UFC 124 – The Review

Disappointing. 

Georges St-Pierre will stake his UFC Welterweight crown against the man that started his four-year win streak. Josh Koscheck wants to break the streak as well as take his title. It’s not an easy task for Kos but he seems bent to do it. Koscheck predicted a win against GSP after his amazing win against Paul Daley. In The Ultimate Fighter where they both act as coach, Kos is constantly trash talking GSP and the gentlemanly Rush should be finding his words a little insulting.

UFC record for attendance was broken since Montreal loves their favourite son. More than 23,000 strong are rooting for Rush to crush the self-proclaimed Public Enemy!  

I’ll resist not previewing the other fights but the bouts I enjoyed were the Jim Miller bout where he finished Charles Oliveira in the first round with a knee bar. Oliveira was the active one between the two but during the separation, Oliveira failed to protect his legs and Miller capitalized on what was his sixth straight win. Mac Danzig scored on a vicious counter to sort of upset Joe “Daddy” Stevenson in the first round. Joe Daddy has faced a number of big-time opponents and it shocked me that he has an extremely weak jaw. Stevenson has had the breaks compared to Danzig but perhaps Mac felt that it is time to take his career to a notch. Stefan “The Skyscraper” Struve wins against Sean McCorkle. The explosive win gave McCorkle his first MMA loss. And finally, Thiago Alves returned to the octagon to outclass John Howard. After his hiatus, Alves returned to the UFC and made mince meat out of Howard.   

Here is the play-by-play of the main event!

Round 1

GSP takes down Kos with 27 seconds but stood up again. Kos avoids a second takedown but those GSP jabs are messing up Kos’ left eye. Kos stops another takedown. Those stiff jabs will destroy Koscheck’s chances! Kos tries to shoot GSP to no avail. However late in Round One, Kos finally shoots GSP but Rd 1 times up! Easily a GSP round and unless Kos can solve GSP’s jabs, this one is over!

Round 2

Snap jabs are killing Kos as his eyes swell up. GSP remains relentless adding a superman jab on Kos’ left eye. GSP should thank Freddie Roach for that. Kos looks like a sitting duck. The jabs continue to hurt Kos’ left eye. “Fuck You Koscheck” chants are heard in the background. Leg kicks and superman punches galore for GSP. Kos is hesitant to attack!

Round 3

GSP is tired. He could be bored. GSP is tired of waiting for Kos to attack. Koscheck is disappointing me. He hasn’t solved the jabs that have constantly rocked him. Kos is thrown out of his comfort zone which is basically the grappling. If Kos thought he can get GSP via stand up, he must be insane. GSP is dominating!

Round 4

A doctor checked on Koscheck’s left eye and perhaps deep inside Kos wants the doc to rule out another round. GSP is bombing it out at the start of the round by delivering a vicious cycle of jabs, hooks, knees, and leg kicks to all parts of Koscheck. In the middle part of the round GSP got careless and tried to push Koscheck on his wrestling game and while GSP still dominated, Kos came back to life. GSP still ended the round successfully.

Round 5

Two consecutive takedowns against Koscheck meant GSP wanted to finish this fight strong. Kos looked like a glorified punching bag and it sucked. ‘Til the end of the match, Koscheck couldn’t solve GSP’s jabs. There was a point where GSP was actually toying with Koscheck. The fight barely went to the floor which was probably the points Kos concentrated on.

Most jab-heavy and boxing-oriented fight in mixed martial arts history – this is basically how Joe Rogan sums this match up. All the judges scored the bout 50 to 45 for GSP. The only move Kos managed to evade was the shaking of the hands. Believe me, Kos wouldn’t have been that polite if he won the match. Fact is this is the worst Koscheck fight I have seen. I like the guy and that’s why I’m ranting so heavily. If Kos could at least won a round or showed that he can be a threat to GSP, then it would have been awesome.

For GSP, he planned this match well. In the post-fight interview, he exploited the fact that Kos uses a circular motion in unloading his fists. The fact that he is a Manny Pacquiao fan probably brought that boxing style more especially with Freddie Roach at his side. Who’s next for GSP? I have no idea. GSP should probably enjoy the fact that he is the best MMA fighter in the world right now.

For Koscheck, expect him to bounce back. I also think that he needs to check his defense because this match seriously exposes Koscheck’s weakness. He also needs to be confident because for five rounds, what he did was to survive rather than win.

If he wants to have another five-round fight, he needs to forget about this match and perform better in the future.

Congratulations, GSP!

Game over!