By Dwight Wakabayashi
It was an excellent night for the Canadian fighters at UFC 158 in Montreal, with some career performances, a smashing debut, and a little bit of controversy coming out of the night. Canadian fighters took home five wins in seven fights, and Georges St-Pierre successfully defended his welterweight title for the eighth consecutive time with an uncontested beat-down of Nick Diaz to cap off the night. Jordan Mein stopped veteran Dan Miller in his long-awaited debut, and John Makdessi, Patrick Cote and Mike Ricci took home solid decision wins on the night.
Antonio Carvalho was less fortunate in his fight with Darren Elkins as Elkins rocked and floored the Oshawa native midway through the first round, causing referee Yves Lavigne to put what appeared to be an early stop to the fight. Calgary native Nick Ring lost a razor thin decision to Chris Camozzi in middleweight action for the other Canadian loss.
Here are my grades for the Canadian performances at UFC 158:
Jordan Mein: A+
Mein showed poise and intelligence in his game from the get-go and faced early adversity, falling prey to a Miller arm bar attempt right out of the gate. He rolled with the hold and escaped, before unleashing his own arsenal of strikes to get an impressive finish in his UFC debut.
John Makdessi: A
Makdessi just keeps getting better and better and he pressed forward the entire fight, with his quickness, footwork and angles creating openings throughout. Makdessi initiated and landed more and more as the fight went on and served notice that his future is bright in the lightweight division. A finish would have put a plus on his grade.
Georges St-Pierre: B
The champ set emotion aside and did his thing again against Diaz. He executed his game plan perfectly and he beat Diaz on the feet for half of the fight as well. The fact that GSP assured many he would hurt Diaz or get the stoppage and was unable to, caps his grade at a B.
Mike Ricci: B
It wasn’t the most exciting fight for Ricci in his golden opportunity to open up the pay-per-view portion of the card, but it was successful. Ricci did what he does best and used his all-around game to pretty much own his opponent Colin Fletcher. It was effective, if not exciting, and the question is if Ricci has any real upside in his game at this point in his career.
Patrick Cote: C
Cote was considered an established, solid middleweight, and he wants to be more than that at welterweight. While a decent debut at 170-pounds, I expected a knockout over a debut fighter in Bobby Voelker. Despite landing his bombing right hand, he was unable to hurt Voelker or stop the take down, and he almost lost the fight because of it.
Nick Ring: C
Ring has looked average in his last few appearances in the Octagon and this fight was no different. He was definitely the quicker fighter, but he held his hands low all night and in the end, it cost him the fight. His opponent was able to score a judges’ decision and more is expected of him if he is to be considered a real contender in the division.
Antonio Carvalho: C
Carvalho looked really sharp early as he fired his counter left hook with nice timing before getting pushed back in an exchange midway through the first round. He was dazed badly by a hard shot and backed up against the cage before being floored for a second by a follow-up punch. He bounced right up and the stoppage seemed a touch early. It’s tough to say what would have happened had it continued, but Carvalho gets a pass here.
Dwight Wakabayashi is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report UFC and regular contributor to Sportsnet.ca’s UFC section. Follow him on Twitter @wakafightermma.
