|
|
  - RILEY AND GURGEL LIGHT UP UFC 91 UNDERCARD
Saturday, November 15, 2008 - by Ken Pishna - MMAWeekly.com
Easily the fight of the night on the undercard, a returning Aaron Riley and a struggling Jorge Gurgel went toe-to-toe for the duration of their three-round bout. Gurgel seemed to be getting the better of Riley early on, but it would be the veteran striker that found his mark in the middle and latter parts of the fight to capture all three scorecards by a mark of 29-28.
Known for his brilliant jiu-jitsu game, Gurgel earned high marks for a tremendous display of striking and heart in his losing effort against Riley.
"He's a jiu-jitsu black belt, but everybody knows he loves to stand and bang," said Riley. "It makes it a good fight for everybody who likes to see a fight."
UFC 91 marked Riley's first action in the Octagon since January of 2006 at UFC Fight Night 3, of which he simply stated, "It's good to be back."
A classic grappler versus striker bout, harkening back to the early days of MMA, Jeremy Stephens withstood an early omo plata attempt by Rafael dos Anjos to put an explosive punctuation mark on their 10 minute, 39 second bout. Stephens came out with a fury in round three and looped in an uppercut that nearly decapitated dos Anjos for the knockout and the win.
"I've been working on that uppercut all week for (defense against) the shot," remarked Stephenson after the bone-crunching KO. "Herems (Franca) told me to throw it a couple of seconds before I threw it.
"I threw everything I had into the punch..." and it showed!
In a bout between grappling masters, Mark Bocek dominated Colorado's Alvin Robinson rebounding from a loss to Mac Danzig earlier this year. Bocek took Robinson down almost at will, continually passed to side control, and wore him down before securing a rear naked choke in round three for the tap.
"He is a really tough guy," stated Bocek. "He was going hard all three rounds, but I trained really hard. I felt like I could go five rounds today."
Matt Brown survived losing the first round of his bout with Ryan Thomas – losing 10-9 on all three judges' scorecards – to make a comeback. Taking this fight on short notice, Brown made short work of Thomas in the second round, finishing him with an armbar at the 0:57.
"I'm so excited," said Brown after the fight. "I took this fight on two weeks notice and dropped 25 pounds to be here."
PRELIMINARY BOUT RESULTS:
-Aaron Riley def. Jorge Gurgel by Unanimous Decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28), R3
-Jeremy Stephens def. Rafael dos Anjos by KO (Punch) at 0:39, R3
-Mark Bocek def. Alvin Robinson by Submission (Rear Naked Choke) at 3:16, R3
-Matt Brown def. Ryan Thomas by Submission (Armbar) at 0:57, R2
BACK TO THE NEWS
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
Related Articles :
There Are No Related Articles To This Article
Copyright 2009 MMA Weekly LLC. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of MMA Weekly content is expressly prohibited without expressed written consent of MMA Weekly. MMA Weekly will not be liable for any errors in content or any action taken in reliance thereof.
|
|
|
|
