ugh! what a night for picks! I agree the Werdum/Vera fight was stopped too soon, but it seems like the refs were being extra vigilant with regards to following the rules. Probably a reaction to the horrible calls at the Elite XC event that was seen by a huge public audience. the double point deduction to Nate was aggrivating because the 'blows to the back of the head' were not blows to the back of the head and Nate dominated the fight. The knee to a downed opponent was bad. The point taken from Swick was harsh too, but the fighters were warned. IMO if the refs were strict with everyone it was fair, but it ruined the flow of the fights a bit. I can't get over how one dimensional Hughes looked. He looked bad in that fight. Swick doesn't appear to be half the fighter he was before being dominated by Okami and he appears to be weak at 170. Still the fights were entertaining and my two 'upset' picks of Swick and Werdum came through.. my boneheaded chance on Liaudin and Eddie Sanchez bit me in the ass though.. I coulda been over .500
here's who won the fight bonuses... not as big as previous events, but that may have to do with it being in the UK, where the UFC isn't making money yet. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Alves, Burns, Wiman and Tavares earn $50K UFC 85 bonuses Thiago Alves, Kevin Burns, Matt Wiman and Thiago Tavares each earned $50,000 "fight night" bonuses for their performances at UFC 85. MMAjunkie.com confirmed the list of winners and bonus amounts with our content partners at Yahoo! Sports. UFC 85 took place Saturday at the 02 Arena in London, England, and aired live on pay per view. The bonus amounts for the event dipped $25,000; winners previously received $75,000 bonuses last month at UFC 84. Thiago Alves, who failed to make weight for his main-event fight with Matt Hughes (due to a sprained ankle), dominated the former longtime champ for a second-round TKO. Alves used a flying knee and a flurry of punches to force the stoppage 62 seconds into the second round. It was the American Top Team fighter's sixth consecutive victory (and fifth straight win via knockout). Burns, a UFC newcomer who was a late replacement for Ryo Chonan, earned the Submission of the Night award. He forced Roan Carneiro to tap out from a triangle choke at 2:53 of the second round. The bout took place on the night's preliminary card, but the ending of the fight was featured in the night's pay-per-view broadcast. Wiman and Tavares picked up Fight of the Night honors for their back-and-forth battle on the night's preliminary card. Wiman survived a jarring punch to the jaw to score his own knockout moments later. The stoppage came at 1:57 of the second round. That bout also appeared via tape delay on the night's pay-per-view broadcast.</div>
One good thing the UFC has done so far this year.. show the undercard fights when there are long lulls or the main event ends early. Once again we got 3 undercard fights.. always glad to see that!
The Nate vs. Thales Leites, that knee was a big knee. I always feel like it's hard to compare 1 point to getting a blow like that on your opponent. Had Leites not received that blow I think he would have fought differently and I had him winning up to that point in time. Although it was still anyone's match. I kind of think the knee would have warrented a 1.5 point deduction (even those don't exist), just because Leites wasn't 100% after it and that helped Nate win the next 2 rounds. The 1 point deduction for elbow strikes to the back of the head was wrong. I hope the UFC does get a little stricter on the back of the head blows, just because I've seen fights where a guy strikes there hard like 5 times and it really affects the fighter and the fighter is mentally dazed and then gets messed up when they stand or doesn't defend himself properly to submissions. Yea Swick was pretty boring that fight, when standing up he wasn't really the aggressor and didn't push the pace much. For a majority of the fight he kind of just slowly wittled Davis away on the ground. Davis was aggressive on the feet, but didn't do much damage. Swick seemed to be saving his energy, and kind of let loose with 30 seconds left in the 3rd round. I think Alves is bigger than I thought, and he just had a lot more power. Hughes got hit some in the first round, and maybe that slowed him down some. When he did get Alves on the ground, Alves was too strong for him and stopped him from doing anything. Hughes landed awkwardly on his knee at the end.
