Weekend MMA awards

Date June 8, 2009

Two awesome MMA cards this weekend with StrikeForce Saturday night and WEC on Sunday. Instead of just repeating the winners, I’m going to hand out some personal awards in discussing the ramifications of the weekend.

Breakout superstar award: Jake Shields. Sorry Mike Brown, but Shields gets the nod for the simple fact that you couldn’t finish off a guy with one hand. Not only did Shields finish a guy with two hands, but he finished a top-5 middleweight in the world while making a 12-pound jump. Granted, Shields looked weak when Lawler easily stuffed Shields’ first takedown attempt, but the former Rumble on the Rock welterweight champion gathered himself, looked much better on his feet than any of the SHOWTIME announcers were giving him credit for, then saw his spot to lock on a wicked guillotine choke and before you know, Shields has a marquee win over Robbie Lawler.

The fight was at 182 pounds, 12 more than his natural weight of 170. Who wouldn’t kill to see Shields fight the winner of Thiago Alves/Georges St-Pierre which takes place in July? If GSP runs through Alves, Shields becomes the only viable guy to knock off GSP at 170. He might not be in the UFC, but with every win in StrikeForce, the clamoring for GSP/Shields only gets bigger and bigger, and makes his stardom that much greater.

Breakout star award: Brett Rogers. Shields became a superstar moments after Brett Rogers became a star after his devastating KO of former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski. Rogers gets a measure of respect he covets and a future title shot against Alistar Overeem is up next, but he’s not on the superstar level of Shields yet. While Shields suddenly is a viable contender to GSP, Rogers still hasn’t shown he could hang with heavyweight kingpin Fedor Emelianenko. Sure, his quick win over Arlovski is a HUGE one, but Arlovski took the fight on late notice, was focused on an upcoming boxing fight, and has always had a suspect chin. Wanna become a superstar Rogers? Beat Overeem convincingly and show off an all-around fight game. Show us you can do more than throw bombs. Make us believe you can go more than 2 minutes against Emelianenko. Do that, and you can become a heavyweight superstar in this sport.

Tough as nails award: Urijah Faber. Shatters his right hand in the first round and fight another 22 minutes or so one-handed against Mike Brown, the No. 1 145-pound fighter in the world. Faber might have this look of the pretty Cali boy who’s been the face of the WEC longer than anyone, but he proved he has just as much guts and toughness as any fighter out there. Broken hand? Fine, I’ll throw nothing but elbows with the right arm the rest of the fight. He last 4+ runs against the top guy with a broken hand, and heck, probably would have ended it in the fifth round with a choke if he could grip his hands together. He’s as exciting as there is and will be a big name in the fight game for a long time. Hopefully he can come back sooner rather than later.

Gained the most in a loss award: Phil Baroni. OK, I’ll admit to bias here because I always tend to lean towards people that have been a focal point of MMA in Hawaii and Baroni certainly was that when he made a name for Kala Kolohe Hose. Yeah, Joe Riggs was the better fighter and deserved to win, but that was a Baroni that we haven’t seen. That was a dedicated Baroni. That was a motivated Baroni. That was an in-shape Baroni that showed a ton of skills in fighting out of Riggs’ takedowns and reversing Riggs on the ground. It wasn’t just a hard-punching Baroni who gasses out after 3 minutes. He made for an entertaining fight and proved there’s a reason why he is still a main card fighter even though his record is 13-11.

Thanks for memories award: Jens Pulver and Kevin Randleman. As tough as it was seeing Randleman scared to throw more than 10 punches in 15 minutes against Mike Whitehead, watching Pulver last 33 seconds against someone named Josh Grispi was much worse. Pulver was a legend and absolute stud in his heyday and was the guy that beat B.J. Penn when nobody thought possible first. He wants to fight, he has the will to fight, and while the WEC did him no favors putting him in the cage against Faber twice, Grispi is another story. Don’t know if either fighter will be back (there’s always a chance since these guys need money), but I don’t want to see Randleman go through another 15-minute borefest again and we don’t need to see Pulver stopped in under a minute again either.

GREAT weekend of fights. Hope you guys didn’t miss it.

Category Posted in Fights