Fighters Only

Issue 034

February 2008

Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

December 12^th 2007

Report by Daniel Fletcher

Images: Josh Hedges / Zuffa LLC.

Sibling-promotion to the UFC, the WEC features the lighter weight categories of feather and bantamweight (145 and 135lbs), and this card featured stunning action from those divisions and more, including a true champion-like performance and a shockingly quick finish to a grudge match featuring former UFC lightweight champ Jens Pulver.

Urijah has true champion qualities

Urijah ‘California Kid’ Faber is one of the world’s top featherweight fighters, and he holds the WEC’s 145lb title as proof. He rarely has a fight that is anything less than exploive, entertaining and dramatic. Jeff Curran is another well-rounded dynamic fighter, and on paper their championship fight was as close as you could get.

Curran showed his excellent grappling skills early, twice passing Faber’s guard. Moving to the mount, he took Faber’s back and rode the champ, always attacking with the threat of a choke or armlock. Faber showed patience and poise by hand fighting and not allowing Curran to strike with any real effect, and span to top position the moment he got space.

Once on top, Faber’s power and explosive ground and pound skills shone. From in the guard he is a menace, driving his opponents into the fence and mercilessly hammering them with elbows. Before long Curran was bleeding, and Faber had his opponent’s head pressed up at a horrific looking angle against the cage.

Not long into the second Faber landed more explosive elbows (this time from in the clinch) but a failed takedown put him on his back. A bizarre triangle position that had Curran trapped with one leg and his arm between Faber’s legs left his head open to blows, which Faber slashed in from all angles. The California Kid showed a knack for improvisation as well as flair – while defending a single leg takedown and hopping on one leg, he jumped his supporting leg up and kneed Curran in the body. It’s tricks like this that make Faber so entertaining to watch – you never know what crazy stuff he is going to pull off next. Whether it is a flying elbow into a downed opponent’s head or an upside-down slam, Faber impresses.

A tight guillotine sealed matters and left Curran staggering from lack of oxygen. Faber’s power is undeniable, but his dynamicism is something else altogether. With skills like this it’s no wonder he’s a champion.

Pulver shows Cub who’s boss

Brash young fighter Cub Swanson had talked up a good fight in the run up to this contest, but he made the mistake of pissing Pulver off. Jens Pulver’s nick name is ‘Lil Evil’, and he didn’t get it by accident. With verbal blows flying, Swanson awoke a side of Jens Pulver we’ve not seen in a while. Pulver was angry, and having not fought since last June, was dying to put his recent knee injury behind him and get back into action.

Swanson shot in early (supposedly a good boxer, he looking terrified of Jens’s stand up) and grabbed a single leg. Pulver, a wrestler since an early age, calmly defended the takedown and wrapped his arm around Swanson’s neck. He cranked on a modified front headlock choke that Swanson desperately tried to escape from, thrashing and flailing around in panic, but the hold was on tight and he tapped only 35 seconds into the fight. Pulver has said he’s truly excited to be at 145lbs, a weight class at which he is undefeated at 8-0. A showdown with champ Urijah Faber would be a mouth watering contest and could put the 145lb (featherweight) weight class on the map.

Sluggish Filho submits Sonnen

Paulo Filho, sluggish and drained from a bad weight cut, looked terrible and a far cry from his usual pitbull-like self. Stocky in comparison to the lofty Sonnen, he suffered from a distinct reach disadvantage and Sonnen landed well on the feet. A national-level wrestler, Sonnen took Filho down twice.

Filho calmly and patiently rode out Sonnen’s pressure and played a guard game that kept him out of trouble, though the Brazilian was forced to absorb some meaty shots against the fence. Towards the end of the first he threw his legs up and cranked on Sonnen’s right arm, which had the wrestler clutching his elbow between rounds. A visibly flagging Filho climbed his legs up on siezed the left arm late in the second, forcing Sonnen to cry out in pain. The referee, taking this as a verbal sumission, jumped in to to stop the fight, to which Sonnen loudly protested. Had the ref not stopped matters, ‘Paulo’ would have taken the arm home with him.

After his reign of terror in Pride in 2006 and 2007, many observers rank Filho as one of the top middleweights in the world, though this performance wouldn’t even make him top ten. He’s grumbled that he does’t like the cut and is considering a move to 205lbs, although if he is dwarfed by fighters like Sonnen, he will certainly struggle at light heavyweight.