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On This Day in MMA History


Noah Southworth

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I looked forward to the fight because it was Fedor. Of course, I would have anticipated it more if he was squaring off against Overeem, but the mere presence of the man himself made it a must-see. He was one of those fighters that MMA fans followed religiously. Every fight he had was somewhat of a spectacle. Especially when he was fighting in America, where the lights are at their brightest. 

I should stress that I wasn't a Fedor fan at the time. While I admired his ability, I was pretty indifferent to him. It's only been recently that I have become a bit of a fanboy of his, A re-watch of his 3rd fight with Big Nog was what set the wheels in motion. I came to appreciate how great he was in his pomp. 

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On This Day in MMA History (June 27th)

Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Thomson (June 27th 2008)

There was just the one event worth talking about today, but it has a main event that would led to one of MMA’s most underrated trilogies, underrated because it sort of fell under the radar because of where it happened. The undercard featured one of TUF’s most disliked alumni, a guy who even today seems oblivious to what he did wrong, as well as a woman who would go on to become one of the UFC’s most well known names.

Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thomson were two of Strikeforce’s biggest names and most talented fighters, although Thomson was perhaps a little more popular due to his being born in San Jose, the home of Strikeforce. Melendez went into this fight as the reigning Strikeforce lightweight champion, with a 14-1 record. Gilbert had won the title from Clay Guida, who had actually beaten Thomson for the then-vacant title in a fight where Guida had a point taken off for eye gouging. Gilbert had fought five times since winning the lightweight title, but only two fights were in Strikeforce and only one was a title defence. And it was one of those fights outside of Strikeforce, against Mitsuhiro Ishida, that saw Gilbert suffer his first loss. Thomson had won six in a row since the loss to Guida and was coming into this fight with an overall record of 14-2 with 1 no-contest. Among those wins was a submission victory of Duane Ludwig.

Kenny Rice and Bas Rutten were our commentators for the evening and weren’t that good, and the fights were under the Strikeforce rules that forbade elbows to a grounded fighter. The fight was good and Gilbert was never out of it. But at no point did Gilbert seem to be that competitive. He just didn’t have an answer to the grappling or wrestling of Thomson. Whenever Thomson got a hold of Gilbert, he invariably did what he wanted with him, even if he couldn’t quite get the finish. Gilbert fared little better in the striking; whilst he threw more strikes, 275 to 192, Thomson landed more, landing 131 compared to the 66 Gilbert landed.

It was a dominant win for Thomson, but Gilbert would be back and these two would fight again.

The co-main event was a rematch between notorious TUF alumni Bobby Southworth (8-5, 1 NC) and Anthony Ruiz (20-10), with Southworth defending the Strikeforce light heavyweight title. Southworth had faced Ruiz in a non-title match the previous November, with Ruiz coming out on top when the doctor stopped the fight. This fight had a good first round, lots of active grappling and submissions attempts, and the second round was decent and more of a striking battle. Then it fell off the cliff, with both fighters doing lots of holding on and nothing else with it. It became a pure grappling battle based on positioning, with no real aggression. It ended up going the distance, unfortunately, so we had to deal with three rounds of uninspiring combat. Southworth retained his title to add to the pain.

With this victory, Southworth would eventually end up in the history books as he would turn out to be the only Strikeforce light heavyweight champion to ever retain his title. Future champions would either lose the title on their first defence or, in the case of Dan Henderson, leave the promotion before defending the title. And Henderson was the last ever Strikeforce light heavyweight champion. Southworth would lose the title in his next fight, a TKO loss to Renato Sobral at the end of the year. Southworth would fight once more, a win over Aaron Boyes in 2010, before eventually retiring. Southworth did try out for Season 11 of TUF, Liddell vs. Ortiz, as a light heavyweight, but never made it to the show after it was decided the season would focus exclusively on middleweights.

As for Anthony Ruiz, he was still fighting as of mid-2016, with his highest profile fight a unanimous decision loss to Francis Carmont in an alternate’s bout for Bellator’s light heavyweight tournament at the first Dynamite card. Had Ruiz won, he would have faced Phil Davis in the tournament final as King Mo pulled out due to injury.

The main card of the evening was opened up with Miesha Tate facing Elaina Maxwell, in a fight with three-minute rounds, because, well, they were women and obviously weren’t up to the rigours of five-minute rounds. The athletic commissions put it more diplomatically than that but that’s the reason for what really was a ridiculous rule. Tate looked good, showing flashes of greatness, and even almost winning with an armbar en route to a unanimous decision victory. Obviously, Mr. Tate was on the undercard, as was future UFC flyweight title challenger, Chris Cariaso.

Tomorrow, we go old-school, as well as visit a UFC double-header.

42 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

As I expected, I'm loving these posts, Noah. Great work.

Thanks.

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Yeah, good job.

Sadly, I only became an MMA fan around the time Fedor joined Strikeforce (the rise of Lesnar being my jump on point).

My first proper full fight introduction to him was the Werdum fight. Going in, I just assumed Fedor would lamp him, because he was indestructible. Instead, all I watched was a man out of time and suddenly looking very exposed.

Thankfully Fight Pass came along and I got to watch his talent, in his prime. It's a shame Fedor's US career has been a bit of a disaster. For some, I imagine he's the most over pushed jabroni of all times.

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That's a shame Bollocks, you never got to feel how it was when Fedor was in Pride. He genuinely seemed indestructible. It's sad that down the line people started to question his list of opponents and picking apart his record because when it was happening no one really did that. There was scrubs littered amongst his wins but that was par for the course when you fought in Pride...it was the fashion in which Fedor always went about his business though that made him so much fun to watch. When Fedor was fighting a bit of a bum he just walked through them and made it look so simple, it's even more impressive that he was doing the same to the good opponents he had.

The detractors always used to point at the moment Fujita landed that wild overhand right and wobbled Fedor to show that he was human and that he was beatable, that's basically all they had to cling to too though during that run.

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On This Day in MMA History (June 28th)

Superbrawl I (June 28th 1996)

The first event of the Superbrawl promotion, later Icon Sports, merits a brief mention even without any footage to look at, due to the appearance of two old-school UFC names. Judging from the results, there appears to have been three two-man tournaments going on, although one of the scheduled fights is not listed so may not have actually happened. Jerry Bohlander scores two submission victories (in 2:10 and 8:27) to twin his tournament, whilst Tra Telligman also gained two submission victories (in 2:04 and 2:09), both of coming by way of strikes.

Ultimate Fight Night 5: Leben vs. Silva (June 28th 2006)

The night a UFC legend made his debut for the company.

There was a great deal of buzz when it was announced that Anderson Silva had signed with the UFC. Silva had an exciting, Muay Thai-like style of fighting that had produced a number of highlight reel finishes, including a flying knee to Carlos Newton and a nasty looking reverse elbow strike to Tony Fryklund. Silva was not undefeated, but the nature of his few losses, including a submission loss that was the result of the biggest ‘Hail Mary’ play in modern MMA history, meant that there was a belief that Silva would be a major threat to current UFC middleweight champion, Rich Franklin.

For his debut in the UFC, Silva was going to be pitted against the hard-hitting and hard-headed Chris Leben, the bad boy turned crowd favourite who had made his reputation as a brawler willing to stand there and slug it out. Leben was competing on his fifth consecutive Fight Night card and was undefeated in the UFC, so the fight with Silva was a title eliminator for a shot at Rich Franklin. Yet despite this, nobody was giving Leben much of a chance, and it was felt that the fight was put together merely to avoid the appearance of gifting Silva a title shot. Sure, people expected Leben to make a fist of it, but they still expected that Silva would win.

What followed was one of the most dynamic debuts in UFC history as Silva blitzed Leben in just 49-seconds, with head movement, footwork and some of the most precise striking we’d ever seen in the UFC up to that point time, Silva finally putting Leben away with a knee to the head from the clinch. As Joe Rogan succinctly put it, Anderson Silva was a different kind of striker. It was the result people expected, but nobody expected it to happen like that. Even the UFC didn’t think the fight would go like it did, to the point that, when they were concerned they might run out of time for the broadcast, they sent Silva and Leben out early just to be assured the entire fight would make it to air. The intended main event wasn’t even in the main event spot.

The actual main event of the evening turned out to be Luke Cummo against Jonathan Goulet.

Chris Leben could take a shot and keep on coming. You had to work hard to knock him down and work even harder to keep him down. And Anderson Silva had done all of that and more in less than a minute. It marked the beginning of one of the greatest runs in UFC history, from a man who would go down as a legend of both the UFC and the sport of mixed martial arts.

The rest of the main card was uneventful. A fight between Rashad Evans and Stephan Bonnar was decidedly unremarkable. The preliminaries weren’t a lot better, although they did feature Josh Kosheck getting a unanimous decision win over former UFC middleweight champion Dave Menne, as well as Jon Fitch knocking out Thiago Alves.

Regardless, UFC Fight Night 5 was destined to go down in the history books.

Extreme Challenge 100 (June 28th 2008)

This was a milestone event for one of America’s longest running MMA promotions, a place where a lot of UFC alumni had had some of their first forays into the sport. Tonight, however, only two fighters went on the UFC, and whilst their forays were brief, one of them made a lasting impression, despite never having an official fight.

Josh Rafferty fought on the undercard of the TUF finale, losing by way of KO, to Alex Karalexis, in what would be his only official fight for the promotion.  The other future UFC fighter competing here never had an official fight for the UFC; coming into the evening with a 2-4 record was the infamous Noah Inhofer. Noah won his quarterfinal fight on TUF before famously bowing out of the tournament due to pressure from his then-girlfriend. As the couple had only been together for three months, Noah was ridiculed for his actions and got so much unnecessary flak, especially from Dana White. Noah would fight two more times in 2008 before retiring from MMA and moving on with his life. If you want to know how things turned out for Noah, check out the “Where Are They Now?” series on Fight Pass. It is very much worth watching.

There were two former UFC fighters on the card, with Tyrone Roberts and Matt Andersen in action, although not against each other. You might vaguely recognized Roberts’ name; he competed way back at UFC 26, a unanimous decision win over David Dodd. Roberts is 44 and last fought at the end of December last year, so he may still be fighting. You have to go even further back to see Matt Andersen in the UFC. His lone UFC fight was on the infamous, for reasons not entirely to do with what went on inside the octagon, UFC 9 card, a TKO loss to Rafael Carino.

If you’re into watching the grittiness of a low-level promotion, EFC 100 is worth a watch. Seven of the nine fights end in less than three-minutes, so the time will fly by.

Shooto Brazil 7 (June 28th 2008)

The location for this card appeared to be a small hall, with tables set up like you’d get in ballroom or something. It’s a similar set up to some regional MMA promotions in the US. The fights were in what appeared to be a boxing ring that was small and set against the back wall. The fighters themselves came up the stairs from the floor below before walking out into the hall, which was unique, and they were all introduced to the fans before the fights started, which is something you don’t see enough of these days.

This is another card the flies by due to fact that most of the fights are short; of the ten fights, only three go into the second round. They’re very ‘Brazilian’ fights, in that they’re almost overly violent and some of the stoppages are on the late side. A couple of names to note on this one are Marlon Moraes, in his fourth pro fight, current Bellator bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantes, and Leonardo Santos. Santos is in the main event and his opponent has a rocking mullet.

UFC Fight Night 43: Te Huna vs. Marquardt (June 28th 2014)

This card was the first half of a unique double-header with two events on the same day in different parts of the world. It wasn’t the first time the UFC had done this; just one month prior to this double-header, the UFC had run a Fight Night in Germany and then had the final of TUF Brazil 3 on the same day. In December 2012, the UFC had run two TUF finales, one in Australia and one in the US, and whilst they were officially both on the same day, the 15th, the Aussie TUF finale had actually aired on the 14th in North America due to the time difference.

The card went through a few changes; Sean O'Connell replaced Anthony Perosh against Gian Villante, Rodrigo de Lima (the current Jungle Fight welterweight champion at the time) replaced Claudio Silva against Neil Magney, and Roldan Sangcha-an replaced Jon Delos Reyes against Richie Vaculik.

The main event was James Te Huna against Nate Marquardt. Te Huna was the big local name and in his last fight, in Australia, Te Huna had been matched against Mauricio Rua with the idea of giving Te Huna a win against an aging veteran with a name to help make a star. Rua upset those plans in just 1:03 with a brutal knockout victory. Never ones to be dissuaded, the UFC went back to the well, matching Te Huna against another aging veteran with a name, in this case Nate Marquardt. Again, the hope was Te Huna would win and his profile would be raised. Marquardt was on a slide at this point, and it was considered a bad one. Since returning to the UFC, Nate had been knocked out by Jake Ellenberger in 3:00 and then destroyed by Hector Lombard in 1:48. And prior to that, he’d lost the Strikeforce welterweight title to Tarec Saffiedine in a very one-sided fight. This time out, Nate was moving back up to middleweight and he was considered a fairly safe opponent for the hard punching Kiwi.

The New Zealand faithful were in fine voice as they loudly cheered on the home country favourite. Those voices were rapidly lowered when Marquardt dropped Te Huna with a knee from the clinch in very short order, and when the fight hit the ground Te Huna had almost nothing for Marquardt, who ended up tapping Te Huna with an armbar in 4:38. Those fine voices were now pretty silent. One member of the press could be seen visibly uttering the f-word.

The hopes for Te Huna becoming a star in New Zealand and Australia were up in smoke. Te Huna was out of action for almost two years, spending all of 2015 sidelined due to injuries. Any hopes of a career resurrection in his return fight were snuffed out in just 52-seconds in a knockout loss to Steve Bossé in March of 2016; two months later, Te Huna announced his retirement from MMA. Nate Marquardt was unable to rebuild his career after this win, and he’s gone 2-5 in the seven fights since the win over Te Huna. From being a former title challenger and one of the best, Nate Marquardt has now slipped out of relevancy in the UFC and is probably one more loss away from getting cut.

Elsewhere on the main card, Jared Rosholt had already dampened the crowd somewhat with a typically terrible fight in the co-main event, a unanimous decision win over Soa Palelei, another native New Zealander. The fans had more to cheer about on the undercard with Kiwi/Aussie fighters Jake Matthews, Richie Vaculik, Vik Grujic and Dan Hooker all picking up victories. A minorly interesting note is that all three replacement fighters ended up losing.

All in all, this was a fairly good card, but a combination of poor fights and disappointing results on the main card ensured it ended on a bit of a flat note.

UFC Fight Night 44: Swanson vs. Stephens (June 28th 2014)

The UFC swiftly moved to San Antonio, Texas for their next card, headlined by a top featherweight clash.

Cub Swanson was coming into this contest on a five fight winning streak, which included four victories by KO or TKO, two Knockout of the Night awards and a Fight of the Night award to boot. Swanson was on a great run and seemed ready to move into title contention. In his way was Jeremy Stephens, who was looking to put together a run of his own. After three straight defeats at lightweight, including his first ever loss due to strikes, Stephens had moved down to featherweight and had won three in a row. A victory for Stephens over Cub would have put him in that contender mix, whilst a win for Swanson would have seen his name move ever closer to that group of fighters who are talked about for possible title eliminators.

Like most UFC cards, this one went through several changes. Cody Gibson replaced Rani Yahya in his rematch with Johnny Bedford, the fight between Sean Spencer and Luiz Dutra was cancelled due to injury, Shane Howell replaced Ryan Benoit against Ray Borg, and series of interconnected changes saw Frank Trevino replace Myles Jury against Abel Trujillo, Trevino’s original opponent, Joe Ellenberger put against James Moontasri. In the end, Frank Trevino pulled out and Abel Trujillo was removed the card altogether. We also had Kelvin Gastelum missing weight for his co-main event fight with Nico Musoke.

The main card was very numbing to watch because all six fights went the distance, including the main event. Individually, the fights weren’t that bad, but collectively, watching that many consecutive fights go the distance started to drag, a lot.

Swanson and Stephens had a decent fight overall. It started as with a good competitive fight for the first two-and-a-half rounds. Then, half-way into the third, Swanson landed a strong liver kick that had Stephens backing up, and whilst Swanson couldn’t finish Stephens, he dominated and controlled the fight for the rest of its duration. As such, the second half of the fight lacked much of the excitement of the first half. Swanson won by unanimous decision with scores of 49–46, 49–46 and 48–47, and whilst the 49-46 scores make the fight sound less competitive than it really was, at least for the first half of it, the right man won.

Nothing else from the main card stood out. The only thing of interest from the preliminary fights, beside Oleksiy Oliynyk using a scarf-hold headlock, to get a submission, was an apparently controversial stoppage between Cody Gibson and Johnny Bedford. Gibson dropped Bedford very quickly and the referee called a halt after Gibson landed a follow up punch, in just 38-seconds. Bedford appeared to be conscious the whole time and he threw a fit, complaining long and loud about the stoppage. He went on and on complaining about it, and the fans were booing. But the way Bedford fell, like a tree falling down, with his arms at his side and making no attempt to brace his fall or to defend against the follow up punch, make it clear why the referee, from his perspective, was right to make the call he did and that it really wasn’t controversial.

Normally, I’d feel a little sympathy for someone in this situation, but after his last fight, Bedford threw a massive tantrum when he didn’t get the result he wanted. Bedford was fighting Rani Yahya when they accidentally clashed heads and the cut Yahya sustained meant that he wasn’t allowed to continue. Bedford seemed to be convinced that he was going to be announced as the winner, even though the rules are clear that if a fight ends as a result of an accidental foul, it’s a no-contest. So when the result was announced as a no-contest, Bedford went absolutely ballistic, storming around the octagon in a massive strop. He simply could not believe he wasn’t the winner. It took forever for his people to calm him down.

So that’s June 28th over and done with. There was more to talk about than I thought.

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On This Day in MMA History (June 29th)

Extreme Challenge 35 (June 29th 2000)

Before the action started, all the fighters were brought out and introduced one-by-one. This is something you get with certain Japanese fight groups and some Japanese wrestling promotions as well, usually the smaller ones, but you rarely get it in the US. It won’t ever happen, but it would nice to see the UFC try something like this to make the PPV’s seem even bigger. If they did it during the FS 1 prelims, using the fighters on the PPV portion of the card so it could be used as a hook to garner buys, maybe even lining the fighters up so they can then face off across the octagon, it would work. It may be difficult to get the fighters to do it given they’d be making final preparations for their fights, but it would certainly make the PPV’s stand out.

There were quite a few UFC names competing on this one, the biggest names being Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin and Jeremy Horn. Elsewhere in action was the notorious Bobby Hoffman, taking on another former UFC fighter, Sam Adkins in the main event.

As always, the look and presentation were classically homespun, but most of the fights don’t get out of the first round so the action flies by.

UFC 32: Showdown in the Meadowlands (June 29th 2001)

There were a few interesting titbits surrounding this UFC PPV. It featured the UFC debut of Ricco Rodriguez, the final appearance of commentator Jeff Blatnik, and it was the first UFC since the announcement that they’d be returning to basic cable PPV in September. it was also the first time we’d see the UFC light heavyweight title be defended. Up until March of this year, it had been the called the middleweight title.

There were several ‘celebrity’ cameos as part of the effort to rebuild the name of the UFC, with Carmen Electra taking prominence, as well as Dennis Rodman and Fred Durst being interviewed. During the event, the UFC also tried to building up that September PPV by interviewing, separately, Jens Pulver and Dennis Hallman, who would be on that card, clashing over the lightweight title.

The main event would see Tito Ortiz defending the light heavyweight title against Elvis Sinosic. Coming off wins over Wanderlei Silva, Yuki Kondo, and the highlight-reel slam victory over Evan Tanner, Ortiz was now fitting into the role of the poster boy for the UFC. With charisma, a brash arrogance and an outspoken manner, Ortiz was the perfect person to put front-and-centre of the UFC’s attempt to establish the brand. Sinosic was something of an odd-choice for a title challenger; his overall record at the time was 4-3-1, and in the five fights prior to this one, he had goe 1-2-1. But Sinosic had upset the odds and UFC’s plans when he’d submitted Jeremy Horn at UFC 30, so he got the nod to challenge Ortiz.

The main card opened with a rather boring victory for Vladimir Matyushenko over Yuki Kondo. It had flashes of excitement but was overall rather uninspiring. Pat Miletich vs. Shonie Carter had a dire first round, with much of it seeing Miletich in the top position and Carter holding on for dear life. The second round was a little better before Miletich ended the fight with a head kick that was another highlight-reel finish. Josh Barnett rebounded from his first career loss, at the hands of Pedro Rizzo, with a one-sided mauling of Semmy Schilt. BJ Penn and Din Thomas had a fine fight before Penn ended it with a knee from the clinch and then some ground-and-pound.

Then came Ortiz vs. Sinosic in the main event. For some reason, the Fight Pass version of this card has Ortiz’s entrance cut out, which is a shame because it was a really good light show with some pyro thrown it. It’s the kind of entrance that the UFC stopped doing from once money became an issue and they never went back to it, which is a shame because spectacular entrances like that can really make a fight card seem like a major event and it’s one of the advantages Bellator has over the UFC. Their big shows seem like, well, big shows, a major event, because they have the bells and whistles that the UFC don’t.

Right away, the first thing you notice is the weight difference; Ortiz has around a 30lb weight edge over Sinosic. It was very similar to when Ortiz was dwarfing Alexander Shlemenko in Bellator. As such, once Ortiz takes Sinosic down, you know it’s only a matter of time and at 3:32, Ortiz gets the stoppage by way of TKO with strikes. Ortiz, his entrance and his victory all got the superstar reaction and it affirms Ortiz’ status as the poster boy of the UFC.

There were two preliminary fights, including Ricco Rodriguez making his UFC debut against a very young looking Andrei Arlovski. These were two guys who had a lot of success early on in their careers but never could recapture that early glory, especially Rodriquez and we’ll talk about him more in-depth in February. Here, though, they were young and hungry and a reasonably good fight that ended with Rodriguez getting the TKO in 1:23. It was an early sign of Ricco’s UFC success, even though that success never truly lasted.

UFC 32 was very prototypical of UFC shows at the time, with what, by today’s standards, was a very short card, having just seven fights. But just the fact that UFC was still around at the time was something of a miracle. Getting removed from PPV by all the major providers put the company on death’s door. They were one more stroke of bad luck away from going out of existence entirely. But they hung in there and weathered a storm that would eventually include another brush with death, before managing to find their way out and eventually become the powerhouse promotion they are today.

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On This Day in MMA History (June 30th)

Pancrase: Alive 7 (June 30th 1997)

This was your typical mid-level Pancrase events with a solid main event fight and the top guys getting relatively safe opponents. In this case, the main event was Yuki Kondo against Semmy Schilt. Kondo won by unanimous decision, the fight going 20:00. Kondo could take Schilt down with relative ease but couldn’t do much from there, primarily due to Schilt’s reach; Schilt was 6’11 with an 88-inch reach. Elsewhere, Masakatsu Funaki and Bas Rutten eased past Wes Gassaway and Takaku Fuke respectively. Other recognizable names on the card include Guy Mezger and Bryan Gassaway, as well as Satoshi Hasegawa, who tragically hit the headlines within MMA when he fell to his death in March of 1999.

WEC 1: Princes of Pain (June 30th 2001)

The debut of WEC definitely merits a mention. All bar one of the fights on this card are on UFC Fight Pass, but they’re all individually uploaded, meaning if you want to watch the fights you have to do a search for the fighters involved. I don’t know why they haven’t merged the individual fights together into one file, especially when this has been done in similar situations, because it would make it less of a hassle to watch the event.

WEC 1 takes place in what appears to be a high-school sports field of some kind, so it tells you how far WEC has come given such humble beginnings. It’s still sunny and bright when the things begin, which makes for a nice setting. The fights themselves are generally quick with six of the nine available to view ending inside the first round. One of them has Gan McGee getting a heel hook submission over the man who, in part, killed EliteXC, Seth Petruzelli. We also see Leonard Garcia in action. Before his fight begins, a couple of fans are ripping into the referee over their hatred of fights going to the ground, demanding he ‘stand them up, asshole’.

The main event is Dan Severn against Travis Fulton. It was exactly the fight you’d expect; Severn taking Fulton down a lot and controlling him on the ground. On the few occasions Fulton obtained a dominant position, Severn reversed things very quickly. The fans got restless late on, booing heavily, but Fulton couldn’t stop the takedowns and had little success once on his back.

It’s not a great event but most of the fights whizz by. The fighters themselves aren’t too polished and the only ones who went on to make a name for themselves were McGee (of a fashion), Petruzelli and Garcia. You might recognize the name Chris Sanford, though, but only if you’re a real aficionado of TUF.

Gladiator Challenge: Summer Heat (June 30th 2013)

Another GC card getting mentioned purely because of how bloated it is, this one having 31 fights. I get loading up cards, and there are a number of reasons you might want to, but you get a point where it’s overkill and 31 fights is beyond overkill. The crowd are going to be dead long before the main event takes place.

I guess not every day in MMA history can be grand and glorious.

 

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Another great read, even with the paucity of material.

That said, sure - not every day can be grand and glorious, but I reckon you'll be going mental on New Year's Eve.

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15 hours ago, Noah Southworth said:

I've already started on the NYE piece. I want that thing done long before the day arrives. Given how long it's likely to be, I expect to post it in parts throughout the day in question.

Believe it or not, I was thinking of suggesting that to you earlier this morning. Makes sense if you're effectively going to be writing a dissertation.

Have at it! I for one am looking forward to it.

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21 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Believe it or not, I was thinking of suggesting that to you earlier this morning. Makes sense if you're effectively going to be writing a dissertation.

Have at it! I for one am looking forward to it.

It may be several dissertations; at the moment, I have 18 events to talk about for that day.

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On This Day in MMA History (July 1st)

Cage Rage 17: Ultimate Challenge (July 1st 2006)

Cage Rage was a British promotion that operated from 2002 until late 2008. A number of UFC fighters came through Cage Rage at one point or another, including Michael Bisping, Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort. Tonight, though, the only UFC names that were on the bill were Paul Daley, Rob Broughton, Gilbert Yvel, and Ian Freeman. Freeman was in the main event, challenging Melvin Manhoef for the Cage Rage world light heavyweight title.

Like most of their events, Cage Rage 17 was held at the Wembley Conference Centre, a 2,500 seat venue in London. And like most Cage Rage events, it had a certain feel, shall we say. It had a rough and ready atmosphere, some of the fighters had goofy outfits and gimmicks; one even ‘read’ from what I presume was a religious book of some kind in a very schlocky WWE-style pre-fight promo. The fights were pretty sloppy for the most part. The fans were pretty boisterous throughout, though, and even when Manhoef destroyed Ian Freeman in 17-seconds, they remained loud.

If you like an unrefined product, then Cage Rage might be for you.

PRIDE FC: Critical Countdown Absolute (July 1st 2006)

This event saw the quarterfinals of one of PRIDE’s famous tournaments, in this case the 2006 Openweight Grand Prix. The quarterfinals saw Josh Barnett vs. Mark Hunt, Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Fabricio Werdum, Mirko Cro Cop vs. Hidehiko Yoshida, and Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Wanderlei Silva. Silva was a replacement for Fedor Emelianenko, who was given a bye in the first round but subsequently pulled out of the tournament entirely. Officially, it was due to a hand injury, but the feeling from the more sceptical was that Fedor’s people just didn’t want to risk him in a tournament where, had be beaten Fujita, he would have then had to face two top-level opponents on the same night.

After a wacky intro video and the standard practice of wheeling out all the fighters competing before things began, the fights started with non-tournament action with Edson Drago taking on Pawel Nastula. After a decent scrap, Nastula got the win after catching Drago with an armbar from the bottom whilst having Drago in his guard. This loss would start a seven-fight losing streak for Drago. The fight between Yoshihiro Nakao and Lee Eun Su was not so decent, Nakao getting the win when the doctor’s stopped the fight due to Eun Su’s left eye being swollen shut. Vitor Belfort levelled Yoshiki Takahashi in 36-seconds. Frank Trigg, on commentary, was gushing and proclaimed ‘Vitor is back’. Yeah, sure; whatever you say, Frank. Antônio Rogério Nogueira and Alistair Overeem were having a really good scrap until a slightly weird ending; Overeem was having the better of things before Nogueira landed a left hook that had Overeem wobbled. Nogueira was backing Overeem up but Overeem seemed to still be with it, only for Overeem’s corner to throw in the towel. Overeem had tape on the base of his neck and the commentators did talk about Overeem having an injury, but it didn’t look like he was in that bad a state. Kazuhiro Nakamura and Evangalista Santos had an OK fight; Nakamura soon got Santos down and began working for, and eventually got a kimura for the submission.

The tournament matches were up next, the first one being Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Fabricio Werdum. They had a decent fight that was almost entirely a boxing match with little action on the ground. Nogueira dominated Werdum and whenever Werdum did manage to get control, he didn’t hold it for long. Nogueira’s boxing was pretty good here. Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Wanderlei Silva was pretty exciting when it wasn’t on the ground, mainly due to both men throwing bombs. Silva obviously has the advantage in striking and managed to drop the hard-headed Fujita, finally finishing him with some brutal kicks to the head and then some more bombs. It’s fights like this that make me glad soccer kicks to the head are banned in North America. Josh Barnett vs. Mark Hunt went just 2:02 with Barnett quickly getting Hunt to the ground and then working for a kimura, which had Hunt tapping very quickly. Mirko Cro Cop vs. Hidehiko Yoshida was the main event and an OK fight saw Cro Cop methodically chop away at the legs of Yoshida, blocking his takedown attempts, before one final kick felled Yoshida who was unable to get up and the fight was called off.

I felt Critical Countdown Absolute was pretty underwhelming. There no real standout fights apart from Fujita vs. Silva, and that had a far too brutal finish for my liking. Unusually for a tournament with just two Japanese participants remaining in it, PRIDE kept them apart, when normal practice was for them to match the two against each other in order to ensure there was it least one Japanese fighter in the next round. It speaks to how big the non-Japanese talent become that PRIDE were willing to risk setting up a final night of the tournament with no Japanese involvement. And what a final night it would turn out to be, as we shall get to in due course.

Gladiator Challenge 51: Madness at the Memorial (July 1st 2006)

This was a fairly light event by GC standards, with only ten fights. The headline attraction was Urijah Faber facing Naoya Uematsu for the vacant Gladiator Challenge bantamweight title. The title was vacant after the former champion, Tyson Griffin, had either left or was simply not brought back. Griffin had actually beaten Faber to win the title, and in doing so had handed Faber his first loss in MMA. Faber took the title back, with a very one-sided domination of Ueamatsu, with Faber winning by TKO in the second round.

Uematsu would only fight three more times, once in 2006 and twice in 2008 before retiring.

Elsewhere on the card, future Bellator champion Emmanuel Newton beat former TUF participant Kyacey Uscola. I was surprised to realise when looking at Newton’s record that he’s 1-5 in his last six fights. Things have not gone well for Newton since losing the Bellator light heavyweight title. Future Kimbo Slice opponent, Bo Cantrell beat Rocky Batastini, a man who would end his career with a stellar record of 8-22. And old-school UFC veteran Cal Worsham was in action, almost ten years since has last octagon appearance, with a TKO win over Harry Avis in what, according to Sherdog, was the only official fight Avis ever had.

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