Who’ston?, Lucky Diaz, Hamill Returns, Karo Falls, Maynard Decides, and Florian Ends Fights

8 second knockouts, ground and pound referee stoppages, impressive Jiu-Jitsu, and it was all free; what else could a MMA fan ask for? UFC Fight Night 13 delivered the goods at a great price tonight on Spike TV at 7PM EST. Although the program was a little long, which was expected, there were a few extra boring segments which made me pause my DVR and take a walk before returning to some MMA action. Spike TV doesn’t offer anything in HD as far as I know, but the surround sound did a decent job of making up for the poor visuals as I could hear the crowd everywhere in the room. Let’s get to the good stuff – here are some overall thoughts on UFC Fight Night 13.

The opening fight was a slugfest – all eight seconds of it. Both men walked in the cage looking pretty ripped and ready to throw down. But, unfortunately for the fans, Houston Alexander got dropped by James Irivin in the opening seconds of the first round. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but Alexander was dazed and he couldn’t protect himself fast enough before the fight was stopped. He was not happy with the results and called the stoppage “crap.” I couldn’t disagree more – he was done.

Kurt Pellegrino vs. Nate Diaz was a great showing for the BJJ fans as Pellegrino completely dominated Diaz on the ground for the first round. The fight should have been ended when Pellegrino landed more than a half of a dozen unanswered shots to Diaz’s face, but referee Herb Dean must have missed the action and the fight continued on. Round two was similar as Pellegrino continued to dominate until he slammed Diaz and fell with one arm in and one arm out of Diaz’s legs; prime Triangle position. Diaz simply wrapped his legs, lifted his arms in the air and acted like he did something. The post-fight interview confirmed that Diaz still didn’t realize that he was simply lucky – he should have thanked Pellegrino for falling into that perfect choke in the second round because he did nothing throughout the fight.

Matt Hamill returned to the octagon up against semi-local (to me, at least) Lock Haven wrestler Tim Boetsch. While Boestch did a nice job of controlling the fight, he made a mistake by trying for a single leg for much too long, leaving himself wide open to Hamill’s hammer-fists and punches to the side of his face. Hamill was able to get Boetsch to open up and he walked away with the knockout win.

I have nothing really against Karo Parisyan except he’s a boring fighter who can’t seem to end a fight anymore. I was hoping he would do something up against Thiago Alves instead of dragging us through another 15 minute snore-fest towards a boring decision win. He couldn’t even do that as Alves landed a nice knee in a quick clinch that forced Parisyan onto the canvas where a barage of rights ended the fight. Parisyan expressed his dissatisfaction with the loss as he pouted throughout the octagon. The Heat just got cranked off for the remainder of the year, hopefully.

Gray Maynard against Frankie Edgar proved to be a back and forth bout which alternated between slugging and takedowns. Maynard seemed to be dominating on the ground which was no surprise, but the standup war went back and forth between both fighters. At a few points during the fight, it looked like a boxing match as both men did nothing was trade back and forth. I heard the cornermen well above the crowd during the fight even with decent action in the cage. The fight went to the judges where Maynard took the fight via unanimous decision (30-27).

The main event; Kenny Florian and Joe Lauzon. Before the fight, I was thinking that either guy could take this fight. Both are on fire in MMA kill streak and although both guys look like huge nerds, they could certainly take you out if they wanted to. Lauzon looked like a serial killer as usual while the Florian corner came out in full black rimmed glasses and Boston snap caps. We also learned that Cecil Peoples was one of the judges – letting him decide this fight would just be disastrous. And the battle of Boston turned out to be just that. After the fight was momentarily stopped due to Florian cutting the back of Lauzon’s head with elbow strikes from the bottom, the action resumed throughout the first round with submission attempts and amazing back and forth Jiu Jitsu action. The second round had Luazon fully mounted an barely able to keep Florian from ending the fight on numerous occasions before the fight was ended at 3:28 of the second round. Although I was disapointed at the ending of this fight considering Luazon was just dodging the strikes from Florian while Herb Dean looked on for quite a while, Florian certainly ended another fight on his way to fight for the Lightweight belt.

Overall I though UFC Fight Night 13 was a great free show. There was one thing that I would like to see changed in the near future, however, because if Spike TV wants to show off some great MMA action, they need a HD feed. After watching MMA on HDNet Fights, I felt like television technology went back 20 years when I started watching Fight Night 13. There’s nothing there that I could fault the UFC with, but hopefully they pressure Spike TV into putting some money into their network for some great high definition UFC action. I give UFC Fight Night 13 a 8/10 overall.