I just had the misfortune of sitting through Heath Herring's debut fight in the UFC.

I'm not sure which was more pathetic: his complete inability to deal with his opponents takedowns and groundwork, or his whining and complaining that the fight was too much on the ground in the post fight interview.

To be honest I never like Herring to begin with, so the outcome of this fight was just fine with me. In fact, I don't think either fighter performed very well. O'Brien had many opportunities on the ground to end the fight, and it was only his lack of skill that prevented him from doing so.

Overall, a supremely disappointing fight.

Although I do give Herring points for making me laugh during his post fight interview.

Pathetic...

Galen

I just watched it as well...disappointing, to say the least.

However, on the same card, Evans vs. Salmon - great stuff. Evans is a hometown boy, so I was rooting for him all the way. Go Spartans!

Peace,
Mike

I was expecting a lot more out of Heath Herring. O'Brien had a lot of opportunities to finish the fight, but wtv, he's only 22 years old, he has a lot of time to improve. I give him mad props for beating Heath with only 3 years of training.

Herring fought like an idiot. He knew all O'Brien had to bring was his wrestling ability, he should've pressed the action and when for the finish more; he was holding back up until the very end. He obviously just wanted to bang, but he showed no ground skills.

Very disappointing. His transition into the shorter fights/ rounds of the UFC will not be an easy one. I will say this, in as much as he was stuck on bottom the whole time, he was never in any danger. Herring has been beaten on much worse by much better opponents and come back from it.

Much better players have taken his back and not been able to choke him. Herring prefers to defend from a loose Half Guard or bottom of Side Control to Full Guard as he takes less damage from there and he can get back to his knees and stand up. I really don't think he was too concerned about it. That was the problem unfortunately. His overconfidence that he wasn't gonna get finished...ran him out of time.

Rogan's comment that he was "getting his a$$ kicked" was true in the spectator sense. He was literally playing around at first and never really got his game going. Watch his Pride matches....he needed another round or two, which he isn't gonna get in the UFC.

I think he will adjust. Hopefully he'll get a chance to.

I was kind of surprised to hear that. Having seen some of his earlier fights, I thought he would have done better.

O'Brien should have kissed him.

poor heath, needs to patch his crappy fighting and attitude up, crocop annihilated him back then i hate to think what he would do to him now lol

I agree with Joe rogans comment about hearing. Despite his whinning to Big Jon that there was no action taking place on the ground, he did not even attempt to get O'brian off of him, he simply felt the ref should stand them up.

I suppose this is why on the up coming Renzo Gracie vs Frank Shamrock fight on Showtime feb.10 they will have a 12 second stand up rule. If no action occurs on the ground, the Ref will stand them up, this is not to say that wrestlers and grapplers will have a disadvantage, simple they want to keep the fans motivated and interested, this gives oppertunity for more stand up banging.

I was never impressed with Heath Herring and I believe is over-rated. If he did not have the controversy of knocking out Yoshihiro Nakao after the kiss then he would have just been a nobody or perhaps would not have even been given a chance in the UFC. Heck he only had one fight in K-1 in 2006 and now this one in 2007; more then 10 months apart. They over-hyped him and was a disappointment in my books.

Jake O'Brien couldn't finish things while on the bottom due to his inexperience more then Herring's defense; or this is how I seen it. But that O'Brien was able to take down Herring at will with little or no trouble, that impressed me. Even when Herring looked to take advantage of him a few times, even when Herring knocked down O'Brien with that punch, O'Brien was still able to reverse things easily. Give this kid some skills to finish things on the floor then he'll be a much better fighter. Always trying for the RNC should have been abandoned and other techniques done. More knees when in side mount. Work to get your arms untied so that you can deliver some forearms; and don't forget about hammer fists. He just needs more skill.

(This is easy for all of us armchair critics to say)

As for the other fights, I was totally surprised that Spenser Fisher lost to Hermes Franca. I like both figthers but I would have gave the edge and power to Fisher but I was wrong. Hermes's style of not looking and throwing to the fences served him well ... that is even more unorthodox of a skill then Liddell's.

I'm not a fan of Ed Herman and though I liked his finish, I was hoping for Chris Price to win.

Now the Rashad Evans and Sean Salmon fight. What was up with Salmon's lousy jump kick in the beginning? That looks like a beginner TKD'st to me; laughable. But he impressed me how even though he seemed overly laboured through the match that he fought off Rashad and was able to take him down many times. But Rashad is who I was rooting for and his kick that curled Salmon's toes was no disappointer.

I wish we could have seen the other fights as well. I like Dean Lister and was saddened to see he lost to a final decision in the 3rd round to Nate Marquardt. I was glad to see that Josh Burkman won in the final decision against Chad Reiner. If he hadn't got injured on the show I think he would have done well and would have had some more profile fights. I was also glad to hear that Din Thomas won by decision against Clay Guida. I liked Din on the show as he was a nice guy but confident. And I was also glad to see that Rich Clementi beat Ross Pointon by RNC in the second round. I would have liked to have seen all of these fights.

HH was apparently injured, torn MCL before the fight, hence the lower stance and poor TD defense.

Me too.....
I was hoping he will beat other guy..
Well, may be he doesn't have ability to handle him or bad condition.. We never know what's going to happen the fight.
But still bad fight.. I'm Japanese and Big fun of PRIDE FC.
I believe PRIDE is a lot of higher than UFC..
Heath's fight was breaking my believe...(wait for Mirko Crocop...).

Obrien played a great wrestling game, but lacked a bit in the striking/submisison area, though he landed a few good punches. He fought like an early Koschek. And as for Herring, well he just completely dissapointed me. He's a brawler and nothing more.

After all the hype, I agree with Herring being a disappointment. However, I do beleive his MCL bit, after seeing his wacky stance for most of the fight. That aside, I was still not impressed. Whenever he was on the ground, he was not paying attention to his opponent, instead calling, hell COMPLAINING, for a stand-up. That level of frustration shows a great lack of mental preparedness, in my opinion. I will however concede that O'Brien is a bad match-up (being a LnP wrestler) for Herring (not being able to even try to stuff takedowns with a bad wheel makes for a boring fight).

Injury or not, if you're complaining because you're getting bested in one area of the fight, that's just looking for excuses to hide your inability to fight. A bad craftsman blames his tools. If you can't get in there and get the job done, at least be honorable enough to man up and admit you didn't do what you should have.

Herring was disappointing. The fight in general was rather lackluster. As for the Gracie-Shamrock fight, thats going down here in Memphis.

O'Brien (sp?) to his credit had a great shot. And that was about it. His timing on those double legs was incredible and he was quick as well (which of course is a component of timing).

Otherwise he had NOTHING. I was unimpressed with BOTH mens ground games. O'Brien did absolutely nothing once there, especially considering how many times he had Herrings back. What would a better grappler have done there?

Part of that can be attributed to Herring's defense, but honestly there wasn't much to have to defend against from O'Brien once on the ground.

One thing that stands out (and should) is how HORRIBLE Herrings grappling defense was. To be taken down AT WILL and to be able to do NOTHING about it speaks volumes IMO.

Could the difference in the cage from the ring have played any part in this? I believe there are some obvious differences between the UFC and Pride in terms of the cage and rings used that has to be accounted for, if only minimally.

How different the fighters appear in the different environments with the different rules structures, etc.

-John