Hokit fight was funny, in the sense that I looked up and the ref was already rushing towards him. He just showed no respect to his opponent. Rushed into phone booth range against a taller, longer opponent with his head on a stake. We'll see how he responds to the loss. Good fighters have lost embarrassing fights early in their careers, he can still be good but first he has to calm down on his own hype, you are a wrestler, until you have years of striking training stick to what you know.
Johnson fight was good. I thought he was a bit flat-footed in the striking exchanges, he was trying to take energy conservation way too seriously. Against an opponent like Wright it's fine, against someone who could take advantage of that and get inside with thigh kicks and calf kicks not so much. I also don't really agree with his assessment of his changes for the fight. There has to be some middle ground before arriving with 18 pounds to cut in a week and 7. He seems to think cardio was his problem in his last fight...it wasn't. Not that cardio is a bad thing, if you can get it for free, but if the tradeoff is 11 pounds in the cage...again, there has to be a better middle ground. Particularly if you're going against a wrestler again, and you're overmatched in that department, the goal is to have the strength to fight and prevent takedowns, not to have more energy to squirm with in bottom position. Good win for him. We'll see who he fights next, there are a lot of candidates. Aguiar and Murtazaliev kinda loom over the division, because they should be somewhere in there. Someone also needs to chase Ward and Shipman from the rankings they don't belong in. Either of those could be next fights for him.
Speaking of which, Eblen said he signed two bout agreements but they both fell through. I have my opinions on who they probably were...
Overall was a good night of fights.
