Oh what a night!
There were some awesome grappling bouts on the card.
Takimoto took a close decision over the much bigger Bustamante, and seems to have found his groove in MMA now. Bustamante seemed better on the ground, and had several good submission attempts, but Takimoto was able to work some good strikes from side control after dropping Bustamante.
I figured Bustamante deserved the decision, but it wasn't exactly a robbery either.
Ishida and Melendez were incredible. What a scrap it was; Ishida won the wrestling with nice takedowns, superior positioning and even threw the much bigger Melendez with a suplex. Melendez had top position in the second round, but Ishida found a close udegatame-type armbar from the bottom, locking Melendez's arm against his neck.
Melendez, wincing, escaped the armbar but lost the close decision.
Both Ishida and Melendez attempted submissions. Melendez had a good guillotine, and attempted a standing kimura that Ishida countered with a hard pickup takedown. Ishida attempted the americana from side control, had the udegatame armbar, and I think looked for the crucifix a couple of times when Melendez turtled. Melendez wasn't having it, though.
Bu-Kyung Jung, former 132 and 145-pound judoist and 2000 Olympic silver medalist, gave Shinya Aoki all he could handle on the ground. Jung seemed comfortable off his back, and had two very close armbar attempts in the first round. Aoki dominated the second round from mount, though, and at one point controlled Jung with a leg figure-four around Jung's legs in the mount.
Aoki kept scrambling for leglocks, but Jung didn't allow it to happen.
For Bu-Kyung Jung's debut, and the size difference, he did an incredible job. He must have been training MMA for quite a while now.
Any thoughts? This event was brilliant!
