UFC 177 Aftermath: Don’t Judge An Event By Its Poster
Devoid of the original championship rematch between TJ Dillashaw and Renan Barao, UFC 177 transpired in front the champion’s home crowd in Sacramento, California. The event looked to limp in to action with the withdrawal of the Brazilian ex-champ, and Olympic wrestler Henry Cejudo but, as we saw, it isn’t always about the names.
With such a ‘weak’ card on paper, the show was fairly solid throughout and had some thoroughly impressive finishes. So what points are there to mull after last night’s (Sat. August 30, 2014) action?
You can’t pull a TJ Dillashaw on TJ Dillashaw
Bantamweight champ TJ Dillashaw was faced with a situation that rang true to his own experiences last night; he faced impromptu challenger Joe Soto in replacement of the poorly ex-champ Renan Barao, although the Bellator veteran took the fight on just 24 hours notice, it was a rather interesting and lively scrap.
It would have been a Cinderella story true to his own at UFC 173, had Dillashaw lost to “One Bad Mofo” (no, seriously), but “The Viper” showed he can really dig deep once again. After being hit hard a few times, Dillashaw entered the fifth pretty busted up. Props to the challenger for being so game, but you can’t pull a Dillashaw on Dillashaw, it would seem.
A rose by any other name…
UFC 177 proved that it really has nothing to do with names, it’s all about what transpires on fight night. We in the media do like to make a noise about big names being withdrawn from main event slots, but this isn’t the only ‘poor’ card that has delivered massively this year. Perhaps it’s time we stopped damning events until after the fact.
UFC Fight Night 46 is widely regarded as one of the best cards in the promotion’s history. Had it been a PPV, it probably would’ve come under similar scrutiny to UFC 177 in it’s hype stage, as it turns out the card was aired free online. Lesson de jour – don’t judge a book by it’s cover or, perhaps more poignant, an event by it’s poster.
Bethe Correia doesn’t like Horsewomen
Brazilian “Pitbull” Bethe Correia continued her assault on the “Four Horsewomen” at UFC 177, by absolutely smashing Shayna Baszler to a second round TKO. Baszler, a team mate of women’s bantamweight boss Ronda Rousey, was favorite heading in to this scrap, but was rather less good looking in the aftermath.
That’s 2-0 for Correia against the “Horsewomen”, having battered heavy favorite Jessyman Duke at UFC 172 in April. Keep an eye out for “The Pitbull” in the near future, as it would appear that there is beef with “Rowdy” builidng….but that’s another story.
Props
UFC 177 props go to Lorenz Larkin for losing his third in a row, going 1-4 overall thus far in the UFC and likely becoming the single worst Strikeforce cross-over. Carlos Diego Ferreira and Ramsey Nijem put on a great fight on the main card, Yancy Medeiros pulled an original bully move and submitted Damon Jackson before taking his lunch money, and Chris Wade has to get props for his modified choke over Chris Carrizosa after just 72 seconds.
Banner image by USA Today Sports
