The Ten Things We Learned At UFC 137

5. Donald Cerrone’s time is now

I figured Donald Cerrone would beat Dennis Siver. Cerrone’s submission game is outstanding and Siver’s really isn’t, which means it was a bad style match-up for the German. What I didn’t count on was Cerrone going in the cage and using Siver’s own kickboxing strengths to utterly smash and destroy him.

Siver should have provided more of a challenge for Cerrone, but he didn’t. Not by a long shot. Was Siver overhyped, or was Cerrone just that damn good?

I’m going with the latter.

Leonard Garcia, who owns a ranch/training center with Cerrone in New Mexico, told me several times in the weeks leading up to the fight that Cerrone had taken his game to another level. He was beating up on light heavyweights and heavyweights, Garcia said, and nobody really wanted to spar with him.

I assumed Garcia was just hyping up his best friend, but he wasn’t. Cerrone truly is on a different level than he was just one year ago during the waning glory days of World Extreme Cagefighting, and he’s improving by leaps and bounds each and every time he steps in the UFC cage.

Barring any unforeseen injuries, Cerrone will fight one more time by the end of the year, likely on the New Year’s weekend card in Las Vegas. A win would give him a 5-0 record in the UFC, something that is almost unheard of in the modern UFC.

He’s already nearing title contention. The winner of Clay Guida vs. Ben Henderson is virtually assured the next shot at Frankie Edgar, but I believe you can make a case that Cerrone is already more deserving of a title shot than either guy.

He scores another big win in 2011? Give the man a title shot.

6. Mitrione still has a long way to go, but we knew that

UFC 137 was supposed to be a real test for Matt Mitrione, a way to see where he stands among that middle tier of UFC heavyweights.

He did not pass the test. Not by a long shot.

This isn’t to say that Mitrione doesn’t have potential, because he does. The problem is that he’s still a very young fighter, at least in terms of his career, and we need to keep our expectations aligned with his level of experience. He’s shown so much potential in the past and so much drastic improvement that we automatically assume he’s going to go out and be a heavyweight contender, but that’s just not the case. Not yet, anyway.

Mitrione himself likes to say that he’s the most-hyped fighter in the UFC. That’s true. He tries to keep fan expectations in order, but we love seeing new heavyweight prospects come down the pipe and excel, and Mitrione is a product of our desire to see big, bad-ass heavyweights become contenders. Mitrione himself may never become heavyweight champion, and that’s okay. He doesn’t need to win a belt to be a success story.

7. Who is Cheick Kongo?

Cheick Kongo’s muscles have muscles, so it’s pretty fair to say that he’s one of the more intimidating fighters on the planet. Once in a blue moon, we’ll see the power striking skills everyone raves about and he’ll instantly turn into that guy you don’t want to meet in a dark alley. He can wage war with the best of them; all you have to do is re-watch his now-legendary battle with Pat Barry to understand what he’s capable of.

And then we have a night like UFC 137, where he spends the majority of the fight backing away from a guy with 5 professional fights and a stand-up game that, to be quite honest, isn’t the best in the business. To top it off, he decided he wanted a little wrestling action in the third round. Wrestling from a guy who really doesn’t wrestle all that well? It worked.

Kongo suffers from an identity crisis. He doesn’t quite know what he wants to be when he steps in that cage. He’ll shy away from his strengths or be completely tentative when he should be going for the kill. He’s a strange one, and I’m not quite sure what to make of him.