My Thoughts on UFC:133 Evans vs. Ortiz

I was excited for this card, especially the main event and I was VERY pleased with the outcome. I really didn't want Ortiz to win and the second he had Evans trapped in a guillotine I was screaming at the TV. Luckily Evans escaped and continued to punish Tito for the rest of the round right up until the second he drove his knee into the already weakened Ortiz and punished him with a few more power punches, awarding himself with the TKO stoppage at 4:48 of round 2.

The second I saw Evans come out of his corner I knew he was gonna win, I could see it in the way he was moving, he was confident and well prepared,Ortiz in my eyes looked to be in pretty good shape but not as good as he was in his prime. Evans was better in every direction that the fight went, when he got taken down he quickly got back up and worked the clinch successfully and then later on lifted Ortiz and dumped him onto the canvas, which was massively impressive.

Dominating Ortiz

Evans has been heavily criticized since his fight with Forrest Griffin but I think he may have redeemed himself after spending 15 months out of the cage. I wasn't a big fan of Rashad before the fight, but after his impressive performance how can I not be a fan?

So what about the co-main? Belfort vs. Akiyama! What a great match up, I really did not expect it to go down the way that it did. Belfort was destroyed very early in his fight against Anderson Silva and I thought that may have been the last we saw of him, however I was pleased to see him back and fighting another great middleweight prospect in Akiyama. In a way I was sad to see Akiyama get beaten the way he did, but to see Vitor back on form like that was incredible, he swarmed all over Akiyama like flies on a dead animal, it was fast, it was vicious and it was Vitor! Just like in his prime!

I was shocked when I saw Dennis Hallman walk out in the tightest pair of speedos that have ever disgraced the octagon, but you can't deny that it was brave. Ebersole is not a fighter to take lightly, he improves with every fight and he finished off Hallman in a quick, effective fashion, landing himself a heft 70k bonus for getting those ugly pants off TV (said Dana White).

Tighty whitey's, now banned

The fighter I was most impressed with was Rory McDonald. He came out with a really solid game plan and worked on Mike Pyle for the entire first round, landing himself a TKO stoppage just shy of 4 minutes of the first round. I expect big things in the future of McDonald.

Future champion, McDonald

Now for the sad part. Matt "The Hammer" Hamill was stopped in the second round in his fight against Alexander Gustaffson, pushing him into retirement holding a relatively sound record of 10-2 with wins over his Ultimate Fighter coach Tito Ortiz, Mark Munoz and Keith Jardine (also the only person to hold a win over Jon Jones that is often discounted as Jones was disqualified for delivering illegal elbows). After the event Hamill admitted that his body had been put through a lot of punishment in training over the years but he will still continue to coach.