Rivaling pure Dominance

In the event that you missed UFC 145 in Atlanta over the weekend, allow me to explain what happened in the main event. Suga Rashad Evans spent months running his mouth, talking trash about Jon Bones Jones and was hell bent on taking back "his" belt. he crawled into the ring as Jones does and for the record, it was not nearly as slick as cool as when Bones Jones does it. From the word go, Jones was dominant. 

 The fight was not nearly as exciting as we had hoped and the feeling out process lasted the entire fight. Some would lead you to believe that this was a boring fight, but I am here to disagree with that and explain what really happened in the octagon. Jon Jones prevented Evans from engaging him by slamming elbows in his face. He prevented Evans from using his tremendous wrestling skills by keeping his distance and it was nearly impossible for Evans to even attempt a take down. When Evans did attempt to take Jones to the ground, he was met with a fierce knee to the chest and that was followed up by even more vicious elbows that put fear in the heart of a once fearless Evans. I forget the exact moment that it happened, but Jones had Evans in a guillotine choke, it appeared as though Evans' was going to have the life choked out of him, then jones let him go, pounded him with leg kicks, more flying elbows and pure dominance. At the end of that round I realized that Jones did something that's rarely done in MMA. He decided not to finish his opponent. Not because he couldn't, not because Evans countered with something he couldn't handle and not even because it was too late in the round for a submission. He let him go because he wasn't done torturing Evans.

 I can understand how you might disagree with that last statement, but only if you didn't watch the entire fight or simply watched the highlights on TV. Jones was dominating this fight from the get go, throwing elbows that looked like closed fist punches, landing them square in the face of Evans and then he did something I've never seen before. He got Evans in the clinch and began to "throw" shoulders at his chin, stunning his opponent maybe five or six times consecutively before Evans even knew what was happening. It was pure brilliance. It was plain to see that Evans couldn't get anything going. When he did throw punches that landed, they seemed to have very little impact on Jones and a step further, they were single punches, not thorough combinations.

Jones won the fight by unanimous decision after a five round masterpiece and it leads me, as well as many others, to ask the question. Who will be the next victim to face Jon Bones Jones? Sunday morning I read an article that stated Dan Henderson would be next up, but by the time the fight happens he will be 42 years of age, far from in the prime of his career and not unlike every single man who steps in the octagon to face Jones, he will have a significant size disadvantage. Many rumors are circulating that Jones may be asked to gain some weight (or not drop so much weight before a fight) and compete with the heavyweights. As exciting as that sounds, I think Jones has earned a chance to compete as a light heavyweight for at least another 4-5 fights, despite the lack of competition in that division. I say this because the kid, yes kid, is still just 24 years young and is still learning the sport. His body will continue to grow, he will gain some weight as he matures and before we know it, he will be smacking around the likes of Junior Dos Santos, Cain Velasquez and the other giants of that division. But for now, he's the greatest light heavyweight champion this sport has ever seen and he's far from hitting the peak of his abilities. 

Giant Observations

I made my way to AT&T Park last night with one purpose. To watch Roy Hallday dominate the San Francisco Giants. Yes, Tim Lincecum was pitching but I couldn't care less. In my opinion, he's an overrated, over hyped kid who's best days are behind him.

I got to the park early enough to watch both pitchers prepare for their start. Having never seen Halladay in person I was curious to watch his pregame routine. It was really cool to watch. He starts out stretching is body and then he plays catch with his catcher. They start tossing the ball from about 20 feet and with every few throws Halladay moves back a few feet. They ended up about 180-200 feet apart playing long toss for the better part of 20 minutes. Then, Halladay slowly walks over to the mound, gets comfortable and throws a few to his catcher, while his catcher is standing upright. The catcher gets into his crouch and that's when Halladay gets his game face on. The picture below is from my seat and it's obvious that I wasn't close enough to analyze his every move, but I observed a pitcher with a plan of attack. He threw about 12 fastballs in a row, then switched to offspeed pitches. After about 12 of those, he gets in the stretch and mixes it up a bit. Fastball outside corner, followed by breaking ball and then a fastball to the inside corner. I was impressed by his efforts and it gave me an insight into the routine of one of the best pitchers in  baseball.

As Halladay finished his throwing, I noticed Lincecum stretching along the third base line so I paid close attention to him as I was literally 100 feet from him. He started off by stretching his legs out a bit, kinda like we did back in the day. Just enough to stretch and tell coach we stretched, but nothing serious. He headed straight for the bullpen mound and began to toss the ball to his catcher. It didn't appear as uniform or deliberate as Halladay, but he looked to have good life on the ball. Quickly he got up on the mound and started throwing fastballs, which missed the target at least five times in a row as I noticed Buster reaching for the ball and his glove moved, a lot. He wasn't in the bullpen for longer than five minutes and he was gone.

In the first inning, both pitchers struggled. Lincecum didn't have his command, his fastball was between 88-91 and he threw a good amount of sliders. He got hit around a little bit, his outfielders didn't help him much and he struggled. I noticed something very interesting. It's fair to say that neither pitcher had his best stuff going last night and that's actually a great opportunity for a fan to see what his pitcher is made of. When Lincecum isn't on his game, his body language tells the entire story. He appears to be frustrated, his facial expressions are priceless as his snaggletooth appears more and more frequently. He moves his body around a lot as if he's not feeling right. Halladay on the other hand is flawless. His facial expressions are the same regardless of the situation. He was giving the homeplate umpire the mean mug as he wasn't getting the call on balls that were close to the strikezone, or so they appeared. He didn't have his best stuff, but he got guys out. He worked through difficult innings and that's the sign of a true professional. Lincecum did a pretty good job after the first inning, but to be completely honest, it doesn't appear as though he is comfortable on the mound right now and I feel like it's because he doesn't do well when things aren't going his way. I don't like him, I don't think he's nearly as good as Giants fans would have you believe. I'm curious to see if he learns how to pitch out of jams in a different way than he has this month. I know it's April, but if i were a Giants fan, I'd be concerned.

Mega Numbers

No, I am not about to discuss the insanity of the United States largest lottery jackpot in history. I bought a few tickets and dreamed the good dream, but it's not something worthy of discussion just 5 days prior to The Real opening day of major league baseball. I'd like to discuss the contract that Matt Cain signed with the San Francisco Giants today. 6 years $127 million and the language can be found at your favorite sports website, but I won't dissect each year and the actual money being paid. I will say that his agent is an extremely smart cat, getting San Francisco to sign off on a deal this large that includes the ever important no trade clause. 

The Giants are in the stretch run of the Barry Zito contract disaster and most Giants fans likely would have assumed that never again would the Giants offer a pitcher than much guaranteed cash and lock them off for that long. Yes, this is a different beast. Matt Cain is a professional in every sense of the word. If you didn't watch him every fifth day and you only knew his name from watching his highlights on ESPN, you would assume that a guy with a career record of 69-73 and an era of 3.35 is not worthy of a contract that large. But, if you live in the Bay Area and are a Giants fan (or if you are a guy like me who just watches a lot of their games) you know what he means to this club. His career record should be expunged from the record books forever because the Giants have provided 3.73 runs for him, lowest in all of baseball. That doesn't do justice because I can't begin to explain how many times I'ver seen him lose 2-1, 3-2; 4-3.

This contract is a microcosm of who the San Francisco Giants are and clearly who they will be in the future.   At this stage in the game, the San Francisco Giants have $57 million of their payroll locked up in 3 guys, all starting pitchers. Barry Zito makes $22 million, Matt Cain $15 million and Tim Lincecum $20.25 million. In recent years, the 2010 World Series championship included, offense has been an issue for the team and has prevented them from taking full advantage of their all star caliber pitchers. San Francisco avoided Albert Pujols, for good reason. They turned their heads when Prince Fielder was on the market for them to enjoy and this has been the pattern ever since they signed Barry Bonds way back in the stone age. For the next 7-10 years this team has decided to grow their own players on the farm, avoid huge contracts for sluggers and that's terribly disheartening news for Giants fans across the country. I understand that pitching wins championships and the blueprint for success in San Francisco is crystal clear. This team will win or lose based on how their pitching performs. Unless this team is willing to spend more of the money they claim they don't have and spend it on guys who can hit and drive in runs, they will continue to fall short of the gold ring. 

I thought for sure the Giants would allow Matt Cain to reach free agency and let him walk next winter. I practically guaranteed that he would wear a Cubs, Yankees, Red Sox or even Dodgers jersey in 2013, but I admit I was wrong. I will continue to believe that San Francisco doesn't have enough offense to compete at the highest level and until they break down and start spending some of their "rainy day" fund, the fans will continue to be frustrated and angered by the lack of offense put forth by this club.