Jorge “The Spyder Exterminator” Rivera and Other UFC 80 Dominance
Sid Needelman Reporting…
There are two words that come to me when describing or attempting to recap this past weekend’s UFC: “dominance” and “ownage.” Yes, I know that second one may not be in every literary dictionary, but you can email me to ask me how I define the vernacular I use if you want.
When it comes to dominance and ownage, I want to use one example, Jorge Rivera, to explain how I felt the whole night went. To begin, the card did not appeal to everyone because it seemed to lack the enthralling rivalries, heavyweight contenders, or anyone named Chuck or Randy. By the end of the night, I was very satisfied even though I was watching it seven hours after it actually took place.
Kendal Grove: the Spyder, Ultimate Fighter star, “Team Dagger” member and so forth, was a prospect people were interested in watching rise to the top. People wanted to see him fight and many people thought his youth and long limbs could banish the older Rivera. It did not happen that way. Jorge had a game plan and it mostly had to do with bringing the pain to his long-legged friend.
Rivera on his way to KO'ing TUF champion Grove at UFC 80 …
Not far into the first round the fate of Kendall was clear and MMANews.com reported the play by play as follows:
Round 1: Rivera lands a good shot and takes Grove down. Grove immediately looks to sweep but Rivera is defending well. Rivera is in Grove's half guard landing big punches. Grove turns his back and Rivera is hammering down as Grove stands up. Rivera immediately drops Grove and gets the knockout victory.
Jorge Rivera def. Kendall Grove via KO (punch) at 1:20 of Round 1.
Rivera showed the UFC fans what this tough guy is all about. In fact, he resembles very much the tough guy caricature on his shorts. It is an image of what a tough bald guy looks like [picture of him and his shorts above]. The logo is that of MMAWarehouse, a MMA clothing company which carries a crazy amount of fight brand clothing, but I wonder if they choose Rivera because he exemplified that beefy shaved head MMA look, or because he is a great fighter? Maybe MMAWarehouse should be paying royalties for the use of his image.
Jorge looked this past weekend like a guy who can easily apply his “ownage” on any other UFC middleweight he chooses; in real life though he is a very controlled and nice family man.
Jorge, like B.J. Penn, Marcus Davis and sadly, Fabricio Werdum, all dominated their respective foes at UFC 80. Not to say Joe Stevenson didn’t show heart. In fact, he kept his composure during the fight in a near non-human way. Most people would have cracked under the pressure of just entering a cage with “The Prodigy,” let alone keep going with a forehead leaking as bad as my old Honda Accord. Cheers to Joe.
Thank you UFC for another great night of fights and please rethink using Werdum in any main event or title shot, at least for the moment.
Please note: The writer of this article and MMANews.com in no way take responsibility if Jorge starts demanding royalties from www.MMAwarehouse.com or if the fine people at Honda were offended. We are sorry.
