1) Luciano Azevedo vs. Jose Aldo: Aldo's first big fight, a fight at 155, oh, and the one loss of his career. Did I spoil this?
FIGHT: Azevedo Submission Rnd 1. (4)
Azevedo: Game plan is simple - go for takedowns, run straight at Aldo, if it fails, repeat. In the second round, Azevedo is finally successful with a double leg and drops Aldo on his ass. Aldo tries to escape, gives up the back, and after a restart Azevedo eventually sinches in the rear naked choke. Nothing too immense.
Aldo: As long as I've watched MMA, there has been a rush to deem little guys in this sport to be as good as the big guns. The talent levels have never been there and what you get are big fishes in small ponds, and that's one of the reasons I have never been as high on Aldo, Cruz, Brown, Mamoru, etc. That's not to say that they are bad fighters, but honestly Cruz gets away with making the sort of basic mistakes that guys at light heavyweight get torched on, and that's because he fights less talented opposition and smaller guys who honestly don't belong in his weight class.
Aldo at this point of his career shows nothing that makes you believe that he is special. Completely forgettable performance punctuated perhaps only by leg kicks that do nothing here but have become a trademark later on. His punches loop and his hand speed on tape looks worse than it is live. As a grappler he looks mediocre in this bout and while he defends the takedown successfully for perhaps 7 minutes, when he fails at 7:01 or there abouts, he's defeated not that long after. How many great fighters really come out looking this completely forgettable at any stage of their career in such an extended performance? This isn't Matt Hughes getting leglocked in 20 seconds.
2) Fredson Paixao vs. Milian Djusinovic: Really a lightweight performance for Paixao, who comes in around 159.
FIGHT: Paixao Submission Rnd 1. Paixao's opponent was never in it. Again, you see the contrast of Paixao standing (stiff, robotic) to Paixao on the mat (fluid, dynamic). He passes the guard and takes dominant positions like it was nothing on everyone, Djusinovic included. He then cuts the opponent with GNP and then forces him to turn over and give the back for an RNC. You look at this after the Aldo fight, and its hard to believe which one of these guys is just hanging onto a Zuffa contract and the other is being talked about as if he's P4P best in the sport. (2)
3) Alexandre Ferriera vs. Julio Cesar Miranda: Ferriera just ended up fighting and losing in the UFC to the guy who won in the main event of the last JFC card.
FIGHT: Ferriera Submission Rnd 1. This goes about as you might expect. Ferriera isn's significantly smaller in this fight and thus takes down Miranda easily and starts pounding on him before securing a guillotine and pulling back to guard. Tap comes in an under a minute. (1)
4) Edson "Draggo" Vieria vs. Helio Dipp: This is a legit contest at the time and makes Draggo a big prospect on the world scene. He is also one of the most obvious roiders EVER. Lots of mean mugging before the fight.
FIGHT: Draggo TKO Rnd 1. Monster KO. Dipp is straight up in the air and gets tagged and goes down. Draggo doesn't like him though personally and keeps punching and punching and then kneeing his downed foe as the ref and then cornermen try to drag him off. Near riot scene. Crowd is wild as he does his post fight interview, booing and whistling. He stands there without speaking for several seconds. Crowd cheers Dipp. Then after he leaves, they boo Draggo relentlessly. He says something that clearly doesn't help the situation and people keep jeering him. I can't remember anything like it in recent memory. His cornerman eventually pulls him aside and asks for him to leave before something bad happens. (1)
5) Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos vs. Michal Materla: Cyborg against a guy from Poland, then undefeated.
FIGHT: Cyborg TKO Rnd 2. Honestly, how do you break this down? Santos swings a lot of crazy punches and Materla goes down in round 1 and Santos hits him with punches and hammerfists for what seems like hours. In round 2 there's some sorta even trading and Santos drops Materla again, then soccer kicks his way to a yellow card. They restart, continue trading, and Materla goes down in a heap from a right hand. Santos punches him in the head for 20 seconds on the mat while looking at the ref before the fight is stopped. Not even the best Santos KO ever. (2)
6) Jose "Pele" Landi-Jons vs. Alexander Shlemenko: One of these Pele fights is gonna be good, right? Shlemenko won a tournament with Bellator and got to lose to Hector Lombard in a not exciting 5 rounder as a result.
FIGHT: Pele Unanimous Decision. Let us never speak of this fight again. Well, okay, just a little: Twice Pele sweeps Shlemenko and has side control and hits him. Sometimes he lands low kicks and right hands. For more than half the fight, Pele is completely gassed out, resting in the corner, laying on ropes, doubled over. Shlemenko does nothing about him in any of these instances and ends up losing the first and second, and therefore effectively loses the fight. Crowd boos this shitfest as well it should. The worst fight in Pele's career. Impossibly, a worse main event than the prior card. (3)
FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Materla/Cyborg
KO OF THE NIGHT: Draggo/Dipp
SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Aldo/Azevedo
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 2.5 out of 10. Every one of these fights scored on the D&R Rating system. As far as averages go, its a more relevant event to watch than the TUF 12 Finale. You have legends, cult figures, solid journeymen, prospects both failed and still active, and a guy some people believe is among the best pound for pound talents in the sport today. But none of these fights is entertaining. None of them are enthralling. Draggo/Dipp is the absolute must see thing here and its maybe 20 seconds long? It's far more well known for the aftermath than the bout itself. As far as Cyborg brawls go, this isn't one of the better ones either. Most of it is spend on the mat with him drubbing some guy.
I don't know why I'm so shocked by all this, but man, my lack of memories for Jungle Fight is now clear. I was trying to forget.
D&R Rating: 43% (13/30)
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