Surprised nobody commented about these: UFC Fight Night 53: Rick Story won against rising prospect Gunnar Nelson, dropping Nelson briefly with a sweeping roundhouse left hand at UFC 53. There were some entertaining fights in the prelims and the undercard. Max Holloway destroyed Akira Corassani with a sweet counter. The ref kind of blew it because Corassani hit the ground totally out and Holloway landed at least 4-5 punches on a clearly unconscious downed opponent from what I recall. Jan Blachowicz landed a thudding kick to the body and surprisingly blew away Ilir Latifi in front of his home crowd. I didn't think much of Jan initially when he lost to Sokoudjou, but he won the rematch and he stopped Latifi pretty convincingly. The two most definitive bouts in the prelims were the two Chechen fighters who sparked out their opponents: Zubaira Tukhugov stopped Ernest Chavez while Mairbek Taisumov demolished Marcin Bandel, and I mean DEMOLISHED. It was a one-punch droppage, and then Mairbek took a split second to adjust before landing a crushing right hand follow-up on the prostate Bandel. UFC Fight Night 54: Rory MacDonald picked apart and then gonged Tarec Saffedine, utilizing his reach and a crushing left hookercut in the 3rd round. He then pounced on Saffedine and pounded away mercilessly with HEAVY hooks to the head. In the early prelims, there's a guy to watch out for: Albert Tumenov. He landed a headkick that dropped his 6ft4 opponent, Matt Dwyer. Tumenov is 5ft10. After Dwyer got up, he ducked right into a second left headkick that landed right on his right cheekbone and nose. Tumenov is very heavyhitting with his hands and feet, and he pursues the knockout bigtime. As for the other standout, Pedro Munhoz got a nifty arm-in guillotine on Jerrod Sanders. Sanders is 135 and 5ft8, but he looks like he's 180. He's just massive at that weight, but it didn't help him in this bout.
looking forward to rory fight the winner of hendricks/lawler rematch. i think he stands a good chance of beating either guy.
Lawler beat him once already, but I bet Rory does much better in a rematch. I don't think Rory will peak for a few more years whereas Lawler is at the top of his game. As for Hendricks, it's an interesting fight but does Rory have what it takes to hurt Hendricks?
rory might have taken lawler lightly. he took his best shots and still got up to take lawler down at the end and finish the fight while on top. could've been a different fight had it been a five rounder. i think his speed might trouble hendricks, but it's hard to pick anyone against hendricks right now.
Hendricks and Lawler can both bang. Rory has shown a major tendency to play it safe when he faces an opponent with power. It lost him the fight with Lawler and created a boring win against Ellenberger. I think it goes back to getting KTFO in the Condit fight.
