Cagewriter - UFC

Maybe Dana White needs to dial down the rhetoric when describing Ultimate Fighter winners in the future. The UFC's president went nuts upon seeing Phillipe Nover on the show as he steamrolled the competition. One little problem, it's a cast of up and comers. Nover looking for win No. 1 in the UFC entered the cage against veteran Kyle Bradley and walked with his second straight loss but it wasn't exactly crowd pleasing.

Nover got the worst of a clinch with Kyle Bradley just 57 seconds into the fight and was thrown to the ground. Bradley followed Nover to the mat and smashed him with a right hand. Nover (pictured) got to his hands and knees where he was drilled by a right hand that dropped him face first on his shoulder for a split second. He bounced right up to his knees and then rolled to his back. Meanwhile, referee Yves Lavigne was tackling Bradley to stop the fight. That was it at the 1:03 mark.

Lavigne ended the fight leaving both fighters completely stunned. The crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena went ballistic:

"What are you booing," said Bradley, as he spoke in the cage with UFC color voice Joe Rogan. "All I did was throw hard punches. All I did was try to win the fight."

Bradley (14-6, 1-2 UFC) said he thought the stoppage was warranted:

"I can understand, he was in a bad spot. He did go limp (but) he did get quickly to his back. The next shot might've broken his jaw."

Rogan and UFC play-by-play voice Mike Goldberg flipped out on the telecast. Once Rogan got into the cage and saw some replays, he backed off his claim that it was a terrible stoppage. Nover (5-2-1, 0-2 UFC) accepted the stoppage with grace.

BARRY NEEDS A LOT OF WORK ON THE GROUND

Pat Barry has been building quite the reputation around the UFC. He brutalized Dan Evensen in his first fight at UFC 92 with a series of leg kicks that made his opponent quit. Barry is the rare athletic striker in the heavyweight division who can execute a nasty head kick. He drilled Tim Hague early with a head kick off his lead leg and then got him again less than 30 seconds later with a right head kick. He also nailed Hague with a left that the Canadian thought broke his nose.

But for all the hype, we still didn't know if Barry, a kickboxer, could handle himself on the ground. He can't.

Barry got a little cocky after 80 seconds of dominance and threw a wild right hand.  Hague ducked and scored a takedown. Barry immediately gave his back where Hague, in his 11th MMA fight, slapped on a choke. Barry (4-1, 1-1 UFC) was forced to tap at 1:42 of the first.

digg delicious
more

4 Comments

Post a Comment
  1. DS
    1. Posted by DS Sat May 23, 2009 9:49 pm EDT

    Report Abuse

    "...dropped him face first on his shoulder..."
  2. Dustin M
    2. Posted by Dustin M Sun May 24, 2009 1:21 am EDT

    Report Abuse

    I was trying to figure out why the crowd kept booing Yves Lavigne during the PPV. For a minute there I thought that perhaps he had raped a small dog while strangling a toddler the way they were booing him, heh.
  3. Louie
    3. Posted by Louie Sun May 24, 2009 9:17 pm EDT

    Report Abuse

    still no luck for nover, back to the drawing boards, needs more training IMO, and eat that humble pie and remove that impression that white gave him that he is that good and maybe focus on winnig a foght for once, and god please stop wearing that sunglasses you look like a fool after wards just hit the floor again and lose for goodness sakes
  4. Shaun T
    4. Posted by Shaun T Tue May 26, 2009 10:29 am EDT

    Report Abuse

    Yes Nover lost the fight, but enough of Yves Lavigne please... Every PPV it seems this guy just isn't a good ref.

Cagewriter

Add to My Yahoo! RSS

Steve Cofield

Cagewriter is an MMA blog edited by Steve Cofield. Email him, and follow him on Twitter.

Contributors:
Maggie Hendricks, Zak Jensen,

Y! Sports Blogs

Cagewriter Recent Readers