Review for UFC 120: Bisping vs. Akiyama

6 / 10

I'm English and thus this event seemed tailor made for me. UFC, realising how much we love UFC in the UK have produced a PPV here numerous times and it is almost a way for the British MMA stars to have a time to shine. And boy do they shine at this event. Apart from one fight (between French Cheick Kongo and American Travis Browne) all of the main card fights feature someone from England and despite the results; it was still good to see the English in these types of fights.
However the fight of the night was always going to be the main event between Michael Bisping and Yoshihiro Akiyama. Bisping, since winning The Ultimate Fighter has gone from strength to strength and though he has never won a UFC championship it's almost like he doesn't need to. His fights are generally the fight of the night and he has won this award at a UFC PPV three times including the one for this PPV. This fight was just great and certainly worth watching. The rest of the card? Is a little hit and miss. Much like the previous PPV, there isn't that much gold beyond the main event, most fights seem to hang on the fact that someone from England is involved and when you have your first wave of patriotism out of the way it gets a little stale come the third fight. The fight between Kongo and Browne is also possibly the stupidest ending I have ever heard of and almost like something from WWE.

The DVD also includes all the preliminary bouts and much like the rest of the card there is a smattering of English fighters amongst them. These are actually not that bad for prelim matches and considering the controversial aftermath of Vinicius Quieroz testing positive for Stanozolol his fight against Rob Broughton was great. Also included is a number of behind the scenes extras which are good for giving more behind the scenes to the fights. Considering it was in the UK, I expected more extras with maybe the UFC bosses talking about how important it is to hold the events in the UK, but it is still all pretty good.
UFC 120 was an average event with an amazing main event. This is the sad thing as with one or two other good/great fights this could have been a PPV that I would not hesitate to recommend. However, as it is the only appeal is if you were one of the 17,133 fans who attended and would like to relive the magic of the night. Sadly, there isn't much of that to speak of.

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