Ok, now for my thoughts on the fights.
Ortiz/Little Nog - Not very surprised by the outcome, but I was glad to see Tito not making excuses for the loss, I don't care if he ever fights again after this. Little Nog adds another notch to his belt but doesn't move in the rankings any, I think he'd get handled by most of the LHW's in the company.
Mir/Big Nog - I had Mir winning it till that knee and right/left combo had his stumbled. Anyone saying Herb Dean warning Nog about the blows to the back of the head was bullshit needs to go back and rewatch the fight, Nog landed 4 or 5 shots clearly to the back of Mir's noggin. However if I was the ref I probably would have stepped in and ruled it a TKO at that point. When Nog stopping punching and went for the guillotine, I seriously thought Mir was totally out already and this would be a simple formality, but after rewatching the fight I saw that as soon as Nog flipped him over, Mir wrapped his legs around Nog and was defending. I'm not sure if Mir was just dazed or if he was out and the punches brought him back around, either way it took a lot to survive that flurry. Then we have the short series of reversals and the amazing finish with Mir breaking Nog's arm, I'd say this is front runner for comeback of the year next to Kongo/Barry. Maybe now the fanboys will STFU about how Mir's first victory was a fluke.
For Big Nog, I'd say he should retire. Like many veterans he has nothing left to prove at this point, not only is now looking at another major surgery and long layoff, but I don't see him being more than an aging gatekeeper after this.
For Mir, if he is indeed fighting Lesnar in 3 weeks, I'll be pulling for him. If he's not fighting at 141, I'm not sure who else to put him in there with other than Cain despite him coming off a loss. Mir's already beaten guys like Kongo and Nelson and even if Carwin wasn't on the shelf for the next year I don't see a rematch ending any differently. We'll see what happens in the next couple of days.
Jones/Machida - As expected, Machida was the toughest test to date, but it sure wasn't much of a test. Lyoto obviously did his homework and did well avoiding kicks and managing to get inside and land a few shots on Jones in the first round, and I scored that round for him, but it was by a thin margin because neither fighter did very much. It was nice to see that Jones did not try most of his flashy moves and was able to take a couple solid shots to the chin without crumbling. Part way through round 2 you see that Jones can adapt on the fly when he stops working from long range and closes the distance to start working from the clinch and going for takedowns, and from that point on the match was all Jones. Once he had Lyoto down and cut him with those elbow strikes, Machida looked very tired and a lot slower than he was just a minute before. It was shocking to see Lyoto get manhandled like that and even more shocking to see him get submitted before falling to the mat like a wet bag of shit.
For Lyoto, I say have a rubber match with Shogun and I'm not even sure he deserves that much. He took a gift title shot and did the best he could but still came up way short, being 1-3 in his last 4 now makes me think that at his age he'll probably spend the rest of his career ranked around #5, a good fighter but not good enough to beat the champ.
For Jones, I want to see him take on Rashad NOW, fuck his match with Davis, this needs to happen ASAP. Rashad is healthy right now so just give Jones a month or two off and schedule the fight for March or April. After tonight I think Evans has even less of a chance of beating Jones than I did before, but I still think it's better shot than anyone else in the top 10 has.
