UFC Fight Night: Rozenstruik vs. Gaziev

[jipped genes]

Heavyweight	Jairzinho Rozenstruik	vs.	Shamil Gaziev
Light Heavyweight	Vitor Petrino	vs.	Tyson Pedro
Flyweight	Alex Perez	vs.	Muhammad Mokaev
Middleweight	Eryk Anders	vs.	Jamie Pickett
Bantamweight	Umar Nurmagomedov	vs.	Bekzat Almakhan
Flyweight	Matt Schnell	vs.	Steve Erceg

A few good fights on this card that mean nothing in the division but will be fun to watch.

Tyson Pedro, Alex Perez, Anders vs Pickett, and Matt Schnell always deliver.

 

[MR. BMJ]

Yea, some up-and-comers, but their opponents are meh. I think the Schell/Erceg fight may be good. Umar and Mokaev will probably run through their opponents.

There is no wiki page for Shamil, don't know anything about him. Rozenstruik doesn't excite me at all, he is a gatekeeper for the HW division. Surprised he is headlining to be honest.

I can't remember Alex Perez for some reason.

 

[schultz1]

This will most likely be one of the few fight nights I do not watch.

 

[MR. BMJ]

The undercard is on right now. The main card starts at 4pm eastern....so 1pm on the west coast.

Oliveira vs. Sopaj on right now, which is one of the fights Dana picked as one to watch. They are really talking both of these guys up, especially Sopaj, who is from Albania. Oliveira is from Brazil.

 

[MR. BMJ]

Holy crap, this is a great fight! Sopaj took round one, Oliveira probably round 2!

 

[MR. BMJ]

Great fight and ending! So Sopaj was pretty dominant the until the middle of the 2nd round, he almost had Oliveira out, or rather the ref to stop the fight because he was flattened out a few times and getting pounded on. Sopaj made a mistake on the ground and Oliveira took top control and started pounding back on Sopaj, lol. By the end of the round, Sopaj was spent. Beginning of the 3rd round, Sopaj was still tired and Oliveira was picking him a part with calf kicks, all kicks, and punches. Oliveira has a sloppy standup, but he was looking for a highlight real and bonus check. He kept hitting Sopaj with huge shots and with just around a minute or less in the round, he hit Sopaj with a final calf kick and an overhand-looping left that staggered Sopaj back to the cage and Oliveira KO'd him with a flying knee to hell. LOL!

Sopaj was out for a long time afterward. He got uip to his feet and had to be helped out by his team before the announcement of Oliveira winning. Sopaj was super cocky at the weigh-ins and face-offs before the fight. Both have good potential, and Sopaj may be the better fighter, but he got tired and then got worked. It should hopefully humble his ass. He will be on all the highlight reels from here on out getting KO'd, LOL!

Anders/Pickett up now. Pickett is retiring after this fight,.

 

[MR. BMJ]

Anders won 29-28 IIRC on all cards. It was a meh fight. Not bad, just kind of boring.

Main card coming up next.

Schnell vs. Erceg up to open the card.

 

[MR. BMJ]

Erceg won early 2nd round via a big left hook that KO'd Schnell. No f/u punches were even needed. 1st round was close and fun to watch, Erceg won that round as well though.

Umar vs Bekzat up next. Never heard of Bekzat so we'll see. He's 11-1 and from Kazakhstan.

 

[MR. BMJ]

Umar won by unanimous decision all 3 rounds by just wrestling. He never really did any damage, just the usual top pressure style of fight that those guys do. Umar got rocked at the beginning of the the first round. He stated he got KO'd and woke up under Bekzat's leg, lol. Bekzat overcommitted when he hurt Umar and after that it was pretty much all wrestling by Umar.

That said, and as much as Umar was dominate, this Bekzat kid is really good. It was his first UFC fight and he was supposed to debut on Dana White's next season of the Ultimate Fighter. He made Umar work for the win.

PEREZ vs. MOKAEV up next.

 

[MR. BMJ]

Mokaev won 29-28 on all 3 judges' cards. It was a close fight, but Mokaev stated he was very sick this morning (day of fight). He looked less dominate so maybe that is the reason, but who knows. Perez looked good, but he just had a low offensive output. He was able to nullify most of Mokaev's takedowns. I'm fine with the decision. It was a really good technical fight.

PETRINO vs. PEDRO up next. <----co-main event. Petrino is undefeated. This was the other fight Dana White stated to watch.

This has been a pretty decent day of fights so far!

 

[MR. BMJ]

Petrino won via an uneventful unanimous decision. I was starting to doze-off during some of it....Tyson Pedro announced his retirement.

Main Fight up next. I have serious doubts about it being eventful too, unless Gaziev has something to show Gaziev is a Dagestani fighter.

 

[MR. BMJ]

Rozenstruik won via ref stoppage....or rather Gaziev not wanting to fight between the 4th and 5th rounds. I kept falling asleep during the fight, but woke-up in the 4th round when I heard the announcers get somewhat excited from action after Rozenstruik started opening up on the standup. Gaziev could not takedown Rozen.. so he got peppered most of the fight in the standup from Rozen's jab. I guess Rozen has been working on his TD defense. Gaziev got him down in the first round, but he did not do much damage. So he won the first round I believe.

Gaziev mentioned he could not see so the Mark Goddard stopped the fight. There was commotion in Gaziev's corner and he overheard the arguing and had to ask a translator what they were saying. When he found out, he called the fight. It did not appear to me that Gaziev could not see, he looked more mentally defeated than anything, like he quit and didn't want to be there. Not all sure what happened.

Neither guy will be much of a force for the title. Pathetic main card fight, imo. Gaziev was way bigger than Rozen, but just no power. If Rozen can keep it standing, he may have a chance against other top guys....but meh.

The fights leading up to the co and main fights were all good, the final 2 fights were a snoozefest.