On This Day in MMA History

[Egg Shen]

they need to get them shows on Fight Pass. I still have the 5 show DVD set they put out though, i'll have to dig it out.

[Noah Southworth]

On This Day in MMA History (July 2^nd)

 

Cage Rage 12: The Real Deal (July 2^nd 2005)

 

There were few names of note on this card, but one of the relative unknowns would end up being one of the most notorious names in British MMA, at least for a very brief period. On the undercard, Cyrille Diabate fell to Fabio Piamonte by way of submission, but Brad Pickett, Travis Lutter, Antonio Silva and Mark Weir were all victorious. But one name on the undercard, an obscure and unknown fighter at the time, would wind up with a level of infamy and notoriety that would see him plastered in the pubs and plastered on the front page of some of the UK’s finest tabloids. For in action this evening was the future Mr. Katie Price, Alex Reid. Also in action was Jason Barrett, who would eventually face Reid in Cage Rage’s most notorious and controversial fight

UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber II (July 2nd 2011)

 

This event was headlined by a long awaited rematch; a fight that a lot of fans had been waiting for, especially once the UFC absorbed the WEC.

At the time of WEC’s demise, Dominic Cruz was the WEC bantamweight champion. Cruz had won the title from Brian Bowles, Cruz then retaining the title against Joseph Benavidez and Scott Jorgensen before WEC was absorbed by the UFC. Cruz was then formally installed as the UFC bantamweight champion. For the first defence of his UFC title, Cruz would be facing the man who had handed him first ever loss, more than four years previously.

Urijah Faber was the face of the WEC. Since winning the WEC featherweight title, Faber had successfully defended it five times, with one of those fights seeing Faber choke Cruz out in 1:38, giving Cruz the first loss of his career. Over the course of those five fights, Faber had become the charismatic face of a promotion that focused on the lighter weight classes that UFC did not have. Faber lost his title in an upset loss to Mike Brown, Faber then alternating between wins and losses in his next four fights, with both of those losses coming in unsuccessful challenges for the WEC featherweight title. Faber had then won two in a row, including winning his UFC debut, and to no surprise, was announced as the first challenger for Dominic Cruz and the UFC version of the bantamweight title

But it was not just the main event that had fans excited. The co-main event would be a meeting of the heavy-hitters, with Wanderlei Silva taking on Chris Leben. Silva, the long-time PRIDE middleweight champion, was known for his violent, exciting fights. Likewise, Leben was known for his brawls, for swinging for the fences, and fans were anticipating fireworks when these two collided inside the octagon.

Prior to the action getting underway, there were several changes made to this event. BJ Penn and Jon Fitch fought to a controversial majority draw at UFC 127 in Australia and they were to be rematched here, but both pulled out due to injury. Rafael Dos Anjos replaced Evan Dunham against George Sotiropoulos. Brad Tavares replaced Jason Miller against Aaron Simpson, with Miller removed due to accepting the role as one of the main coaches on season 14 of TUF. And after an injury to Cub Swanson, Eric Koch was removed from this card put on the card for UFC Fight Night 25 against Jonathan Brookins.

There were four preliminary fights shown on Facebook and two preliminary fights were shown on Spike TV. The Facebook prelims dragged because all four fights were fairly one-sided and went the distance. The Spike fights were a lot more exciting; Rafael Dos Anjos blitzed George Sotiropoulos in 59-seconds, and Melvin Guillard starched Shane Roller in 2:12. Onto the main card, and things got off to a good start with Carlos Condit’s win over Dong Hyun Kim; Condit blasted Kim away in 2:58, ending the fight with spectacular flying knee, followed by some wild punches.

Then we had a fight that had a great deal of sentimentality for a lot of fans, especially the long-time fans, as Tito Ortiz took on Ryan Bader. Ortiz had not won a fight in five years, his last victories in the octagon coming against Ken Shamrock in 2006. Since that time, Ortiz had gone 0-4-1, and it was believed going into this fight that if Ortiz lost, as was widely expected, that that would be it for the former face of the UFC and that Ortiz would be released and/or perhaps retire from the sport altogether. For Ryan Bader, it was the chance to rebound and be rebuilt after coming off the first loss of his career, with his previous fight seeing Bader getting submitted by a highly touted fighter called Jon Jones.

The fight started out fairly slowly before the fighters got in close and Ortiz cracked Bader with an uppercut. Ortiz pounced and clamped on a tight guillotine choke. They fell to the mat, Bader still trapped tight and at 1:56 of the very first round, Bader tapped out and the fans went bananas. Ortiz pulled out his old ‘gravedigger’ celebration as the fans were electric, and when the result was announced, you’ve never seen a man happier to win a fight. As Joe Rogan pointed out in the post-fight interview, Ortiz had his back against wall. Unfortunately, this was as good as it would get for Ortiz in the UFC; Ortiz lost his next three fights before finally being released.

Dennis Siver beat Matt Wiman in what was probably a decent fight; I don’t remember it as being particular good or bad.

Then came the fight expected to bring the fireworks, to bring the bang; Wanderlei Silva against Chris Leben. Even thought it was only five years since the PRIDE Openweight Grand Prix, Silva looked a good 10-15 years older, and had facially changed enough to where you’d almost think he was actually a Silva look-a-like rather than the real deal. The fight started with both men moving forward; Silva caught Leben with four quick punches to the side of the head. Silva rushed in, got clipped, and then Leben grabbed hold of Silva’s head to launch a series of brutal uppercuts; Silva dropped, slumping face down to the canvas, and Leben followed up with some big punches and the referee stopped the fight after just 27-seconds.

The crowd were going crazy. Mike Goldberg was so caught up that he completely botched calling the finish; “Wanderlei Silva beats…Wanderlei Silva beaten by Chris Leben”. Curiously, the botch is left intact on the Fight Pass version of UFC 132, but if you look up the fights individually and watch this fight that way, the botch has been skilfully edited out in a manner to where you would never know anything had ever gone wrong.

It was certainly the biggest win of Leben’s career but it would also be the last win of Leben’s career. Leben lost his next four fights in the UFC and was then released. Leben would retire, announce a comeback two years later, with Bellator, but whilst undergoing a physical, heart problems would be discovered putting an end to any hopes of a comeback. It was an unfortunate end to the career of a man whose rivalry with Josh Koscheck was what put TUF on the ratings map; forgotten in the all the attention of Griffin/Bonnar is the fact that it was the Leben/Koscheck fight that drew, by far, the biggest rating of that first season of TUF, with the rivalry between the two helping attract tremendous interest in the series.

The main event Urijah Faber challenging Dominic Cruz for the UFC bantamweight title had a red hot crowd. Despite being a fair distance from his home, and not a whole lot further away from Cruz’s home, Faber was the overwhelming fan favourite. Faber got a huge reaction coming out, and interestingly, Faber’s traditional walk-out music of California Love is not overdubbed on Fight Pass; usually, entrance music is dubbed over by something generic for copyright reasons, but not here.

Despite being a fair distance from his home, and not much further from Cruz’s, Faber was the overwhelming crowd favourite. He was a superstar to the fans in Las Vegas, a total babyface, and Cruz was the decided heel. Anything Faber did was met with cheers, whilst Cruz was roundly booed every time he had success. The two had a good fight, fairly competitive, and whilst the first round was admittedly close, enough that you could have given it Faber, as the fight wore on, it was Cruz who dominated and dictated the fight. Faber simply could not counter the speed and movement of Cruz, which was top-notch here. Cruz won the unanimous decision on scores of 50-45, 49-48 and 48- 47; the first two are definitely viable but the 48-47 isn’t so much. Faber just wasn’t in the fight enough to warrant it.

Cruz and Faber were Fight of the Night, Tito Ortiz was Submission of the Night, which he’d have surely won even if there had been another submission on the card, and Carlos Condit got Knockout of the Night for his spectacular flying knee on Dong Hyun Kim. Overall, UFC 132 was a fine card, and worth a watch as long as you skip the Facebook fights.

There will be no daily update tomorrow, as nothing of noteworthy status appears to have taken place on any MMA event that occurred on July 3^rd.

[wandshogun09]

It shouldn't have been a shock given both mens' power and wild styles but I'll never forget that Wandy vs Leben finish. I remember me and my brother going from buzzing and excited to gutted and silent within 30 seconds. I don't know what disappointed me more, Wand losing or the fact that I was expecting the FOTY and got a 30 second KO. 

Sadly, that wouldn't be the only deflating 30 second finish in my life  

[Noah Southworth]

On This Day in MMA History (July 4^th)

PRIDE 6 (July 4^th 1999)

This PRIDE event had Nobuhiko Takada fight on top, and this time, it wasn’t worked. Sort of. Maybe. Takada’s opponent was Mark Kerr, ‘The Smashing Machine’ of the highly regarded HBO documentary of the same name. At this stage of his career, Kerr’s drug problems had yet to spiral out of control and he was on a serious roll. Kerr was 9-0 and was most known for winning two four-man tournaments in the UFC, winning his four fights in a combined time of 5:10.

It’s easy to see why he got the nickname ‘The Smashing Machine’.

Now, Kerr won the fight against Takada, so this was not one of Takada’s bought and paid for victories. But there was one aspect of the fight that had some people suspicious. Takada had lasted 3:04. Whilst it may not seem Takada lasted that long, the fact that Takada had lasted longer than all but two of Kerr’s previous opponents, most of whom were a lot tougher and all of whom were better fighters than Takada, it had the more sceptical of fans suspicious that Kerr had agreed to ‘carry’ Takada before beating him, so as not to completely embarrass him.

If you watch the fight, you could argue that Kerr was not being as aggressive as he could be; he was clinched up with Takada for a while and made no effort to do anything and was content to stand there. Kerr later had Takada grounded and somehow, Takada was able to escape and get to his feet, something that seemed weird for Takada to be able to do given Kerr’s amateur wrestling credentials. None of this proof of anything, nor is the fact that the fight didn’t go exactly as expected. It could just as easily be that Kerr was not pushing himself of his own accord, that he was pacing himself. But given the circumstances of who Kerr was fighting and that Takada’s last fight was his ‘win’ over Mark Coleman, it’s easy to see why fans would even more sceptical than they normally might be of any fight involving Takada.

There was another fight that had some suspicion about it, with Naoya Ogawa submitting Gary Goodridge with a kimura. Ogawa was the current pet-project of Antonio Inoki, who was intent on making Ogawa a national star in the worlds of both MMA and professional wrestling. At the time, Inoki had a measure of influence in PRIDE, and was already carefully managing Ogawa’s wrestling career in New Japan Pro Wrestling, which had resulted in some controversial moments and would lead to plenty more. In those circumstances, it wouldn’t have exactly been a shock to hear the fight was worked, and Goodridge has confirmed that he was asked to lose to Ogawa. But Goodridge also stated that the money offered was not enough and that the fight was completely real.

Elsewhere on the card, Kazushi Sakuraba continued his rise up the ladder with a victory over Ebenezer Fontes Braga, and Akira Shoji scored a major upset with a split-decision victory over Guy Mezger.

Tomorrow’s entry won’t be that big, but I’ll give you fair warning that Thursday and Friday’s entries are going to be quite hefty.

[Egg Shen]

not heard about the Kerr/Takada fight being worked, i'd imagine it would be though because at that time Kerr was the most terrifying fighter in MMA, i need to rewatch it.

Ogawa is another guy who's career i need to re-visit, he had a legit background in Judo and was an Olympian but with the pro-wrestling ties id imagine some tomfoolery. My biggest memory of Ogawa was the fight with Fedor where he got massacred quickly and shockingly defeating Steffan Leko. I remember being excited about Leko's debut because he was a top rate kickboxer in his prime coming in and Ogawa dropped him early before submitting him. I was blown away at the time but i've just rewatched it and it looks dodgy, Leko drops pretty easily and gives himself up for submission on the ground. Leko went 0-3 in MMA before quitting.

Ogawa's fight after that was to Fedor and he got chewed up, i always find it strange how the fighters who worked fights always went so far with the works before eventually having to fight in a real fight only to get battered. I wonder if Fedor was ever propositioned to drop a fight to a Japanese fighter?

I don't recall Ogawa being such a big dude though.

[jimufctna24]

46 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

Ogawa is another guy who's career i need to re-visit,

Ogawa was over as rover in Pride. I only became a regular viewer of Pride in early-2005. Still, I was dumbfounded when Yoshida and Ogawa headlined Pride's NYE show that year. In retrospect, I can recognise that it was a massive domestic fight;. with both being Olympians in Judo. However, at the time, I didn't really know a great deal about either. Initially, Pride was all about Fedor, Cro Cop. Wanderlei, Shogun, Rampage, etc. They were the stars, especially on the American broadcasts. 

It was only when I watched the 2004 GP that I came to realise how popular Ogawa was. The crowd were going nuts for him. That chicken dance he did was massively popular (I forget what he called it) Looking at it, Pride did give him an easy draw. He only had to beat a rookie in Leko, and Giant Silva to make finals night. His bracket was the easiest by quite a margin. He was kept away from Herring, Nog, Cro Cop Sergei, and others who would likely beat him. I guess they wanted a Japanese fighter - and a popular one at that - to still be in the tournament on finals night. 

[Egg Shen]

Yoshida on the other hand got into some right pickle, he fought a not far off his prime Don Frye in his MMA debut and fought Wanderlei only 4 fights into his career. Always felt more an air of legitimacy about Yoshida's MMA run.

I'm gonna go back and watch that Frye fight though, i can't remember it.

[jimufctna24]

Yoshida took a prime Wanderlei to the limit twice, which was mightily impressive for someone of his experience. The second fight in 2005 was particularly close. I think I actually scored it in Yoshida's favour. Wand won via split decision.

What hurt Yoshida was his quasi-rematch against Royce. He was expected win that bout, but Royce got the better of him. Yoshida scraped a draw based on there being no judges (it was the Gracie clan, so special rules were in effect) 

[Carbomb]

I saw that Yoshida/Gracie rematch. Was weird - all the rounds followed the same pattern, with Yoshida going for a submission and Royce fighting it off. Yoshida even had Royce in a semi-sharpshooter position.

[Egg Shen]

the Gracies got a couple of 'draws' in fights they clearly would have lost under normal rules.

[wandshogun09]

By pure coincidence, I'm up to Pride 6 in the Pride reviews thread. I'm hoping to get that post up sometime tomorrow. 

[Noah Southworth]

On This Day in MMA History (July 5^th)

World Fighting Alliance 2: Level 2 (July 5^th 2002)

The World Fighting Alliance was a twice short-lived promotion based out of Las Vegas. The WFA was originally formed by John Lewis, a retired fighter and a trainer of fighters, and the promotion had the slogan “where the fight club meets the night club”, and was exactly the type of outfit it sounds like. After fading into oblivion later on in 2002 after some controversial events that we’ll get to in due course, the promotion was resurrected by new owners who spent a ton of money on fighters like Quinton Jackson, Bas Rutten, Matt Lindland and others, and promoting a PPV that bombed and wound up being the death of the company; it was subsequently bought out by the UFC, although the only fighter of note UFC bothered to bring over was Jackson.

Level 2 had a mixture of new names and old, most of whom had passed through or would pass through the UFC;  Marvin Eastman, Tiki Ghosn, Kit Cope, Aaron Brink, Valentijn Overeem, Frank Trigg, Kimo and Tim Lajcik. Ghosn TKO’d Cope (retirement), Brink TKO’d Overeem (punches), Trigg won his fight, and Kimo TKO’d Lajcik by way of a broken toe. Lajcik wouldn’t fight again, and it wasn’t the only fluke ending of the night; the main event ended less than twenty seconds when Joey Villasenor injured himself on a thrown when fighting Jermaine Andre.

World Series of Fighting 11: Gaethje vs. Newell (July 5^th 2002)

This had an interesting main event purely for the curiosity factor of seeing what a fighter with only one-half of his left arm would do against of the promotion’s standout fighters.

Nick Newell was born with congenital amputation of the left arm, meaning it ends just below the elbow. Newell has as stump of a forearm, which he can reputedly grasp quite well with. Newell competed on the high-school wrestling team, and in college, his roommate was Curt Hawkins, and watched TUF together which is what inspired Newell to take up MMA. After compiling a 5-1 record as an amateur, Nick turned pro, but had trouble finding people willing to fight him at first, because they felt fighting Nick was a lose-lose situation; they had nothing to gain by beating a one-armed man, and it would look bad if they lost to that one-armed man.

Newell went 9-0 before signing with the WSOF, winning his first two fights and getting a shot at WSOF lightweight champion, Justin Gaethje. Gaethje had gone 7-0 before entering the WSOF, making short work of Gesias Cavalcante in his debut, and then gaining victories over Brian Cobb and Dan Lauzon (brother of Joe) before demolishing Richard Patishnock to take the WSOF lightweight title. And it would be against Newell that Gaethje would make his first defence.

Gaethje and Newell went exactly as you’d think a one-armed man in an arse kicking contest would go, if the guy with both arms was a pretty good fighter. And as much as Newell’s attempts to forge a career in mixed martial arts can be commended, there is still something very unsettling watching a bloodied up man with half of an arm getting beaten up on. It felt like a sideshow attraction at a demented fairground.

Elsewhere, Melvin Guillard, after missing weight, beat Gesias Cavalante. Cody Bollinger, who also missed weight, choked out Pablo Alfonso. And Jon Fitch toiled away in a unanimous decision victory over Dennis ‘Speedo’ Hallman.

The highlight of the night, however, was Kenny Rice on commentary. This might be the single worst performance from an announcer I have ever seen. Never in the history of MMA have you heard one man burying everyone in sight. Bas Rutten was doing colour and trying his best to put the fighters over. But no matter what positive thing Bas said, Kenny Rice immediately followed up with something negative to undercut it. It was remarkable. If Bas put over Fitch’s striking, Kenny was there to tell you why it really wasn’t that good. If Bas said something positive about Guillard or Cavalcante, Kenny was there to tell you they were chronic underachievers whose best days were behind them. Kenny Rice was doing his absolute best to make sure nobody and nothing was getting over. Kenny sounded like he was making a genuine effort to sound positive; he just had absolutely no idea of what to say that actually was positive. The only other explanation to Kenny’s performance is that, for whatever reason, he wanted to be a contrarian; that if Bas said anything, Kenny had to take the opposite approach, regardless of whether it was a good thing to say. It’s the type of performance you almost have to see to believe.

Tomorrow’s entry covers a variety of events, including one of the most historic nights in UFC history, and you might want to brew a cup of strong coffee, because this one is a biggie.

[Egg Shen]

yeh, the Gaethje/Newell fight was just wrong. Newell's achievments as an MMA fighter were pretty remarkable when you think about it, but he should never have been in the cage with Gaethje.

[jimufctna24]

3 hours ago, Noah Southworth said:

Kenny Rice

I forgot about Rice. I just checked, and it turns out that Inside MMA was finally discontinued last September. Rice left 6 months before its final episode. It lasted 9 years! As much as I like Bas, I was never a regular viewer. The show did little for me. I never took to Rice either. 

[Egg Shen]

Rice and Rutten clearly enjoyed each others company but it wasn't a great show. 

Speaking of MMA shows, does anyone rememger MMA Uncensored with Mike Straka & Nate Quarry?