UFC Rio Recap

January 19, 2012 by Editor In Chief

Great night of fights!On the undercard, I thought Gabriel Gonzaga looked awesome. Really happy to see him getting back to his BJJ skills. Hopefully, we'll see him step up against some of the top competition in the heavyweight division. The knockout from Barboza was one for the highlight reel. That was vicious and I loved it!

The heel hook from Palhares was executed beautifully. I'd like to see Palhares get bumped up into a tougher level of competion and see if he can hang with some of the top-10 guys. It's tough to classify him as a top 10 fighter at middleweight, but with his body size and those leg locks, he's got a chance at catching anyone of the top guys on any given night. 

The Vitor Belfort win was huge! After seeing Anthony Johnson direspect the entire sport by coming in so far overweight, I think the entire world was rooting for Vitor. I had predicted a Belfort win, but thought for sure that it would be with the hands. 

The Jose Aldo celebration capped off another great event in Brazil. The fight was exciting, but the post-fight celebration might have been even better. I've never seen anything like that before and thought it was a great way to celebrate with the hometown crowd. We knew Aldo would be tough, but I didn't expect his wrestling defense to just completely shut down Mendes. I think he looked awesome. I think Also is probably going to have to go up in weight class to get a good fight... of course, everyone is beatable -- but there really isn't a fight left for him at featherweight that looks interesting to me.

Regarding my predictions, I was 3-0 on guessing the winner, and had 1 of the methods of victory correct (submission by Palhares).