Okay, so I was one and one on my predictions.  I have to say however, that I was actually surprised how soundly St. Pierre beat Matt out.  I’m not sure if Matt has gotten rusty, or if St. Pierre is actually no longer merely mortal.  I was a bit unhappy after that fight however, that everyone seemed to really be pushing Matt to retire.  Don’t get me wrong, Matt is not one of my favorite people, nor do I disagree that he should retire, but at least give him the dignity to announce it on his own time.  Now when he does announce it it seems as if he were pressured into it.  Kinda sad.

As for the Liddell fight, I was pleased to see chuck win.  I was further pleased to see that Wanderlei has a chin like an anvil.  I think the fight was a “win” for both of them, in that it showed them to both be real contenders.  I would love to see Wanderlei get a fight against Keith Jardine now (I think Keith would get destroyed.)  But the best news is that it looks like we will be seeing more of both of these fighters.

Not to be a little black raincloud here, but I was actually unimpressed by Chuck in the fight.  On the positive, he seemed to be doing a better job of attacking rather than just relying solely on counter-attacking.  But I think that was because Wanderlei shows such short punches and keeps his elbows bent.  All in all I feel like we just saw the same old Chuck.  That may work fine in this fight (and clearly did), but I saw nothing that seemed to indicate that he would do any beter against a Jardine-like fighter next time.  He is still clearly vulnerable to the leg kick, and hardly ever uses the leg kick himself even though he has great kicking power.  He did execute a couple of takedowns, but they were sloppy, and he really didn’t do anything wit them once he got them.  I think if Chuck wants to rise to the top again he really needs to re-invent himself to the degree that we have seen Forest Griffin do (BTW, that’s anothe guy I would love to see fight Jardine.)

Anyway, welcome back Chuck.  I hope you have learned some new tricks.  And Wandie, I can’t wait to see who they turn you loose on next.

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