As expected, Uriah Hall beat Dylan Andrews. It was curious to watch, because the fighter with tons of heart, the guy who gutted through a brutal match with Luke Barnatt, the man who summoned strength to pound Luke into submission even though he was a huge underdog, didn't show up. Instead, the Dylan Andrews who didn't really believe he could win walked into that cage against Uriah.
For the entire first round, Dylan ate jab after jab. Uriah took his time and turned Dylan's face into a butcher's block. The second round was mostly the same until, for a moment, Dylan rediscovered that guy who fought his way into the semi-finals against all odds. Dylan lifted Uriah off the mat and then slammed him. This is something I had been waiting to see. Uriah has looked unstoppable against guys who stood with him, but we hadn't yet seen what he was capable of off his back. Well, he showed us some tonight. As soon as he hit the canvas, he locked up a kimura (arm lock) on Dylan's right arm. He never really came close to submitting Dylan with that kimura, but it limited what Dylan could do. With his right arm out of commission, all he could do was drop weak left hand punches to Uriah's exposed side. He didn't try anything else.
That seemed to go on forever. Uriah held the armlock and Dylan threw pitty-pat punches. Then, it was as if Uriah realized that he may be giving the round away. Suddenly, he let go of the arm lock and started throwing punches from off his back. These punches had real power behind them. I have never seen a man knock a guy out with a punch from guard. I bet Uriah hasn't either. But he sure as heck tried to be the first. He softened Dylan up with punches and then easily reversed the position. He got on top of Dylan and dropped bombs. The New Zealander curled up, trying to protect his face, but offered no real defense or offense so the referee had no choice but to stop the fight.
Now, I guess I should have seen this coming. For those of you who frequent mma message boards, there has been a thread floating around for awhile about a promotional poster that, pretty much, let everyone know who was going to the finals. Here is the poster:
If you'll notice, all four of the semi-finalists stand at the front of the line for their teams. In fact, those four stand in order of how they fought: Josh/Kelvin and Dylan/Uriah. This was a dumb move. The UFC brass get so worked up when they hear that a fighter has broke confidence and told someone results before they are aired, yet their marketing department basically spelled it out in this poster. Had a Team Jones fighter made it to the finale, I am sure these boneheads would have placed them right up front next to the Team Sonnen representative. However, with both finalists hailing from Team Sonnen, I guess they feel this poster was adequately mysterious. It wasn't.
In fact, I almost changed my pick from Samman to Gastelum in the last article--not because I thought Gastelum was a better fighter (though he is!), but because this poster was in my head. I knew that Uriah would beat Dylan, so putting Dylan at the front of the Team Jones line made little sense unless none of their guys made it to the finale. After all, Josh Samman had been the guy from Team Jones getting all the air time. Dylan was barely ever seen until the last few episodes. Not having Josh at the front of the line basically told us that Team Sonnen was sweeping the semi-finals.
Oh, well. Water under the bridge, as they say. Regardless, this weekend's live finale should be awesome. While I think Uriah Hall will win the tournament, Kelvin Gastelum is the perfect guy to test him. He has good striking and good ground skills. He'll likely try to dump Uriah onto his back right from the start. I look forward to seeing how Uriah responds to that. We also get to see some other interesting match-ups such as Meisha Tate against Cate Zingano, Travis Browne against Gabriel Gonzaga and Urijah Faber against Scott Jergensen. If that wasn't enough, we will soon hear about the other season 17 competitors who will be fighting on the card.
While I know that Luke Barnatt fights this weekend, I am really hoping to see Clint Hester. That guy was nasty on his feet (probably could have given Uriah a run for his money), but needed to work on his ground game. I hope that's what he's been doing since they wrapped up filming. If so, he could be a genuine threat.
Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll have more to say after the live finale, so please check it out.
Until then, keep your hands up.
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