By Bryan Levick 
UFC 109 is in the books, and thankfully we have an awesome stretch of mixed martial arts to look forward to, starting with UFC 110.
Last night’s winners and losers left a lot of questions to be answered, so let’s try and break down where each and every fighters will go from here.
Joey Beltran– Not much to be said here, he took the fight on short notice and defeated a fighter who was in lousy shape. He will get another shot at the very least.
Rolles Gracie– I was expecting much more from a man with the last name Gracie. He had a few opportunities to finish the fight but his inexperience clearly showed. To make matters worse, he basically gave up in the second round after displaying a serious lack of conditioning. Back to the minors for this Gracie.
Chris Tuchscherer– By all accounts, it seems as Tuchscherer either lost the fight or at the very least earned a draw. His conditioning was called into question, although to be fair he was once again hit in the groin. He will be back but on a short leash.
Tim Hague– He actually came on in the third round after losing the first two nearly finishing off his opponent. With two consecutive losses, he may be forced to go back to the regional shows, although he may be given another shot considering the lack of heavyweights in the UFC.
Phil Davis– All I can say is that when this guy gets a few more fights under his belt, the UFC light heavyweight division will have two young studs. Davis is on the verge of joining Jon Jones as can’t miss prospects. His wrestling, speed and athleticism will be hard for anyone to match. He is still very green but he seems to have a great mind and is undoubtedly a hard worker who will continue to grow under the tutelage of Lloyd Irvin.
Brian Stann– The All American will remain in the UFC, For one his stand-up is very good and he has the capability of knocking people out. The UFC needs to match him up with other fighters who have a limited ground game if they want to keep him competitive, because anyone with a decent ground game will take him down at will.
Robert Emerson– Even with the win he didn’t show that he belongs in the top MMA organization, fighting in one of its deepest divisions. Despite winning the first two rounds, he very nearly lost the fight because he allowed Nover to come back in the third. He barely fought off a guillotine choke.
Phillipe Nover– Out of all the losses, this is the one that disappoints me the most. I have been a big fan of Nover’s since his time of The Ultimate Fighter. He is a very personable guy with a lot of talent, but his wrestling game is severely lacking. Maybe a few fights on some regional shows will afford him some time to work on the holes in his game. He is after all only 26.
Melvin Guillard– Let me start out by saying, Guillard lost that fight. He easily lost two rounds, if not all three. He did show that he can avoid submissions and while he did get taken down a lot, he did well to get back to his feet each and every time. The more he trains with Greg Jackson coupled with the fact that he finally seems to be maturing should lead to some success for him.
Ronny Torres– He was pretty impressive, his takedowns are solid and considering it was his first fight in nearly 18 months, he gets another crack in the UFC. He showed a lot of promise and will only get better with more experience.
Mac Danzig– It’s almost as if the UFC gave him a fight that he was clearly the favorite to win. Coming off three losses in a row, Danzig had no choice but to win. He seemed to come out flat but rebounded nicely to secure the win. He gets another fight but a loss will send him packing.
Justin Buchholz– Three losses in a row and four out of five in the UFC will get you fired. It’s back to the drawing board for Buccholz who just doesn’t have what it takes to compete in such a stacked lightweight division.
Matt Serra– A great win for Serra, he came in with a pretty solid game plan, hitting Trigg with body shots while setting up an opportunity to land that huge overhand right. It worked and he put Trigg down and out, this time for good. Serra earned his second straight bonus check as he was awarded the Knockout of the Night.
At this point in his career, Serra is looking for meaningful fights. Maybe he will get his rematch with Matt Hughes. That all depends on the outcome of Hughes bout with Serra mentor Renzo Gracie at UFC 112. Other than that, maybe he gets matched up with Paulo Thiago.
Frank Trigg– It’s pretty safe to say, you can stick the fork in Trigg because he is done. He’s had a very good career and will find plenty of work as an announcer or maybe working with TNA wrestling.
Demian Maia– Not much was proven here other than Maia can beat a top 15 middleweight. I for one wasn’t overly impressed with his standup and was quite surprised that he couldn’t even attempt a submission on Miller. I like Maia, he just has a lot of work to do, but working with Wanderlei Silva will get him there.
He could face Michael Bsiping if he were to defeat Wandy at UFC 110. Maybe he takes on Yoshihiro Akiyama next, that would be a good test for him.
Dan Miller– At 28 years old, Miller has potential. He has a pretty good all-around game, and his wrestling is top notch. He did a great job getting back to his feet against Maia. He won’t be contending for a title anytime soon, but he will be a fighter who puts on a competitive performance.
I could see him fighting someone like Tim Credeur or maybe even Tom Lawlor.
Paulo Thiago– He quieted a lot of critics last night. He showed he can take a punch, has improved his striking and can finish off a fight when the opportunity presents itself. He pounced on Swick and never gave him a chance to recover. His jiu-jitsu is excellent and the more he works on his striking the more dangerous he becomes.
I detailed what he may have in store for him earlier this morning. He is ready for bigger and better things.
Mike Swick– It will be interesting to see how he rebounds from the first two fight loss streak of his career. He looked tentative and never seemed comfortable. He took a good amount of punishment in his fight with Dan Hardy, so that shows you just hwo strong Thiago is. Not sure what’s on the horizon for Swick, he needs to go back to the drawing board. Maybe he fights someone like Phil Baroni or the winner of Matt Brown-Ricardo Almeida.
Nate Marquardt– If you said you saw the beating he took at the hands of Chael Sonnen coming, you are a liar!! He was taken down at will and never really mounted an attack off of his back or made any serious attempts at getting back to his feet until the third round. Even with this loss, Marquardt is still one of the best fighters in the middleweight division. I would give him the loser of the Bisping-Wandy bout or Belfort if he is unsuccessful against Anderson Silva.
Chael Sonnen– Steve Cofield said it last night, watch Silva bail out of the middleweight division and jump up to 205lbs if he beats Belfort. Sonnen set up a bout with The Spider perfectly by doing what no one thought he was capable of doing, defeating Marquardt. I still think Silva would beat him, but after last night, I will not count out Sonnen ever again. He has looked incredible in his last three fights. He earned a shot at the middleweight crown with last nights win.
Mark Coleman– UFC President Dana White said last nights loss was the end of the road for Coleman. It was just a few short days ago that White said Coleman deserved the spot in the main event opposite Randy Couture, now he is saying goodbye. Coleman said he can still compete, but the fact remains, he can’t. He looked old and slow, there is nothing left in his gas tank. He will push for a bout with Tito Ortiz, who he cursed out while talking to Joe Rogan in his post-fight interview. The two were scheduled to face off at UFC 106 before Coleman was hurt.
Randy Couture– It’s hard to judge Couture off of his performance last night because Coleman looked so bad. Couture did what he does best, he closed the gap, got Coleman into the clinch against the fence and utilized his dirty boxing to batter Coleman to the ground. It’s not often you see Couture cinch in a submission, but it was great to see. The man is amazing, regardless of who he is fighting.
With the way the UFC, mostly White, has been pumping Couture up as a top five light heavyweight, I would say it’s pretty much a done deal that he fights the winner of the Lyoto Machida-Mauricio “Shogun” Rua rematch this May. If the UFC is going to capitalize on Couture, they better do it now, because even though he fights like he is 25, he is still 46 years old, or 46 years young as Couture said last night to Rogan.
Personally, I would love to see him fight Rich Franklin. It’s just a fight I always wanted to see. Maybe we will get to see that after he fights for the title, because I just can’t see him beating either Shogun or Machida, but then again, we have learned one too many times, never to count out “Captain America”
