UFC’s Patrick Cote: “I’ll Be Back in April, Guys”—Does Anyone Care?

by Stoker MacIntosh… The French-Canadian born cage-fighter known as Patrick “The Predator” Cote, who holds a career record of 13-5 overall and is 4-5 in the UFC, has been quoted on SB Nation as saying that he is looking to make a return to action in April of next year.

Well, in the words of the late great Jimmy Cannon: Nobody asked me, but…this writer’s reply—in the form of a question—to monsieur Cote would be “who cares?”

Honestly, and with all patriotism aside, my countryman from Montreal, Quebec, may have been great in the subpar world of the Canadian promotion known as TKO, but in regards to his time spent in the UFC, he has never once even slightly impressed me.

When he was a cast member on the reality show The Ultimate Fighter, his exhibition matches put me in a state of frustration.

They showcased Cote as a young wannabe UFC cage-fighter with aspirations of becoming somewhat of a power-punching knockout artist, yet, sadly, it also showed to the world his obvious deficiencies.

Specifically speaking, it continues to be the opinion of this writer, from studying Cote, that he loads up too much and tries much too hard to land that big haymaker.

Most times he delivers them from the wrong distance, and the wrong angle, so he may as well throw water balloons; his punches were not only inaccurate, they were also lacking subtance, and firepower.

He propelled one at the champion-Silva—during thier fight—which “The Spider” shrugged-off as if it was an annoying insect, about to alight on his left shoulder.

To be fair, he did show flashes of good technique with nice counter-punch stoppages over Drew McFedries and Kendall Grove, yet both these men are “far and away” from  being top-tier middleweights.

In his match with Chris Lebin—another “tomato can,” by the way—they resembled two young male children pinning each other against a playground fence engaged in a game of “who can stomp on whose toes the most.”

Cote’s fight with Ricardo Almeda at UFC 86 in July of 2008 was no better; it’s one that is surely to go down in MMA history as one of the worst UFC contests ever witnessed—a boring snooze-fest, to say the least.

To add insult to injury, the winner was promised a title shot against the reigning and defending 185-pound cage-fighting superstar Anderson Silva, so is it any wonder that the champion Brazilian “Spider” lacked enthusiasm leading into and also during the fight?

A cat toying with a mouse would undoubtedly have been the best way to describe the match on the night in question, or “another lamb to the slaughter,” as they say.

Cote supposedly blew his knee out in the third round of this title fight at UFC 90 last October, but it is this writer’s opinion that he should never had been in with such a foe in the first place.

Understandably, there does exist a smattering of fans out there who truly believe that Cote should get credit for making it to the third round, which may justified.

But what does that say about Cote concerning his possibilities of becoming a future threat to the middleweight division?

Is having a strong, iron-clad jaw, or chin, a good enough reason to come back to the UFC and continue to either get injured, beat up, or worse?

I think not.

All I can say—in my poor-man’s French—is, “Monsieur Cote, bonne chance, mon ami!”

Phil Kessel: Curse or Blessing?

by Louis “King of Roncesvalles” Pisano… The game which I was at, was a good debut for Phil Kessel. He hit the net 10 times, the puck seemed to find his stick a lot and his skills with it were apparent. His speed was evident, and he took as solid of a hit as you’ll see in the NHL and continued to play his game without any fear—all while amassing the most ice-time of any Leafs forward.  Truly no surprise when you know that Brian Burke wants to assure fans, media, and brass alike that he made the right choice in in potentially trading so much to acquire this budding young star.

The fact of the matter is that they still lost the game.  And again the Leafs lost in overtime, though in no part was it due to the outstanding job between the pipes by the Monster, without whom this game could have easily been a lopsided win for Tampa. From what I saw, Tampa had the better scoring chances close to the net aside from some mad scrambles late in the game, which Toronto could not capitalize on.

The Leafs finally have a guy in Phil Kessel, though, that many consider to be a “Top Six Forward.” His skills have brought him a lot of targets by opposing teams, and prior to his break out the Leafs lacked clear line identities resulting in some random defensive matchups. Much like a star running back in football, defensive coordinators design their game plan around stopping the opposing stud. For a team to have success, players surrounding the star have to step up when the defensive attention is focused on stopping the playmaker.

Now that teams will be keying off on Kessel—whether he continues playing with Stajan and Blake or if he ends up with Stalberg and Bozak—anything is possible.  His line will be up against the opposition’s number one defensive pairing.

Which other line can step up put some shots in the net?

Teams that do well tend to have star offensive players. Detroit has Zetterberg and Datsyuk, Pittsburgh has Crosby and Malkin, past greats such as Edmonton had Gretzky and Messier—Pittsburgh again had Lemieux and Jagr.  What those teams also had, however, were supporting players who became key to the success of their teams.  Phil Kessel is but one young guy hoping to attain a glimpse of the glory that those players tasted, but if it weren’t for the Glen Anderson’s and Jordan Stall’s, Johan Franzen’s and the other guys that got it done for those teams, they wouldn’t have succeeded as a whole.

Where does Toronto find this secondary support and how does the coaching staff take pressure off whoever is playing on that line with Kessel?

As we know, Toronto is a work in progress and a slow one at that. But with what was given up for Kessel it seems that the whip will now be put to the donkey with a little more vigour and urgency.

Opposing coaches may actually have to game plan now when they play the Leafs. Previously I could hear a coach in the dressing room just telling their team to go out and have some fun as though it were a kid’s house league game.

Perhaps Phil Kessel will be a curse for his line mates by drawing the opposing teams top defensive pairing.  Though for the other three lines that need to produce, he will undoubtedly be a blessing. Hopefully he will also be a blessing for the Toronto faithful for years to come.

Bargnani gets Raps back in win column

by Jeremy Visser… Not the most comfortable of wins, but I’ll take it. Andrea Bargnani had 22 points and a career-best 12 boards to get the Raptors back on track with a 110-99 win over the Pistons at the ACC tonight.

This one looked good in the end, though it came with its usual concerns — the Raps saw a 17-point second half lead disappear before eventually putting it away late and had their hands full with a Detroit team that was missing a pair of its best players in Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince. Still, a win is a win, and an especially important one with seven of the next eight on the road.

Aside from Bargnani’s fine night, Toronto picked up 25 and eight from Chris Bosh and 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists from Hedo Turkoglu — his best effort thus far in Raptorland. Jose Calderon wasn’t horrible but had another non-descript night, scoring nine points and adding just one assist in 31 minutes.

So, that leaves us at 2-2 with New Orleans, Dallas and San Antonio coming up on the road. Ugh. Anyway, I’ll check back in with more on the Raps tomorrow.

That’s what I’m saying, guy…