Issue 036

April 2008

In 1842 Edgar Allan Poe wrote of “the redness, and the horror of blood” in his short story, ‘The Masque of the Red Death’. Who knows what the sickly, tormented genius would have made of this selection of some of the goriest fights in MMA history.

1 Joe Stevenson vs. Yves Edwards 

(UFC 61, July 8th 2006)

An entertaining first round done with, things got nasty in the second. After taking Edwards down and pushing him against the fence Stevenson elbowed away, slicing open Edwards’ forehead high on the left side. With blood pouring onto the mat, Edwards survived some hefty punches and another pair of vicious elbows before a pause to check the damage. The fight restarted in the same position, with Edwards lying in a puddle of his own blood and Stevenson smartly banging away at the injury. Between rounds the doctor stopped the fight with Edward’s corner unable to stem the blood flow. Afterwards, Stevenson noted it was the bloodiest fight he’d ever been involved in.

2 Edwin Dewees vs. Gideon Ray 

(Ultimate Fighter 4, Episode 2, first aired August 2006)

The younger Dewees took the first round with some solid matwork and good submission attempts. But a fast, fairly technical fight changed early in the second. Taken down, Ray struck with a sneaky left elbow from the bottom, opening a deep cut high on Dewees’ forehead. Blood immediately began pouring out of the wound at a frightening rate. His blonde hair soon stained crimson, Dewees was bleeding all over the place, incuding into Ray’s visibly disgusted face. More than once he was fighting one-handed as he used the other to try and stem the scarlet waterfall that was soaking the mat. He may have looked like he’d been dragged through an abattoir, but Dewees controlled the fight and walked away with a solid decision victory.

3 Sean Sherk vs. Kenny Florian 

(UFC 64, October 14th 2006)

Known as much for his sharp, accurate elbows as his submission skills, Florian was physically overmatched by the improbably muscled Sherk in this fight for the vacant UFC lightweight title. After being utterly dominated in the first round, Florian used those elbows to open up an enormous cut to Sherk’s head. For the next four rounds, Sherk bled all over Florian as he continued to dominate with his sheer strength, busy workrate and superb wrestling technique. By the end Sherk looked like he’d been on the wrong end of something seriously disturbing, but he walked away the new champion after an enthrallingly action-packed and one-sided manhandling.

4 Renato Sobral vs. David Heath 

(UFC 74, August 25th 2007)

The trouble started for Heath early in the second when a hefty Sobral punch bloodied his nose. From there, Sobral took him down and scored with punches and elbows to the face, opening a cut on Heath’s forehead, and very soon the mat looked like the aftermath of a war crime. Even Joe Rogan was aghast, commenting “That’s a horror movie, what’s going on, man? That’s ridiculous, if you saw that in a horror movie you’d say it’s too much blood.” After a few minutes of Sobral mauling and pounding on the blood-drenched Heath the Brazilian tapped him with a slick anaconda choke for the victory. 

5 BJ Penn vs. Joe Stevenson 

(UFC 80, January 19th 2008)

Unlike former champion Sherk (suspended and stripped of the belt for steroid usage) BJ Penn took the vacant lightweight title without spilling a drop of his own blood. He made sure Stevenson bled in buckets though in a chilling display of pure domination. A huge elbow from in the guard did the initial damage, but as the blood was pouring down past Stevenson’s nose and not into his eyes, the slaughter continued into the second round. Some sublime matwork, vicious ground n’ pound that made Stevenson bleed even more, and one beautiful rear naked choke later, Penn was victorious over his utterly defeated opponent.