BlogKick: Don’t Judge the Card by its Cover

It only seems like yesterday when we were all tuning into UFC 117. Many hard core fans didn’t think this card would be very memorable or eventful, but it left us with a lifetime of great MMA memories. I can remember exactly the time and place during the event. At the time I was working at a Liquor Store / Pub in my neighbourhood. Being the kind of fan I am, even though I didn’t expect much from this card I still wanted to watch it anyway. I, like many of you didn’t have very high expectations of the event and let’s be honest we ALL expected Anderson Silva to paint the mat red with Chael Sonnen’s blood. I couldn’t concentrate at work; all I could think about is if The Spider will make the Oregon Politician eat every single word that came out of his mouth.

At 7PM PST we turned on the TV at work and that last three hours at work was the fastest to ever go by in my life. We all witnessed Roy Nelson become a human heavybag for three rounds, Matt Hughes submit a BJJ Black Belt, Clay Guida break someone’s jaw, and Jon Fitch molest another grown man. All of those moments were cool, but they were not the big “it” moments. Not even close to the moment simply known as “the triangle”.

I’m pretty sure you remember that moment; we witnessed five rounds of pure domination courtesy of Chael Sonnen. We’ve never seen or dreamed that Anderson Silva would be dominated in such a fashion; we didn’t even know Chael Sonnen was capable of such a performance. With the way things were looking, we were sure Silva was done, and at 3:10 of the fifth round he pulled through to submit Sonnen. Being able to witness that live was very special to me, a very historic moment for sure.

Now I’m not saying UFC 125 was as important as UFC 117, but we were treated to some good quality fights that really surprised and opened the eyes of many fans. The event for me was a bit bitter sweet seeing guys I enjoy watching lose in such fashion (Phil Baroni and Takanori Gomi), but we were treated to arguably one of the greatest Lightweight tilts ever seen in UFC history.

Gray Maynard Vs. Frankie Edgar was a fight that wasn’t supposed to be exciting. We were all expecting it to be sort of a lay and pray or jab and run snooze-fest. Instead we were treated to balls to the wall stand up, we saw slams, submission attempts, and great ground game. This fight had a little bit of something for everyone and for it to end in a draw just left us all wanting more. After watching that card, a thought came to me, and I realized something. We can’t really judge how good a card is, unless we see it. As a Combat Sports fan, we should try to open up our minds to these fights because we don’t know what we could be missing. Yes the cost of Pay-Per-View isn’t very affordable, but if you can find some sort of alternative method (I recommend going to the bar or pitching in with your friends for a PPV) you could be witnessing history in front of your very eyes. Forrest Gump’s mother said it best “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”

For the full UFC 125 image gallery please visit FoxSports.com