After coming out on top for the first two rounds by barely out pointing Terry Etim, Edson Barboza turned on the style with a spinning heel kick that connected perfectly sending Etim tumbling to the ground out cold from the second he connected. The explosive kick is the early front-runner for the best knockout of 2012, improved the Brazilian’s record to 10-0 and earned him knockout of the night.
Ahead of his home turf UFC debut against Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 142, it’s clear from his unbeaten record that Brazilian heavyweight Ednaldo Oliveira is a force to be reckoned with on the MMA scene, but who is this fighter that is taking the MMA world by storm?
With the highly anticipated UFC 134: Silva vs. Okami (UFC: Rio) completed and in the history books, it’s easy now to sit back and view the event as a whole. The crowd comes to mind right away because if you watched any portion of the card (Facebook Prelims, SpikeTV Prelims or PPV Main Card), you probably noticed the extremely loud Brazilians cheering, booing, and shouting at maximum volume for seemingly the whole event.
Home field advantage, in any sport, can have a huge psychological impact on a team’s performance. When you hear that crowd cheering for you and encouraging you, it gives you a little boost and you can push a little harder, dig a little deeper and give more than your all to come out on top. In many sports, the home crowd is viewed as an extra player in the game and can help swing the momentum in pivotal moments of the game.
In returning to Brazil, the UFC has obviously stacked the UFC 134 card with Brazilian fighters, 14 of them to be exact. The 12 bout card is dominated by top Brazilian talent from the undercard to the main event. With names like Anderson Silva, Mauricio Rua, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Edson Barboza on the main card, its easy to overlook the talent on the undercard.
