MMA Valor Local Corner: Northern California Dominates UFC 166
The high from last night’s UFC 166 is still running through the veins of MMA fans everywhere. It was the best fight card of the year and arguably the best of all-time, but last night’s UFC 166 was also a dominate performance from the northern California fighters.
UFC 166 saw four northern California fighters enter the Octagon with all collecting memorable victories.
On the preliminary portion of the card, Team Alpha Male fighter Andre Fili made his UFC debut as a late replacement against Jeremy Larson. Fili missed weight due to the massive amount of weight he needed to cut but made up for that in his performance. From the moment the fight started Fili was relentless with his pressure and Larsen had no answer for what was being thrown his way. Fili is not the prototypical Team Alpha Male Fighter that fans are used to seeing but his second round TKO is for sure.
When the bout between the former Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez and Diego Sanchez was announced fans knew it was going to be a fight of the night candidate. That observation was correct but no one could have guessed it would have been the fight of the year. Melendez busted open a massive cut over the left eye of Sanchez but the winner of the first Ultimate Fighter didn’t care. Their third round was one of the best rounds ever and also nearly produced an unbelievable comeback but Melendez held tough and this crazy bout went to the judges, where Melendez earned the decision victory.
The rest of the night belonged to San Jose’s AKA.
In his last bout at heavyweight, Daniel Cormier dominated Roy Nelson both standing and on the ground. Cormier was unhappy with his first performance inside the Octagon and washed that bad taste out of his mouth with a one-sided unanimous decision over The Ultimate Fighter season 10 winner. DC said in his post fight interview that his next fight would be at 205 pounds, preferably against a top ranked guy.
The icing on the UFC 166 cake was Cormier’s AKA teammate and UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez retaining his title with a 5th round TKO of Junior Dos Santos. Their trilogy nearly ended like the first bout when JDS clipped Velasquez but the champ recovered and things began to look like their second bout. The relentless pressure from Velasquez though brought a new result for the third meeting as an exhausted JDS could not make it out of the final round.
Following the successful title defense by the heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez UFC President Dana White declared UFC 166 the greatest fight card ever. With the help from the above mentioned fighter do you agree with that statement?
In other Local MMA news:
There are two local cards that are coming up next month with Dragon House 15 taking place on November 2nd and WFC 7 on November 16th.
Dragon House 15 takes place at the Kaiser Pavilion and will be headlined by Cung Le’s MMA fighter and Strikeforce veteran James Terry. Also on the card is Dragon House veteran Evan Esguerra, who is also scheduled to fight 12 days later at Tachi Palace Fights 17.
West Coast Fighting Championships 7 takes places from the Jackson Sports Arena in Sacramento and will be headlined by the former Strikeforce fighter and current WFC middleweight champion Scott Smith. Originally the above mentioned Andre Fili was supposed to headline this card but he got the call from the UFC and you know how that ended.
Category: Dragon House, Featured, Local MMA, MMA, UFC, West Coast Fighting Championship