WSOF 24 10/17 Results and recap : Jon Fitch vs Yushin Okami

WSOF 24 took place Saturday night on NBC Sports Network. The 11 fight card was headlined by a welterweight title eliminator bout between Jon Fitch and Yushin Okami and featured two WSOF title fights on the undercard. The first 6 bouts aired on wsof.com.

Chael Sonnen provided commentary for the whole show and while entertaining at times was reminiscent of Matt Stryker in his commentating style. So you’re either going to like it or really hate it and it ventured toward the latter for me.

In the main event, Jon Fitch (26-7-1) won a boring decision over Yushin Okami. He clearly won the last two rounds and the first was close. I had it for Okami, as did one of the judges. But Fitch clearly won the fight and will face Jake Shields for the vacant Welterweight title early next year.

In a Heavyweight title fight, Champion Blagoi Ivanov (13-1) KO’d Derrick Mehmen in the 2nd round in what was probably the best fight of the night. These two looked like an indy wrestling version of Rusev and Jack Swagger. Ivanov dominated the fight, finishing him with a brutal punch to an already cut eye that may have broken an orbital bone as Mehmen went down like he’d been shot.

Nick Newell (13-1) won a unanimous decision over Tommy Marcellino on 29-28 scores across the board. There wasn’t really any other score possible, although Marcellino was acting like he’d won after the fight and berated Newell, saying “you know you f’n lost”. Newell responded by telling him to be a better sport. In a post-fight interview that couldn’t be heard due  to technical difficulties on the part of NBC Sports Network, Newell retired from fighting. Interestingly enough, the last fighter that Marcellino fought in WSOF, Frankie Perez, retired in-ring earlier this year on a UFC show.

Two fighters making their WSOF debut had a sloppy fight in the second match on the show, with Vinny Magalhaes (13-7) submitted Matt Hamill in the latter’s first fight in several years. At 39 years old, that was probably it for him with the first round loss. Magalhaes was informed after the fight that he’ll fight Thiago Silva in a #1 contender’s fight for a shot at Dave Branch’s tile. Branch did commentary for most of the undercard and the top 2 main card fights but wasn’t here for this announcement.

The show kicked off with a Flyweight title fight, the first in the promotion’s existence. In fact it may have been the first 125 lb fight on a main card for the promotion. Debuting Magomed Bibulatov (10-0) won a unanimous decision on scores of 50-45 across the board, the same score I had, over Donavon Frelow. Bibulatov took him down at will through the whole fight but his striking games needs a lot of work. In terms of quality, this was a low-level UFC flyweight fight, the kind that you’d see on Fight Pass.

The prelims were full of mostly boring decisions, although the top 2  fights were had entertaining finishes. Rick Glenn (16-3) had a 2nd round KO win over Adam Ward. He knocked him out with two hammer fists on the ground and stopped punching before the ref even had a chance to stop it because he knew Ward was out. Alexandre de Almeida (17-5) got a first round sub with a rear naked choke of Saul Almeida. It was announced that he’d be the next challenge for Rick Palmer’s 145 lb title.

In the other bouts:

Colton Smith (6-4) won by unanimous decision on scores of 30-26 across the board. There was a penalty point deducted in the 2nd round and despite that, both Chael Sonnen and Renzo Gracie scored the fight 30-27 for Smith. I had it 30-25 with a 10-8 2nd before the penalty point.

Pat Walsh (7-2) had a unanimous decision win over Tyler King on 30-27 scores across the board. Really boring fight, typical for Pat Walsh.

Rex Harris (8-2) had a split decision win over Justin Torrey on scores of 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28. I scored it 29-28 for Torrey as did the fan poll and all the MMA media members on MMADecisions.com. Torrey is a training partner of friend of the site and sometime radio guest Antonio “the Promise” Thomas.

Bruce Boyington (11-8) won a split decision over Rodrigo Almeida in the opener. This fight wasn’t terrible but entirely forgettable. Scores were 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28. I scored it for Almeida but the 2nd round was very close and could’ve gone either way. Chael Sonnen actually scored it 30-27 for Almeida, Gracie had the same score as I did and the fan voting was 29-28 Boyington.

The show is not at all worth going out of your way to see but for a weekend with no UFC or Bellator, it was the best we had.