Too Much, Too Soon

By: Brian Lopez-Benchimol | Posted: Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 6:24 pm.

A tall order has been presented by the UFC brass in accordance to their “every fight is a tough fight” mandate.

We’ve seen it before with the earlier seasons of the “Ultimate Fighter” finalist’s being given the proverbial “gimme” fight with Forrest Griffin versus a middleweight Bill Mahood and gatekeeper extraordinaire Elvis Sinosic, it almost seems like nowadays Zuffa is just playing a sick, sick joke on its “TUF” alumni, case in point: James Wilks (among others).

In his first fight outside the “TUF” banner and onto the big stage, Wilks was presented with top contender and perennial bad-ass, Matt Brown.

Though the fight having taken place at UFC 105 in the U.K. was a tall order in itself, it ended up being something worthy of “Fight of the Night” honors (albeit for me to think that Denis Kang’s mental breakdown against Michael Bisping wasn’t worthy of such honors) it still ended in convincing fashion, with Brown mounted and delivering an onslaught of pain upon his English counterpart.

Twas exhibit A.

Exhibit B: We’ve got Ross Pearson against Aaron Riley, Joe Stevenson opposite Josh Neer, Ed Herman against Jason McDonald, Chris Lytle and Matt Hughes—do you get the picture?

And finally, the end all to be all, my inspiration for this particular piece being one of the more recent announcements in Season Eight Light Heavyweight winner Ryan Bader against top-something or other-fighter, Keith Jardine.

Now Jardine has seen better days, but are his best days behind him? I think not. He’s had his fair share of bad luck—blessed with a paper mache chin doesn’t necessarily help either. Squaring off consecutively against Chuck Liddell, Wanderlei Silva, Brandon Vera, Quinton Jackson and then Thiago Silva, is not hard to believe that you would win and lose some?

Though Bader’s ascension towards the division’s top pecking order is going unnoticed, due to his calm demeanor and lack of quality opponents—is still very much justified.

Bader had a very good showing against Vinny Magalhaes in the finals to claim “Ultimate Fighter” supremacy, but where is Vinny now? Working his way back to the “big show” after two poor showings.

Carmello Marerro? Haven’t seen him since the loss to Bader—a true lay and pray classic.

Though the early goings of his fight against Jujitsu practitioner Eric Schaffer looked impressive as “Darth” used heavy haymakers to rock “Ravishing Red” on several occasions, was never able to put him away. His lack of experience showed as Ryan appeared to be depleted of his gas tank, which is something outside the norm of most collegiate wrestlers.
Though he wields that one-punch put you down power, is that enough to warrant a fight against someone like Keith Jardine?

I guess we’ll see in the land down under.

Oi.

CATEGORIES:Editorial