TUF Sledding for Liddell, ‘Shogun’
Josh Gross Sep 23, 2007
ANAHEIM, Calif., Sept. 22 - So much for the best laid plans of mice
and Dana White.
It was surely a mix of emotions Saturday evening for the UFC president after the most popular fighter during his reign as UFC president lost his second fight in a row -- perhaps squandering a huge-money fight that keeps eluding the UFC's grasp -- moments after jubilantly watching the crown jewel of his reality show best a man considered by most to be the top light heavyweight in the world.
In UFC 76's main event at the Honda Center former UFC light
heavyweight champion Chuck
Liddell (Pictures) was expected to bounce back after
a stunning knockout loss versus Quinton Jackson (Pictures) in May. Splashed across the cover
of ESPN The Magazine, Liddell was the focal point for most
UFC coverage in mainstream headlines. Two minutes into the title
fight, Jackson ruined whatever traction "The Iceman" had
established among casual fans when he put Liddell down for the
count.
Against Keith Jardine (Pictures), the bounty hunter turned television personality following his time on the incredibly influential "The Ultimate Fighter," Liddell, most thought, had an opponent that would stand in front of him and inevitably suffer the consequences of one of the best right hands in mixed martial arts.
"We knew that Liddell has one style and he sticks with one style," Jardine told Sherdog.com after the fight. "I knew that if I move and take some angles on him and keep my head moving going that I might have a chance to get to him. And that's what I tried to do for all three rounds."
Early in the three-round fight it didn't appear like "The Iceman" would have that much trouble against Jardine, whose movements in the cage will not soon be confused with those of Muhammad Ali's.
Firing a hydraulic press of a low kick that helped him shed early nervous energy, Jardine's staccato rhythm seemed to stump Liddell, who offered little else but his piston of a right straight.
During the middle stanza the "Dean of Mean," like Liddell (20-5) looking to rebound from a devastating loss, chopped his foe's lead leg with Thai kicks when he wasn't unfurling winging right hands, one of which connected square to the jaw and forced the former champ's legs to give way. Jardine rushed in looking for a finish, yet Liddell, refusing to go out on the wings of one punch, quickly recovered.
A fatigued Jardine, 31, kept up the attacks. In the third round he transitioned from predominantly overhand rights to low kicks followed by straight or hooking lefts. There was no such adjustment from Liddell, who failed to unload any combinations of significance and seemed to forget that he, too, could launch low kicks on an opponent that was wide open for them.
Judges at ringside disagreed on the winner.
While Marcos Rosales tallied it 29-28 for Liddell, both Cecil Peoples and Richard Bertrand offered the same score in favor of Jardine, a decision that fell in line with the thinking of the Honda Center crowd, pegged by the UFC at roughly 16,000.
"I got booed and it was like a church when I walked into the ring," said Jardine (13-3-1), who redeemed himself after losing to Houston Alexander (Pictures) the same night Liddell fell to Jackson. "No one really cared about me. At the end when I raised my hand and everyone went crazy, I knew I won the fight."
Sitting at cageside was former PRIDE 205-pound champion Wanderlei Silva (Pictures), who, like many onlookers, hoped the Brazilian slugger could someday stand across from Liddell to determine the better man.
It was expected that a Liddell win would secure a clash between the light heavyweights in December. What Saturday's loss does to the prospects of that fight remain to be seen, but it stings as ironic that White criticized PRIDE for matching Silva in a losing bout against Dan Henderson (Pictures) when a win or even the absence of a fight seven months ago would have secured the Liddell fight.
"Who am I supposed to fight now?" a disappointed Silva told Sherdog.com.
The card's co-feature provided one of the biggest upsets in recent memory when TUF light heavyweight star Forrest Griffin (Pictures) dominated Mauricio Rua (Pictures), the PRIDE 2005 205-pound tournament winner who was widely regarded as the top light heavyweight in the world coming into the fight.
Entering the octagon for the first time in his career, Rua didn't offer the swarming style that made him a star in Japan; he appeared listless and outside of a perfect elbow that opened a canyon of a cut between Griffin's eyes, the Brazilian did little except offer sloppy takedown attempts.
Griffin (15-4) was active with his hands and, as he did in his controversial decision loss to Tito Ortiz (Pictures) in the same building, thwarted most of his opponent's tries at getting the fight to the canvas.
By the second period "Shogun" struggled to keep up any kind of pace, and after 10 minutes -- the equivalent of the opening round during his PRIDE days -- he could barely pick himself off the canvas.
The final round was all Griffin's. After pounding on "Shogun" and dominating position on the canvas, Griffin found himself in back-control as the period came to a close. He snaked in his right arm and pressed Rua, now 16-3, flat to the canvas.
"Nothing fancy there," Griffin said of the finish, which came with 15 seconds remaining in the fight. "That's not really even a good choke. But fatigue is a son of a bitch."
More than the surprising upset of a No. 1-ranked fighter by an unranked competitor, Shogun's loss to Griffin provides more strong ammunition -- see Mirko Filipovic (Pictures)'s time in the UFC -- to those who argued PRIDE's status, when it still existed, as the elite organization in mixed martial arts was undeserved.
It also goes a long way in legitimizing fighters who earned their way into the UFC via "The Ultimate Fighter."
"We definitely feel that we have a lot to prove in a way because we're slammed in the media as manufactured stars as such," Jardine said. "No man, we're the toughest fighters in the world. On the TV show it gives us a chance and some of the guys take that and work really hard to get to the top."
A clash of world-class welterweights resulted in a technical 15-minute war that resulted in Jon Fitch (Pictures) shedding the shackles of anonymity.
Fighting another TUF champion, Diego Sanchez (Pictures), Fitch used his superior wrestling and incredible submission defense to survive several close chokes and joint-locks and take a split decision (Peoples, 30-27, and Bertrand, 29-28, had it for Fitch, while Rosales again dissented, scoring it two rounds to one for Sanchez).
"I went for the submissions, he got out," said Sanchez, who after 17 straight wins to start his career has dropped his last two fights. "He controlled the position, I give him the win."
The 170-pounders scrambled around the canvas after the bout hit the floor. From the bottom, Sanchez looked for triangle chokes and armbars, but Fitch remained calm and beautifully avoided the submissions.
"There was a couple times … I got put in submissions," said Fitch (15-2, 1 NC), "but they weren't close to being anywhere near danger."
After a quality second round that Fitch took with a strong last minute, the former Purdue Boilermaker wrestler showed why his American Kickboxing Academy teammates call him "untappable."
Sanchez took hold of Fitch's neck and jumped to guard, where he squeezed as hard as he could to elicit a tap from the guillotine choke. Fitch remained incredibly patient, offering thumbs up three times to show he was fine in the position. He soon freed himself and landed several heavy punches. Another triangle was thrown his way but Fitch spun out. While Sanchez's efforts in the last five minutes won him the round, the war clearly belonged to Fitch.
"I thought I was going to stand most of this fight, but I felt really comfortable once I got into the clinch," Fitch said. "Felt like he wasn't going to overpower me there. I was having an easy time defending takedowns, so I said might as well go ahead and ground this one out."
Ryoto Machida (Pictures) looked to finish his fight against Kazuhiro Nakamura (Pictures), but the undefeated light heavyweight had to settle for his seventh decision in 11 fights.
Boos cascaded down from the rafters despite Machida's best efforts. In his UFC debut Nakamura (11-7) had little answer for the quicker Brazilian (11-0), who took the bout 30-27 on each judge's scorecard.
Lightweights Thiago Tavares (Pictures) and Tyson Griffin (Pictures) went to war in UFC 76's opening pay-per-view bout. A tight, technical fight saw Griffin (10-1) win his second tight decision in a row.
Griffin used his strong base to stay on his feet or maintain top position against the previously undefeated Tavares (13-1), and judges at ringside saw it unanimously for the young Californian (30-27 and 29-28 twice).
The Brazilian landed a jumping knee that cracked Griffin in the skull early in round two, but that wasn't enough to end the bowling ball of a lightweight's night.
"He did catch me with a flying knee and I even asked my corner what put me down between rounds," Griffin recalled immediately after the fight. "I have no idea what it was, but I didn't feel too dazed at any time."
Tavares secured mount, back-control and standing back-control, all the while landing punches and looking for a fight-ending choke. However Griffin defended wonderfully to remain in the fight and eventually prevent Tavares, who wore a big welt underneath his left eye, from moving to 3-0 in the UFC.
Preliminary action
Rich Clementi (Pictures) made the most of his experience against a green Anthony Johnson. Fighting at a catch-weight of 177 pounds, Clementi (26-12-2) survived a solid right hand from Johnson (4-1) that put him down to take control on the canvas and secure a rear-naked choke at 3:05 of the second round.
Jeremy Stephens (Pictures) took control as his fight wore on with Diego Saraiva (Pictures), convincing the judges he'd done enough to earn a unanimous 30-27 decision across the board. After getting swept in the opening round and slamming his way out of a deep triangle attempt, Stephens (10-2) used his superior wrestling to stifle Saraiva (9-6-1) as the pace slowed in rounds two and three.
Christian Wellisch (Pictures) had early trouble with Scott Junk (Pictures)'s size and power. However, the Californian (8-3) found his bearings and locked in a nasty heelhook that forced Junk (6-2) into a knee brace after tapping at 3:19 of the opening period.
Matt Wiman (Pictures) went toe-to-toe with Japan's Michihiro Omigawa (Pictures) en route to a well deserved unanimous decision win (30-27 and 29-28 twice). Wiman (8-3) dominated Omigawa (4-5) in the third period to secure the victory.
It was surely a mix of emotions Saturday evening for the UFC president after the most popular fighter during his reign as UFC president lost his second fight in a row -- perhaps squandering a huge-money fight that keeps eluding the UFC's grasp -- moments after jubilantly watching the crown jewel of his reality show best a man considered by most to be the top light heavyweight in the world.
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Against Keith Jardine (Pictures), the bounty hunter turned television personality following his time on the incredibly influential "The Ultimate Fighter," Liddell, most thought, had an opponent that would stand in front of him and inevitably suffer the consequences of one of the best right hands in mixed martial arts.
Try as he might, Liddell failed to find that fight-ending punch,
and over the course of 15 minutes the 37-year-old Californian was
not only dropped, but also repeatedly battered with strikes.
"We knew that Liddell has one style and he sticks with one style," Jardine told Sherdog.com after the fight. "I knew that if I move and take some angles on him and keep my head moving going that I might have a chance to get to him. And that's what I tried to do for all three rounds."
Early in the three-round fight it didn't appear like "The Iceman" would have that much trouble against Jardine, whose movements in the cage will not soon be confused with those of Muhammad Ali's.
Firing a hydraulic press of a low kick that helped him shed early nervous energy, Jardine's staccato rhythm seemed to stump Liddell, who offered little else but his piston of a right straight.
During the middle stanza the "Dean of Mean," like Liddell (20-5) looking to rebound from a devastating loss, chopped his foe's lead leg with Thai kicks when he wasn't unfurling winging right hands, one of which connected square to the jaw and forced the former champ's legs to give way. Jardine rushed in looking for a finish, yet Liddell, refusing to go out on the wings of one punch, quickly recovered.
A fatigued Jardine, 31, kept up the attacks. In the third round he transitioned from predominantly overhand rights to low kicks followed by straight or hooking lefts. There was no such adjustment from Liddell, who failed to unload any combinations of significance and seemed to forget that he, too, could launch low kicks on an opponent that was wide open for them.
Judges at ringside disagreed on the winner.
While Marcos Rosales tallied it 29-28 for Liddell, both Cecil Peoples and Richard Bertrand offered the same score in favor of Jardine, a decision that fell in line with the thinking of the Honda Center crowd, pegged by the UFC at roughly 16,000.
"I got booed and it was like a church when I walked into the ring," said Jardine (13-3-1), who redeemed himself after losing to Houston Alexander (Pictures) the same night Liddell fell to Jackson. "No one really cared about me. At the end when I raised my hand and everyone went crazy, I knew I won the fight."
Sitting at cageside was former PRIDE 205-pound champion Wanderlei Silva (Pictures), who, like many onlookers, hoped the Brazilian slugger could someday stand across from Liddell to determine the better man.
It was expected that a Liddell win would secure a clash between the light heavyweights in December. What Saturday's loss does to the prospects of that fight remain to be seen, but it stings as ironic that White criticized PRIDE for matching Silva in a losing bout against Dan Henderson (Pictures) when a win or even the absence of a fight seven months ago would have secured the Liddell fight.
"Who am I supposed to fight now?" a disappointed Silva told Sherdog.com.
The card's co-feature provided one of the biggest upsets in recent memory when TUF light heavyweight star Forrest Griffin (Pictures) dominated Mauricio Rua (Pictures), the PRIDE 2005 205-pound tournament winner who was widely regarded as the top light heavyweight in the world coming into the fight.
Entering the octagon for the first time in his career, Rua didn't offer the swarming style that made him a star in Japan; he appeared listless and outside of a perfect elbow that opened a canyon of a cut between Griffin's eyes, the Brazilian did little except offer sloppy takedown attempts.
Griffin (15-4) was active with his hands and, as he did in his controversial decision loss to Tito Ortiz (Pictures) in the same building, thwarted most of his opponent's tries at getting the fight to the canvas.
By the second period "Shogun" struggled to keep up any kind of pace, and after 10 minutes -- the equivalent of the opening round during his PRIDE days -- he could barely pick himself off the canvas.
The final round was all Griffin's. After pounding on "Shogun" and dominating position on the canvas, Griffin found himself in back-control as the period came to a close. He snaked in his right arm and pressed Rua, now 16-3, flat to the canvas.
"Nothing fancy there," Griffin said of the finish, which came with 15 seconds remaining in the fight. "That's not really even a good choke. But fatigue is a son of a bitch."
More than the surprising upset of a No. 1-ranked fighter by an unranked competitor, Shogun's loss to Griffin provides more strong ammunition -- see Mirko Filipovic (Pictures)'s time in the UFC -- to those who argued PRIDE's status, when it still existed, as the elite organization in mixed martial arts was undeserved.
It also goes a long way in legitimizing fighters who earned their way into the UFC via "The Ultimate Fighter."
"We definitely feel that we have a lot to prove in a way because we're slammed in the media as manufactured stars as such," Jardine said. "No man, we're the toughest fighters in the world. On the TV show it gives us a chance and some of the guys take that and work really hard to get to the top."
A clash of world-class welterweights resulted in a technical 15-minute war that resulted in Jon Fitch (Pictures) shedding the shackles of anonymity.
Fighting another TUF champion, Diego Sanchez (Pictures), Fitch used his superior wrestling and incredible submission defense to survive several close chokes and joint-locks and take a split decision (Peoples, 30-27, and Bertrand, 29-28, had it for Fitch, while Rosales again dissented, scoring it two rounds to one for Sanchez).
"I went for the submissions, he got out," said Sanchez, who after 17 straight wins to start his career has dropped his last two fights. "He controlled the position, I give him the win."
The 170-pounders scrambled around the canvas after the bout hit the floor. From the bottom, Sanchez looked for triangle chokes and armbars, but Fitch remained calm and beautifully avoided the submissions.
"There was a couple times … I got put in submissions," said Fitch (15-2, 1 NC), "but they weren't close to being anywhere near danger."
After a quality second round that Fitch took with a strong last minute, the former Purdue Boilermaker wrestler showed why his American Kickboxing Academy teammates call him "untappable."
Sanchez took hold of Fitch's neck and jumped to guard, where he squeezed as hard as he could to elicit a tap from the guillotine choke. Fitch remained incredibly patient, offering thumbs up three times to show he was fine in the position. He soon freed himself and landed several heavy punches. Another triangle was thrown his way but Fitch spun out. While Sanchez's efforts in the last five minutes won him the round, the war clearly belonged to Fitch.
"I thought I was going to stand most of this fight, but I felt really comfortable once I got into the clinch," Fitch said. "Felt like he wasn't going to overpower me there. I was having an easy time defending takedowns, so I said might as well go ahead and ground this one out."
Ryoto Machida (Pictures) looked to finish his fight against Kazuhiro Nakamura (Pictures), but the undefeated light heavyweight had to settle for his seventh decision in 11 fights.
Boos cascaded down from the rafters despite Machida's best efforts. In his UFC debut Nakamura (11-7) had little answer for the quicker Brazilian (11-0), who took the bout 30-27 on each judge's scorecard.
Lightweights Thiago Tavares (Pictures) and Tyson Griffin (Pictures) went to war in UFC 76's opening pay-per-view bout. A tight, technical fight saw Griffin (10-1) win his second tight decision in a row.
Griffin used his strong base to stay on his feet or maintain top position against the previously undefeated Tavares (13-1), and judges at ringside saw it unanimously for the young Californian (30-27 and 29-28 twice).
The Brazilian landed a jumping knee that cracked Griffin in the skull early in round two, but that wasn't enough to end the bowling ball of a lightweight's night.
"He did catch me with a flying knee and I even asked my corner what put me down between rounds," Griffin recalled immediately after the fight. "I have no idea what it was, but I didn't feel too dazed at any time."
Tavares secured mount, back-control and standing back-control, all the while landing punches and looking for a fight-ending choke. However Griffin defended wonderfully to remain in the fight and eventually prevent Tavares, who wore a big welt underneath his left eye, from moving to 3-0 in the UFC.
Preliminary action
Rich Clementi (Pictures) made the most of his experience against a green Anthony Johnson. Fighting at a catch-weight of 177 pounds, Clementi (26-12-2) survived a solid right hand from Johnson (4-1) that put him down to take control on the canvas and secure a rear-naked choke at 3:05 of the second round.
Jeremy Stephens (Pictures) took control as his fight wore on with Diego Saraiva (Pictures), convincing the judges he'd done enough to earn a unanimous 30-27 decision across the board. After getting swept in the opening round and slamming his way out of a deep triangle attempt, Stephens (10-2) used his superior wrestling to stifle Saraiva (9-6-1) as the pace slowed in rounds two and three.
Christian Wellisch (Pictures) had early trouble with Scott Junk (Pictures)'s size and power. However, the Californian (8-3) found his bearings and locked in a nasty heelhook that forced Junk (6-2) into a knee brace after tapping at 3:19 of the opening period.
Matt Wiman (Pictures) went toe-to-toe with Japan's Michihiro Omigawa (Pictures) en route to a well deserved unanimous decision win (30-27 and 29-28 twice). Wiman (8-3) dominated Omigawa (4-5) in the third period to secure the victory.
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