luiz Arthur Cane

Cane defeated Cantwell via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27).

• Heavyweight bout: Cheick Kongo vs. Antoni Hardonk

Kongo defeated Hardonk via TKO (strikes) at 2:29 of round 2.

• Light Heavyweight bout: Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Brian Stann

Soszynski defeated Stann via submission (kimura) at 3:53 of round 1.

• Light Heavyweight bout: Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio Rua

Rua defeated Liddell via TKO (strikes) at 4:28 of round 1.

• Lightweight bout: Sam Stout vs. Matt Wiman

Stout defeated Wiman via unaninmous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).

• Middleweight Championship bout: Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites

Silva defeated Leites via unanimous decision (49-46, 48-47, 50-46) to retain the Middleweight Championship title.

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After writing out my prediction of UFC 97 couple weeks ago, my prediction was partially correct, but I didn’t expect this UFC event in Montreal can be so lame. I would like to say it is the worst ever. Especially the main event of the evening, where Anderson Silva fought 5 rounds straight (Championship bout is 5×5 minutes round) with lacking of his engagement and execution into the fight. Even though Silva won the fight by unanimous decision over Thales, he shouldn’t be proud of himself as all. Also, it is obvious that in order to make Silva into his only chance to win. UFC needs to push some of the more offensive fighters into the title contention picture, but it definitely has to be striker type fighter like Wanderlei Silva, but not BJJ type fighters like Thales and Damian Maia.

After UFC 97’s terrible main event, you can also tell that Thales is an one-dimensional fighter whose game plan is setting the trap to let his opponent to fall into, especially from where we can see him flop to the ground countless times to setup a Jiu jitsu game.  On the other hand, Silva lets Thales got up after everytime he flops seems like his intentions to make Thales looks bad, because if Silva is what so called pound-for-pound fighter, he should be able to finish Thales even though he is on the ground. Both fighters made the main event seems like a dancing game in the cage.

However, the co-main event is slightly better than the main event, at least you get to see the fighters trading punches and KO win by Shogun was pretty impressive and unpredictable. But it is kind of surprise to see it ended in the very first round, where Chuck barely touched Shogun. On top of that, Chuck Liddell’s retirement after the fight from UFC is also a big news in MMA world. But it is what it is in MMA world, after you lose for a few fights streak, you are out of this game. I’m never a Liddell’s fan, but I always enjoy watching him exchange with the fighter in the cage, therefore, it is kind of sad to see a legend leaving the ring like that.

On the post fight press conference of UFC 97, Dana White has come out publicly stating the matchup was “embarrassing” in an interview with Steve Cofield. The big question coming out of the interview and event is how the UFC should react, and what can be done to bolster a more exciting matchup for Anderson Silva.

The following is the video of Dana White’s apologize to the fans…

Dana White Apologize to UFC 97

“Silva embarrassed me, I wanted to leave” - Dana White