April in Review
Posted by Fraser on May 5th, 2009
After a somewhat lackluster start to the year, April gave us a definite
abundance of high quality MMA action. Unfortunately, the month will
probably best be remembered by the lackluster UFC 97 featuring the much
reviled Silva v. Leites (a fight that I found highly entertaining,
personally) and the end of the Iceman. But there was a tremendous
amount of good. Let’s look at the highlights:
FIGHTS OF THE MONTH
Miguel Angel Torres v. Takeya Mizugaki
Scott Smith v. Benji Radach
Carlos Condit v. Martin Kampmann
Torres/Mizugaki was a strong fight of the year candidate and definitely
leads the pack. But both other fights were tremendous fun, with
Smith/Radach featuring the best comeback win since, well, Smith/Sell.
Dana White’s love for slugfests has given these sort of fights a bad
name, but when done right they can be tremendously entertaining, high
quality bouts. This definitely fell into that category. And with this
win, I officially am on board as a Scott Smith fan and look forward to
his next fight. Give me Smith v. Ninja.
SHOWS OF THE MONTH
Strikeforce: Shamrock v. Diaz
Dream.8
WEC: Torres v. Mizugaki
I know it’s all the rage to hate on EliteXC, but I quite enjoyed their
shows and have missed them this year. This Strikeforce show picked up
where EliteXC left off with an exciting, dramatic main event, a great
slugfest, and all around entertaining fights. When they are off, their
shows are terrible (Sapp v. Nortje anyone?), but their big shows tend
to deliver in a great way. I’m thrilled to see what the future holds
for them.
FIGHTERS OF THE MONTH
Miguel Angel Torres
Nick Diaz
Hayato Sakurai
All 3 of these fighters added significant wins to their resumes, but
perhaps none was as impressive as Sakurai. Beating Aoki is impressive,
but completely destroying him is something else entirely. Sakurai
looked like the top 10 fighter you want him to be, but as of late has
not been seen in his fights. I do hope we get to see him face Galvao
later in this tournament, as that is the only fight in this WW GP that
truly interests me.