TUF Finale: Low Expectations are Easy to Meet

I won’t say that last night was exciting, but I didn’t expect it to be. I didn’t expect to be impressed with Kendall Grove and Evan Tanner, both of whom were coming off losses (Grove was coming off two, and only on contract because he won TUF 3), and I wasn’t.

Still, in defense of the card, the places where it could deliver interesting fights, it did.

Dean Lister pulled a guillotine choke out of his big bag of submission grappling tricks, reminding us that he’s back in the UFC middleweight division, and beating Jeremy Horn at the weight where Horn belongs.

Rob Kimmons pulled a guillotine out to beat Rob Yundt in the first, and I was mildly impressed with Kimmons’ debut performance.

Matt Brown and Drew McFedries put up big wins over Matt Arroyo and Marvin Eastman (respectively). Eastman may only be a shadow of his former self, but McFedries would have beaten him then, too. Brown’s TKO of Arroyo let us know that he’s going to be one of the better pulls out of this last TUF season.

Diego Sanchez TKO’d Fioravanti with under a minute left in the third round. Sanchez beating a better fighter in the division is impressive, but what was more impressive was the headkick he put Fioravanti away with.

Spencer Fisher beat Jeremy Stephens by decision, and while the fight was slow, Spencer was decisive and showed that he is back after his loss to Frankie Edgar.

Amir Sadollah won the TUF title, beating C. B. in round one with a sloppy armbar after being controlled from the top. I won’t take the fight away from Sadollah because I wasn’t impressed with his submission skills, but C. B. is really responsible for screwing that fight up. Amir did a nice job taking advantage of it, but it’s not the kind of mistake a fighter in the UFC should be making.

The most disappointing fight for me was Rivera vs. Riddle. Both of them were talented as jiu-jitsu guys, and both showed terrible jiu-jitsu. Riddle made fundamental mistakes rolling for that armbar, mistakes that a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu bluebelt shouldn’t be making, much less a purple belt, and Rivera’s rubber guard would have made Eddie Bravo roll over in his grave, if he was dead.

The overall quality of the fight card was as low as I expected, but it didn’t go any lower. At least the bad card didn’t turn into a worse event. It could have been worse and, judging by the more recent UFC card, that’s a compliment.