I don’t usually watch a lot of MMA, but every once in a while I’ll catch and event and tonight was a free on Fox UFC Fight Night 58 from Barueri, Brazil whose main event was Lyoto Machida taking on C.B. Dollaway. The first fight saw Daniel Sarafian taking on Brazilian Antônio dos Santos Jr. The fight looked like it was going to be intense as both fighters were going at it in the first round delivering shots to one another. The match unfortunately ended in the second round when dos Santos dislocated his finger blocking a shot from Sarafian. He basically tried to stop the fight himself for a pause, but the referee called it. dos Santos should have known that you can’t stop the fight yourself, but as one of the commentators had stated, he must have experience with this because he popped the finger back into place very quickly. I’m sure this isn’t going to be the last time that we see him in the octagon and I’m sure Daniel Sarafian will be giving him a rematch.
In the second fight, Mike Rhodes never saw what was coming his way when he faced Brazilian superstar Erick Silva. Silva was coming back from a deviated septum injury he suffered at the hands of Matt Brown back in May, so you know he was looking for some redemption. Immediately when the bell rang, he hit Rhodes with a spin punch and then he took him down to the mat and after escaping a guilotine choke hold, Silva slaps on an arm triangle choke and he puts Mike Rhodes to sleep. Silva improves to 17-5 in his career. After a commericial break, The UFC announced that Quinton “Rampage” Jackson was returning to the UFC to compete once again and then they showed a video with him speaking.
The very next match in the night was between Russian Rashid Magomedov and the undefeated Brazilian Elias Silvério. Elias Silvério is a big time puncher in the lightweight division so he was looking to either score a win via punches or through some take downs and he failed to do both. Magomedov controlled the whole entire fight through his counter punching ability and he was a lot quicker than Elias Silvério. Silvério was only able to land a couple good punches on Magomedov with only one substantial one in the second round. The third round looked as if it was going to be a wash as both fighters after a while weren’t really throwing anything at each other and Elias Silvério was failing to get the take down. Then with less than 30 seconds left in the fight, Magomedov lands a big left hook after he blocked a shot from Elias Silvério and it Elias Silvério right on his rear end. Magomedov gets on top of Silvério and it’s elementary with the ground and pound and with three seconds left in the fight he referee stops the match. In my opinion, it didn’t matter much because I had Magomedov winning all three rounds. Congratulations to Rashid Magomedov on the TKO win and ending the undefeated record of Elias Silvério.
In the next fight which was a light heavyweight fight was between Patrick Cummings and Antônio Carlos Júnior. Whose strategy would it be to be on the mat getting pounded on for a whole entire fight just to try and get a submission hold? That is what it seemed like Júnior was trying to do against Cummings, but this fight was the case of a wrestler (Cummings) taking on a jiu jitsu master and getting the best of him because Cummings was constantly making it hard for Junior throughout the whole fight. Patrick Cummings won every round despite the late effort from Junior and the referees felt the same exact way I did. It was a great effort from a man who trained hard for the fight and he is going to be a terror in the light heavyweight division.
The next fight featured Bantamweights Renan Barão and Mitch Gagnon going head to head in Brazil in what promised to be a good fight. Barão was the number one contender for the Bantamweight title and a win against #14 ranked Gagnon could only further his cause for a title shot. At first the fight was kind of disappointing as both men were throwing shots and both tried to clench for take downs. Barão nailed Gagnon in the first round with a big punch that sent him to the canvas but he couldn’t finish. Throughout the fight, Barão was taking a lot of unnecessary shots from Gagnon, but it wouldn’t matter much as Barão was able to lock in a submission win in the third. With probably only a minute or so left in the third round, Barão took Gagnon to the mat and easily locked in an Arm triangle lock for the win as Gagnon tapped out. You have to give Gagnon some credit after this fight because he tried to hang with Barão.
With the main event of the evening, I don’t know if you were expecting a long fight, but Lyoto Machida wanted to get things done quick with those educated feet as he took on C.B. Dollaway. The referee was forced to stop the fight 1:02 in after Machida landed a devastating shot the rib cage that echoed through the arena. When you hear the shot in the replay, it’s loud. This has to be one of the more exciting finishes to a Machida match as I used to criticize his fights for being boring, but the man got it down quickly and congratulations to that. My fight of the night award goes to the Rashid Magomedov/Elias Silvério fight because Magomedov was the most impressive fighter on the card besides Erick Silva.