The MMA Minute – UFC 116 Aftermath

The greatest heavyweight fighter of all time fell last week to a triangle armbar submission. This week the two best heavyweights the UFC has to offer went toe to toe and one of them was bound to be knocked out. So of course that’s not how it turned out!

Quick Recaps

• Heavyweight Championship bout:  Brock Lesnar (c) vs  Shane Carwin (ic) – Lesnar wins by Arm Triangle Choke at 3:52 of the 2nd round.

Win or lose Lesnar was going to walk away from tonights fight with 10 times more money than Carwin. Carwin owned the first round, taking the fight to Lesnar in a big way, but he completely punched himself out and Lesnar managed to survive into the 2nd round. Lesnar easily took Carwin down early in the 2nd and was able to keep the fight there for the rest of the round until he submitted him to hang on the the belt. Lesnar probably gets Cain Velasquez next in a title fight.

• Middleweight bout:  Yoshihiro Akiyama vs.  Chris Leben – Leben wins by Triangle submission at 4:40 of the 3rd round.

Leben is an old fashioned brawler, and when he found out Akiyama almost turned him down as a fill-in fight, he wasn’t too happy. After trading punch for punch for the length of the fight, Leben caught Akiyama in a triangle submission. Not only does he pull off the upset, he does it via submission instead of his regular KO punchout.

• Welterweight bout:  Chris Lytle vs.  Matt Brown – Lytle wins by Armbar submission at 2:02 of the 2nd round.

Lytle sunk in a sweet mounted triangle and worked in a straight armbar forcing Brown to verbally submit. I don’t really see either of these guys being close to title contention, but neither are close to being forced out of the UFC either. Lytle moves up the ladder.

• Light Heavyweight bout:  Krzysztof Soszynski vs.  Stephan Bonnar – Bonnar wins by TKO (strikes) at 3:08 of the 2nd round.

Stephan Bonnar may have been in one of the most exciting fights in UFC history, but he went into tonight knowing it was ‘do or die’. He caught Soszynski with a flurry and a knee to the chin late in the 2nd round and held onto his UFC eligibility for at least another fight or two. Soszynski was fighting better, but Bonnar fought back to take this back and forth ordeal.

• Lightweight bout:  George Sotiropoulos vs.  Kurt Pellegrino – Sotiropoulos wins by unanimous decision.

Sotiropoulos talked about wanting to win Fight of the Night against Pellegrino, but at least he came away with the win to move up the ladder in the lightweight division to stay in position for a possible title contender shot.

So in the end, I again had a disappointing night, going 2-3 on the night with my picks. Carwin showed he had what it took to stand in with the champ, but he’d never been out of the 1st round, and it showed. All in all it was a decent night of fights, but now we don’t have anything but a WEC event for the rest of the month.