Fighters Only

Issue 029

September 2007

7th July 2007, Sacramento, California.

Report by Daniel Fletcher, Photographs courtesy of Josh Hedges / Zuffa LLC.

Two title fights, a grudge match and the UFC debut of one of the top heavyweights in the world; no wonder they called this event ‘Stacked’! The middleweight and lightweight titles would be disputed with Anderson Silva and Sean Sherk defending their respective belts.

Tito Ortiz would be meeting his smack-talking match in Rashad Evans and Antonio Rodrigo ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira would face off against old foe and fellow Pride émigré Heath Herring. The results were ‘mostly’ predictable save for one surprising draw, yet it was still one of the most all-round entertaining events for some time.

Silva shines, makes Marquardt look average

Anderson ‘The Spider’ Silva is one of the most dangerous middleweights in the world. He has destroyed his last few opponents with a series of clinical finishes that serve to display his combination of technique, grace and sheer brutality. His impressive handling of tough middleweight Nate Marquardt was shocking if only for how shockingly average he made the extremely well rounded former King of Pancrase seem.

Marquardt was widely unknown to the MMA world outside of Japan, as the Colorado native had spent much of his career in the Japanese promotion Pancrase. 24-7-2, he had only been finished twice, both times by submission (the last time being almost four years ago). About as solid a title challenger as you can get, Marquardt was coming into the fight on the back of a six-fight win streak.

I don’t think Anderson Silva, with seven straight wins (save for one questionable DQ) to his credit, would have been too bothered. He had taken care of Travis Lutter only weeks after having double knee surgery, blasted Rich Franklin out of the water in a Muay Thai clinic and put Chris Leben to sleep with about as much effort as it takes to get out of bed in the morning.

In his usual way, Silva started slowly, feeling out Marquardt and gauging his distance. When he found it, it was with a spectacular flying knee, the kind of thing one hopes from Silva. Marquardt may have capitalised on the jumping attack to get Silva down, but went nowhere from guard and half guard. A restart from the ref saw Anderson start to put the pressure on with a high kick, letting Marquardt know he was feeling comfortable in the fight. The American tried to avoid the dangerous strikes from the lanky Brazilian but in trying to wrestle him to the canvas Silva reversed him with a beautiful switch that put Marquardt on his back.

If you thought Silva was ‘just’ a stand-up kind of guy, you’d be mistaken. Not only is he a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but he also has a fearsome ground and pound attack. His long arms slipped through Marquardt’s guard, and a series of punches from top put Nate out. With only ten seconds left in the round, Silva had shown why he deserves to be champion, and why it is going to be so hard for anyone to take his belt away. The next person to try will be Rich Franklin, who gets his chance at redemption in Cincinnati on October 20.

Lightweight champ Sherk steamrolls through Franca

Sean ‘The Muscle Shark’ Sherk looked at his most dominant against Hermes Franca in the first defence of his lightweight title, but that’s not to say that there weren’t one or two moments in there when it looked like Franca had stolen it.

The fight was nearly over in 30 seconds of the first round as Franca locked in a tight guillotine choke, but Sherk gritted his teeth and powered out to completely dominate the rest of the round. For someone who is supposed to be ‘just a wrestler’ is jiu-jitsu is sick – he even managed to get mount twice on Franca, who is an excellent submission grappler and a black belt in BJJ.

Round two saw Sherk fans almost fall off their seats as Franca again came close to snatching it, this time courtesy of a vicious and well-timed knee to the head as Sherk shot in. Sherk landed face first on the canvas, yet recovered once again powered on throughout the rest of the round. Franca had no such luck in the third compared to the two previous rounds, as again Sherk just completely rolled through him. His wrestling ability shut Franca’s game down, perfectly displayed when he took position and finished the round in a crucifix landing shots to the face. Had Sherk gotten there a few seconds earlier, he could have finished the fight.

Franca scored another major knee in the fourth, but Sherk ate it and simply went straight into another takedown. He was relentless with his takedowns, and dropped Franca down with a huge slam. Conditioning is a major factor in any fight and Sherk has tonnes of it. The constant pressure Sherk put on saw him cutting through the Brazilian’s guard like it was air. Naysayers take note; it is ridiculous how effective Sherk’s grappling is.

Sherk broke Hermes’ nose in the last round and once again got into mount. As per the rest of the fight, he tossed him around for much of the round, scoring no less than five quick successive takedowns. Franca still attacked towards the end with leg locks, and for some strange reason the crowd were booing? Strange, considering they had just seen an awesome performance by the lightweight champ for a full 25 minutes.

There is little you can say about Sherk’s performance other than it was exactly what you might expect if you had seen the footage of his training from the UFC All Access show that had aired in the run up to this event. Explosive, tireless, powerful, relentless… Sherk is one hell of an athlete, and Hermes looked like he had been put through a washing machine at the end of the fight.

Tito does himself out of victory

If the gambling websites were giving odds on who could talk the best smack, it would be evens, as the former light heavyweight champ Tito Ortiz had met his match in Rashad Evans, but it turned out that even though they had both promised dramatic finishes it would be just as even in the cage, with the fight ending in a draw.

Tito controlled the first round with some improved striking (he’s getting used to those high kicks) and a predictable takedown, but he couldn’t get anything on Evans, who not only started to outwrestle him but also landed a hefty blindside punch to the face that opened a nasty cut on Ortiz’s cheek. Ortiz was definitely the aggresor, and Evans seemed happy to counter-fight, a pattern which continued up until almost the final bell.

Evans’ underrated wrestling skills really came out in the second, as he began to shut down Ortiz’s usual grab and slam game, but it was still Ortiz who was pushin the fight and ahead on the scorecards. Evans got his own takedown towards the end of the round, but Ortiz was docked a point for foolishly grabbing the fence right in front of Big John. Surprisingly, Evans was close to tapping to a guillotine choke, but was dramatically saved by the bell. Had Ortiz not grabbed the fence, it would have been his round, but in the end was judged 9-9.

Round three and Evans wasn’t landing from the outside and Ortiz wasn’t landing when in the grappling range. Evan’s counter work started to seem more effective than Ortiz’s offence, and he really started to put the pressure on the much-bigger Ortiz. A big slam to side control in the last 10 seconds followed with some ground ‘n pound put the finished on his round, which definitely went to Evans. The first round was Tito’s, the second was even and the third was Evan’s. leaving the judges no option but to turn in a very rare draw, to which both fighters were disappointed. Dana White said in the post-fight press conference that they would rematch immediately, and neither fighter would appear in the Octagon against other opposition until they meet.

Minotauro joins the UFC in style but Herring won’t lie down

Former Pride heavyweight champion and one of the best submission experts in the game had a somewhat shaky but still impressive debut UFC performance. Facing him off against Heath Herring (who he had defeated twice in Pride) seemed like a strange choice but given their history and Herring’s willingness to turn any fight into a brawl, it was almost a guaranteed crowd pleaser.

The Brazilian’s crisper striking shone through in the first round, and he scored a sublime takedown from the clunch that showed his dominance in the grappling, but in the last thirty seconds he ate a bone crunching left high kick that would have made Cro Cop proud. Herring had been looking for it all night, and when it came Nogueira tumbled to the canvas, his head snapping back as he landed. His legendary chin was realy put to the test, and though Herring threw a couple of token follow ups the Texan made the mistake of thinking that the referee would intervene, backing off and allowing Nogueira back into the fight.

This was a mistake on Herring’s part, as was not putting any pressure on the still-reeling Nogueira in the first half of the second round. You can only ask why Herring didn’t take advantage of Minotauro’s dazed state when he had the chance. Nogueira managed to regain his wits and saw out the rest of the fight with ease, controlling Herring on the ground and beating him to the punch with his superior boxing skills for a unanimous decision.

Minotauro’s next step is unclear – his debut was solid enough even given his trip to the canvas in the first round, and Cro Cop has stated that should he beat Cheick Kongo in September he would like a chance to avenge his submission loss to Nogueira at some point in the future.

Round Up

Kenny Florian showed why he is still a threat in the lightweight divisin by handling tough Alvin Robinson, doing a great job of tossing him around and finishing him off with some brutal ground and pound. Chris Lytle picked up submission of the night with a textbook reverse triangle and straight armlock combination, a favourite of his. Stephan Bonnar made his return to the Octagon following his suspension for taking banned substances and submitted Mike Nichols, while Jorge Gurgel and Diego Saraiva put on fight of the night in their three round war.