UFC 132

UFC132

UFC132 featuring a great card of fights headlined by the UFC Bantamweight Championship title fight between Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber. The card featured the following fights:

Carlos Condit vs Dong Hyun Kim
Ryan Bader vs Tito Ortiz
Matt Wiman vs Dennis Siver
Wanderlei Silva vs Chris Leben
Dominick Cruz vs Urijah Faber


Carlos Condit vs Dong Hyun Kim
I predicted Condit for the win in this fight and he didn't disappoint after a brief exchange on the feet and ground Condit threw a flying knee which connected right on Kim's chin knocking him down for Condit to finish the fight with strikes.


Ryan Bader vs Tito Ortiz
What a shock, after a minute of range finding, out of nowhere Ortiz drops Bader, jumped on him and finished him with a guillotine choke. Tito's first win in years and Baders second successive defeat. Tito seems to pull out the w when his back is to the wall. Surprised and not surprised by the result. Well done to Tito.


Matt Wiman vs Dennis Siver
Scrappy fight with some good exchanges, Wiman constantly trying to get the takedown throughout with Siver displaying excellent takedown defence. Wiman opened Siver up with brutal elbows. Close decision win by Siver. Some suspect judging perhaps?


Wanderlei Silva vs Chris Leben
Blink and you'd miss it, as expected both came out swinging. Wanderlei got caught by a left by Leben that rocked him and Leben pounced upon him and finished him quickly with strikes. Wanderlei has called out Vitor Belfort prior to tonight, Vitor would murder him like he did in their first fight.


Dominick Cruz vs Urijah Faber
Busy fight, high pace throughout. I felt that Faber had the better of the standing exchanges, dropping Cruz several times. Cruz did get a few takedowns. It was a very close fight that went the distance, I had Faber shading it slightly but Cruz got the nod and retained his title. How one judge scored the fight 45-50 to Cruz I will never know.

They need to sort the judging out, it's costing fights and damaging credibility of MMA. There has been spate of bad calls, two alone tonight. Other than the judging this was an excellent card of fights with some wonderful finishes and a five round title fight that was a fight from start to finish not five rounds of lay 'n' pray.

I'm looking forward to catching some of the prelims online later. Awesome action apparently. Best card of the year, lived up to expectations.

After watching both boxing and MMA tonight I can easily see why boxing is on the decline and MMA is gaining popularity.

What a boring fight between David Haye and Wladimir Klitschko. The fight went ad I expected with Wladimir dominating with the jab and landing the better punches. It strikes me that Haye can sell and talk up a fight but isn't in the same class as the Klitschko's. Vitali would have battered him tonight. Perfect end would have been a KO by Wladimir to shut Haye up after all the shit he has talked.

St Fagan's Museum 25/4/2011

I meant to post this a fortnight ago but got sidetracked. Better late than never.......

What a beautiful day yesterday was. Usually as a family we rarely do anything on a Bank Holiday Monday but for a change we decided to go out for the day together. We decided to go to St Fagan's Museum in Cardiff. The museum is mainly outdoors with a various array of relocated buildings showing how people in Wales lived through the years, from Iron Age mud huts to an eco-friendly house.

It has been many years since I last visited St Fagan's Museum and I was very much looking forward to it, I'm a nerd and nothing makes me happier than spending a day wandering through a museum/gallery and yesterday was no exception. Everything was perfect, we were up nice and early, hadn't argued (which is rare for us) and the weather was scorching hot. The only problems we faced were firstly whether to take our own food or find somewhere to eat whilst we were there and parking. With it being a rare beautifully sunny Bank Holiday, it was odds on that every pleb would either have the same idea as us or go to the coast.

We arrived at about 10am and the car park wasn't full but wasn't empty, there was a huge queue for parking tickets near where we parked but 100 yard down the road there were three vending machines unused. I wasn't standing in line queuing like a knob lol. The added bonus for the day was , museums in Wales are free entry so the day only cost £3.50 for the parking ticket (excluding food and petrol), which was a pinch and if we had a nice day, we couldn't really complain.

Onto the museum, the museum is a huge former private home which is opened to the public, donated to the people of Wales by the Earl of Plymouth in 1946. The museum boasts over forty original buildings from all corners of Wales, moved and erected in the museum grounds. The buildings include many farmhouses, chapels, a Workmen's Institute and the beautiful St Teilo's medieval church, presented in all it's splendour with colourfully crafted wall paintings on it's interior.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day out, it was a perfect day. The attractions were just as I remembered them, I made sure to visit every building and take lots of photographs. The buildings I loved the most were the Iron Age huts, St Fagan's Castle and Kennixton Farmhouse. The museum involves a lot of walking if you intend to make the most of it and see every building. Everything is laid out rather well, although it was a Bank Holiday and there was quite a high volume of visitors it didn't feel as if everything was on top of you. The main problem was people photo-bombing my pictures. It would be best to go back on a nice mid week day when people would be at work and children at school. That way the museum would be quiet and you can spend a leisurely day perusing all the attractions.

On the whole we all agreed it was the best family day out that we have had for a long time. It was a really cheap and enjoyable day, except petrol and parking we only paid for food, which was nice. I would go back again sometime. The museum I would like to visit next is Caerleon, which is a Roman museum based on an old Roman Town. It has the remains of a bath-house and the best example of a Roman amphitheatre in the UK.

St Fagan's Pictures