Since his skull pounding loss to Dan Henderson in UFC 100, Michael Bisping has been trying *really* hard to play the nice guy and show a bit of good grace and humility. Fortunately, Bisping’s recent show of humility hasn’t fooled a lot of UFC 110 fans who boo’ed him (1) before the fight, (2) during the fight and after the (3) fight.

Bisping vs Silva

I hate to say it, but Australians love to hate the English when it comes to sport. Don’t even think that our Colonial heritage might lend itself to offering some support to our motherland. Any team flying the English flag on Australian soil can expect a frosty reception at best.

I got some great photos from my 2nd row seats, but I also noticed the Rampage Jackson was in Bisping’s corner. Apparently Rampage has been helping Bisping train, especially with his experience in fighting Silva on three separate occasions.

Round 1

Both Bisping and Silva launch into an irregular rhythm of head movement and punches as each fighter attacks and counters. Bisping managed to take Silva down twice, both early in the round, but Silva managed to show flurries of aggression with big overhand rights, forcing Bisping to retreat on numerous occasions.

Round 2

Silva, very aggressive and taking the center of the Octagon manages to kick the legs from under Bisping and engage in some good ‘ole ground ‘n pound. Excellent parries, blocking and head work saw Silva avoid damage, but couldn’t prevent Bisping taking him down twice again. The last 10 seconds of the round saw Silva catching Bisping in a guillotine which could have ended the fight if there was more time.

Round 3

Bisping’s 3rd round started more confidently with short, sharp and controlled movements that controlled the center of the Octagon. A fairly even exchange of of punches and kicks was marred by Bisping kicking Silva in the groin (boo) and then putting his fingers in Silva’s eyes (boo). The round convincingly went to Silva as he sent Bisping to the canvas with two big right hands in the last 10 seconds of the fight.

Decision

All three judges scored the rounds 29/28 declaring the winner, by unanimous decision, Wanderlei Silva … Very close, but Silva deserved the win after a great effort. The Aussie crowd really appreciated it too and got behind Silva in his victory with roof-raising cheers.

Michael Bisping? Once the booing died down in Bisping’s post fight interview with Joe Rogan… Well he complained a little, said his sorries and then his thanks, which was enough to get his one and only cheer from the crowd.

Well done Bisping … Have a beer then piss off back home with the Aussie “Bispings a wanker … Bispings a wanker!” jeer ringing in your head. :p

The first thing that I thought when I saw the above clip an hour ago was “Who are these nerds?“, followed by “Please tell me he’s not slap-fighting?” and “Close your fist and call it boxing!“. Then I started to notice the body movement and how relaxed slapping nerd #1 was and thought “This guy isn’t too bad. It looks pretty fluid and powerful!” …

This was my very awesome visual introduction to Ba Gua.

Ba Gua Zhang is recognized as one of the three orthodox “internal” styles of Chinese martial art (the other two being Xing Yi Quan and Tai Ji Quan). Ba Gua literally translates to Eight trigrams. Zhang means palm and designates Ba Gua Zhang as a style of martial art, which emphasizes the use of the open hand in preference to the closed fist. Ba Gua Zhang, as a martial art, is based on the theory of continuously changing in response to the situation at hand in order to overcome an opponent with skill rather than brute force.

After I watched a few more of these YouTube videos from walkthetalk I realised I’d forgotten how graceful and fluid most martial arts can be. After feeling a little betrayed by how ineffective I believed Hapkido was I turned to a steady diet of Boxing and Brazillian Ju-Jitsu 18 months ago. Both these sports felt far from graceful and after a while it just became normal to feel so rigid and hard. Boxing with it’s strict ring rules and “down to business” attitude made me narrow my field of vision for both attack and defense. BJJ also pulls me in another direction where I’m finding myself not throwing an elbow to the back of the head or crushing testicles simply because … Well, it’s a sport with rules.

These Ba Gua videos and their fluid and powerful movements have inspired me to reflect on how I can improve my overall MMA skills by not just thinking in a two dimensional Boxing or BJJ fight mode. I probably need to re-integrate the fluidity of my long lost Hapkido faith with the rigidity of my current sports to understand how I should be moving instead of just blind repetition and drills through my coach.

Oh, and I’ll be wary of nerdy looking dudes in the park who can bitch slap me silly … :-p

After a desperate call to my mate Jozz yesterday, we managed to organise a UFC 108 arvo with FOXTEL. $39.95 for 2.5 hours of UFC 108 didn’t turn out to be as much value as the kick-arse Penn vs Sanchez UFC 107.

The main card, Evans vs Silva, kinda fizzled out in the 3rd round which saw a Evans win by unanimous decision. Silva picked up the pace mid 3rd round with some classic showboating and a solid shot or two, but failed to put Evans away when he had the chance.

The only memorable fight was Louzan vs Stout, with Louzan being used as a punching for the most of the 3rd round.

Maybe we’re getting too many UFC events per year that the quality of televised fights is dropping. Disappointing, very disappointing …