UFC on FOX hype men Joe Rogan (right) and Dana White (left)

By Joshua Molina

Welcome to the UFC on FOX 6, otherwise known as Please Order UFC 156.

Shortly after Ricardo “the bully” Lamas battered Erik Koch in the first fight on the show, Joe Rogan interviewed UFC President Dana White to hype next week’s big championship fight between Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar.

“Two of the very best pound for pound fighters on the Planet Earth and it is going down next Saturday night live on Pay Per View and I know you are going to watch it!” Rogan blurted on live television as he and White smiled gleefully.

Rogan, by the way, is everywhere on UFC television, serving as cage-side commentator, post-fight interviewer and analyst for whatever fight the UFC is hyping at the time. Of all the voices heard on a UFC telecast, Rogan’s must consume 50 percent of it. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s clear Rogan has some good connections to the people in charge.

In the opener, Lamas destroyed Koch with a powerful elbow, opening a big cut over his eye. The blood sprayed instantly and you knew it was all over when the back of Lamas’ elbow was covered in red as he pounded away on Koch on the mat.  It was a bad knockout, but a good one for television.

In the next fight, Anthony “Showtime” Pettis looked like one of the best fighters in the world in knocking out Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone with a vicious kick to the body. Cerrone looked like he didn’t want to be there; a big scowl on his face, he didn’t come across as mean, but as uncomfortable and out of place.

Rogan called the kick that put Cerrone out as the “Bas Rutten special liver kick.”
Rogan hyped Pettis as deserving a Lightweight title shot immediately. If he fights like that, he would beat Benson Henderson or Gilbert Melendez.

After the fight, Cerrone’s mean face turned to one of disappointment.

Before his fight, Rampage Jackson looked mean and scared at the same time. He clearly had his game face on – and that face looked like that of a man who was about to take a beating.

Rogan (again) hyped how Jackson “really doesn’t like” opponent Glover Teixeira, who by the way is a protégé of UFC legend Chuck Liddell, a fact pointed out on the show more times than anyone really cared.

In the first round, Teixeira took Jackson down fairly easily and nearly submitted him with an arm triangle choke. Texeira seemed to let Jackson up because it looked like a little more effort could have finished him.

Rampage’s performance was actually quite sad. He looked old and tired, way too old and tired for a man who is only 34 years old. His standup was predictable and you could see his punches before he threw them.

He jabbed and bobbed and weaved kind of like an old Larry Holmes toward the end of his career, a stark reality for a once-feared fighter.

Teixeira should have finished him in the first round after dropping him with a big punch to the top of the head. Teixeira was either playing with him or for some reason lacked the instinct to put him away quickly. Perhaps he was overly fearful of what’s left of Jackson’s power.

Rampage wobbled out of the first round, unfortunately for him. Things just got worse.

After Teixeira took him down in the second round, the crowd booed, showing that in the end, fight fans just want to see a good fight, not takedown.

Rogan countered: “Crowd is booing a takedown. That is just sad.”

Rampage spent the rest of the fight trying to lure Teixeira into a slug-fest, but it didn’t work.

Nothing worse than a guy getting his backside handed to him, waiving his hands in the cage telling his opponent he’s got nothing. Jackson only did that once, however, because it was clear that Texeira was hurting him often in the fight, and taking him down at will.

At one point in the third Round, Rogan (again) said, “Rampage does not have much left, Mike.”

True. So true. The fight was probably his last in the UFC. He lost by unanimous decision.

Before the main event, the UFC on Fox hosts Curt Menefee, Chael Sonnen and Brian Stann took their show to cageside because of technical difficulties in their box seats where they normally preview the fights.

In making their predictions, Sonnen, whose hair gets bigger with every telecast, predicted that “Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson leaves with the strap.” Gotta to love Chael Sonnen’s pro wrestling vocabulary.

Sonnen was right. Johnson squeaked by with a close decision victory. He fought back after getting knocked down early by John Dodson.

Johnson clearly won, but only after he took the momentum back with an illegal knee to Dodson while he was technically down.

Johnson appeared to have more stamina and Dodson was never able to regain the power that he showed in the first two rounds.

A good fight, or as Sonnen said it, “These two looked like Jackrabbits on a date.”