MMA - UFC - Bellator

In one of the best shown Spike TV fights, and sadly one of the last, Rousimar Palhares improved his record in unusual fashion to 13-3 at UFC Rio. Palhares is a definite middleweight contender and without a few silly mistakes would be a lot closer to a shot at the title, but for now he’s still one or two fights away. The Bisping vs. Miller Loser, or the Leben vs. Munoz winner would both be perfect challenger eliminator fight.

Moving forward though, Palhares must get more disciplined because as we saw last night, excitement during the fight can still prove to hurt him like the Marquardt situation where he contested cheating mid fight and fell victim to a TKO.

Dan Miller is a tough S.O.B. as we all learned last night, and Palhares nearly punched himself out of the fight he was clearly winning. Early in the first Miller was caught with a head kick that dropped him and then brutalized with some ground and pound. When Herb Dean told him to defend himself Palhares thought it was a sign of the fight being over, so he jumped on the cage and celebrated. After Herb Dean explained to him the fight wasn’t over Palhares was in shock and could not get back into his rhythm and was dropped by miller with punches, almost losing another fight that was on his plate for the taking.

Eventually in the second round Palhares got back on track and continued to punish Miller with brutal ground and pound connecting at will as Miller poorly defended. It’s in the best interest to protect the fighters but there should be a clear-cut line of when enough is enough, but that rant needs to be elsewhere. Palhares is one of the best grapplers in the middleweight division and now has the striking to back it up. Now if he can just get the mental aspect on par with the rest of his game, watch out!