UFC Fight Night 55 & 56 Aftermath: Records, Robbery & Heartache
Louis Smolka doing his part to break records at UFC Fight Night 55…..
The UFC came at us with another double header this past weekend (Fri/Sat November 7/8th, 2014) with UFC Fight Night 55 & 56 hitting out screens. Although the Brazil based card on Saturday didn’t live up to the performances in Australia the night before, each event has some interesting and somewhat serious points to be addressed.
First off…..
UFC Fight Night 55 record breaker
UFC Fight Night broke the all-time record for finishes on a card, and consecutive finishes at an event. Every one of the 11 scraps ended by T/KO or submission, and the LowKickMMA.com community thought that Luke Rockhold had the best finish of the night. So it was a great night for the fans to watch, but what does it say when possibly the best UFC card of the year was free, and not really that hyped?
Of course it encourages more fans to sign up to UFC Fight Pass, where the entire card was streamed, but you’d have to imagine that the PPV buyers may feel a little sore coming in to December 2014; Having watched every single UFC card this year, I feel that the three that stick out in my mind the most are UFC Fight Night 55, 45 & 46. Ultimately, it’s looking like PPV might be a thing of the past soon.
Robbery reported at the scene of Alves vs Jouban
Alan Jouban and Warlley Alves really delivered in their impromptu co-main event at UFC Fight Night 56, arguably putting in a FOTN performance, although they received no disclosed bonus. That aside, the judge’s decision rendered after the fight has sparked quite a debate in the time since the bout.
Alves appeared to tire massively half way through round two, and Jouban put a solid beating on the Brazilian in to the final bell in round three. Alves was awarded the decision, unanimously, and at a score of 29-28. How every judge awarded Alves the second round is beyond me, but perhaps patriotism played a role in their final scores?
Heart ache in Uberlandia
Once the main event finally started at UFC Fight Night 56, the fans present and at home were likely all feeling the same thing; let’s see Shogun Rua go get it. Unfortunately, this was simply not what happened. After a long night of semi-entertaining fights, I was hoping to see one of my favorite athletes come back and perform to his full potential, then this happened.
It seems that Rua has lost his fire, and he looked very slow and off-time in his fight (albeit 34 seconds) with Ovince St-Preux. His performances leaves many questions, but one thing is for sure; no-one wants to see an ageing legend get beat up. Tough to watch sums up the whole card, heart ache is what describes the main event.
Props go to Louis Smolka for channelling the inner Bruce Lee/Shawn Michaels to the chin of Richie Vaculik, Sam Alvey for winning by falling over, Caio Magalhaes for angriest finish, and to Charlie Brenneman for once again losing.
