UFC 202 Review

What a night of fights happened last night. I just want to talk about four of the fights because I felt they were the most significant fights of the night. Now before I begin, I thought the women's fights were great and some tough battles going on in their respective weight classes. So let's begin

Atrem Lobov defeats Chris Avila 

This was a fight that I felt set the tone for what could be going down. I mean seriously look at this picture:

If you are wondering why I am showing you a picture of this, it is simple. Avila is the protege of Nate Diaz, you can clearly see in just this photo he takes after his mentor. With that being said, Avila had a lot of trouble with the best friend of McGregor. Avila opened himself up to a lot of leg kicks eventually slowing him down, and causing him to get tagged a few times from a stronger opponent in Lobov. Lobov was obviously more experienced than Avila but the fighting styles between these and McGregor and Diaz spoke volumes about what could happen in the upcoming fight.

Donald Cerrone defeats Rick Story

Cowboy Cerrone needed to get this win at 170 over Horror Story, but Story would not go patiently into the night. It was pretty obvious that Story wanted to make sure Cerrone knew he was in a fight. But, it was good to see Cerrone at a healthy weight class beating Story to the punch and walking through his punches. Now I will say this Cerrone definitely put his combos together well and this one was the beginning of the end:

After the fight Joe Rogan talked about how well Cerrone looked at 170 but Cowboy had other plans, he wants the belt that Eddie is holding at 155 and I think he has the skills to go get it. I hope we get to see this fight at UFC 205 if not, then lets get it on next year.

Anthony Johnson defeats Glover Teixeira

Imagine if you will, you are the number 2 fighter in your weight class. Imagine you wanting to prove to the world you should be number 1. However, imagine the number 1 guy is Anthony "Rumble" Johnson and he has scary knockout power. That is what Glover learned last night, I mentioned it last week about the KO ability to Rumble and in 13 seconds he showed the world again what he is capable of doing. Sort of looked like this:

Also after this fight Anthony then called out DC and says he wants the belt. DC and Rumble fought once before with DC dominating the fight. Let's see if he can do it again. Again this would be a fight I would like to see happen at UFC 205, especially because Rumble took no damage in this fight.

Conor McGregor defeats Nate Diaz

Let's go ahead and call it, what it was last night. It was a redemption for Conor McGregor. He needed to win this fight and it happened.  But, the judges on the cards went to show their was so much money that could be made if a third fight happened. However, Conor did show why he was not to be taken lightly. Yes, he had a full camp; yes, he was able to make adjustments that he was not able to make in the first fight; Yes, he utilized his leg kicks tons more than he did in the first fight. These were things that ultimately ended up helping McGregor win the fight.
In the first two rounds McGregor was able to knock down Diaz three times.

Now all of the leg kicks Diaz was eating, may have been the reason why as he could not continue to put weight on his lead leg.

McGregor has a bigger problem to deal with and that is his stamina. McGregor fights at a pace his body can not handle. At the end of the second round, all of the third round, and the first half of the fourth round McGregor was gassed and just hoping for a second wind to kick in, which he got. Diaz was able to capitalize on the moment and almost put away McGregor at the end of the third round:

McGregor stayed as composed as he could but, would eventually turn his back to Nate Diaz and walk away from the fight to get some air, Diaz would laugh and point at him but, I do not think Diaz could have ran up on him because of all the damage his lead leg took.

To me though I felt that Nate Diaz had won rounds 2,3,5 especially with McGregor being pushed on the cage and almost finished in round 3 and taken to the ground in round 5 and the ground and pound game almost put him out. Here is the punchlines for the fight:

I am curious to see if there will be a Rubber Match between these two, McGregor said he would do it again but only at 155 and when Nate is ready. Nate said he is ready anytime and is willing to fight anywhere. I am curious to see where the suspensions lie on Monday. McGregor did break his foot last night with the volume of kicks he threw at Nate. Also, Nate is going to need some time to heal because his face got dominated last night. What I think should happen is McGregor let's the belt go and moves up to 155 and begins his new quest if he wants to fight Diaz at that weight class. Also wasn't it McGregor who demanded a rematch at 170? I was curious to see why he asked Diaz to move down to 155 when this whole time they could just do another match at 170. Oh well.

Let me know what you thought of the fight and remember you can follow me on twitter @cm_miller85 or @getthekoblog. Also if you want to write me an email and ask him questions getthekoblog@gmail.com. Hope to hear from you and we have some great fights getting ready to gear up, to include my favorite heavyweight makes his return to the UFC after losing at UFC 200 TRAVIS "HAPA" BROWNE!!!