Fighters Only

Issue 001

March 2005

Tito Ortiz vs Vitor Belfort. This fight was supposed to have taken place over three years ago at UFC 33. Well, after various false starts due to injury it finally took place on February 5 at UFC 51, but in the end the result wasn’t quite as decisive as most would have liked.

Brazilian Vitor Belfort put the pressure on Tito early, backing him to the fence with a flurry reminiscent of his domination of Wanderlei Silva six years ago. Unlike Wanderlei, Tito was able to recover briefly before being dropped by Belfort’s powerful hands. With a shattered nose, Tito showed a heart that he hasn’t known since defeating Ken Shamrock, fighting his way back and finishing the round by attacking Belfort with his patented ground ‘n’ pound style.

The second round saw Tito shoot and get caught in a guillotine choke that he quickly managed to escape. But this time it was Belfort that started to ground ‘n’ pound Tito before a stalemate resulted in the fighters being stood up. Tito then took Belfort down and finished the round strong, striking from Belfort’s guard.

A bit of a let down after the action of the first two rounds, both fighters seemed to tire going into the third. Tito maintained control throughout the round, keeping Belfort on his back and plodding along with a more subdued version of his earlier ground ‘n’ pound display.

In the end it was Tito’s hand that was raised in a split decision. Two judges scored the bout 29-28 for Tito while the other scored it the same for Belfort.

Always one to draw attention, Tito caused a ruckus in the ring with his post fight interview. With both men in attendance, Tito called out Chuck Liddell and Ken Shamrock. A brief skirmish ensued inside the Octagon but it never came to blows as cooler heads prevailed.

In a battle for the interim UFC Heavyweight Championship — current champion Frank Mir is out for a few more months due to injury — Andre Arlovski displayed the versatility that earned him this shot in the first place.

Arlovski played a smart game against the much larger Tim Sylvia. He used the basic stick and move strategy from boxing and peppered Sylvia with inside leg kicks. In a brief flurry, Arlovski followed up a jab with an overhand right that put Sylvia down. Trying to defend by upkicking from his back, Sylvia left his legs vulnerable and Arlovski, a Russian Sambo specialist, took full advantage. In a blink Arlovski had Sylvia in an ankle lock that had him flashing back to the broken arm he received at the hands of Mir. Less than a minute into the first round Sylvia tapped out, making Arlovski the interim UFC Heavyweight Champion.

The UFC hasn’t had a middleweight belt holder since Murilo Bustamante left over two years ago. That is until Evan Tanner had the strap fastened to his waist at Super Saturday. Despite more than 30 fights to his credit with only four losses, and closing in on a decade in the sport, many people felt that David Terrell’s newbreed style would be too much for Tanner. Those folks were dead wrong.

After dancing around for the first minute of the bout Terrell shot in on Tanner and relentlessly wrestled him to the ground. He then applied a guillotine choke and seemed almost desperate in his attempts to finish the fight.

Calling on his years of experience, Tanner remained calm, worked his way out of the choke, and put Terrell up against the fence. In a flurry of forearms, elbows and punches Tanner rained down blow after blow on Terrell’s head. The younger fighter may have been spent from his earlier attempts. Whatever the reason, Terrell could not answer Tanner’s assault and referee Herb Dean stopped the fight.

In a bold move leading up to this fight, Tanner made the decision to leave Team Quest and return to his lone-wolf beginnings. Tanner entered the Octagon on his own and he left it on his own, albeit a few pounds heavier with the championship belt around his waist.

Phil Baroni was originally slated to face fellow UFC veteran Robbie Lawler. Both fighters have been on the skids lately and it appeared that it would be a ‘loser leaves town’ type of fight. But Lawler dropped out due to injury and in stepped UFC rookie Pete Sell. A jiu jitsu stylist under the tutelage of Team Renzo’s Matt Serra, Sell only had four fights to his credit on entering the Octagon. Just what the doctor ordered for Baroni, right? Wrong.

Baroni and Sell went toe to toe on the feet and blow for blow on the ground for nearly the entire three rounds of the fight. The bigger and stronger Baroni seemed to be getting the better of Sell throughout, but as both fighters started to tire in the third round things changed.

After taking him to the ground, Baroni soon found himself in Sell’s guard, locked up in a tight guillotine choke. At one point his body seemed to go limp, but his legs started to move again. Sell then turned Baroni on to his back while maintaining the choke, which only managed to synch it on tighter. Baroni had no choice but to give up on the fight and his UFC career — he tapped out, giving Sell his first win in the Octagon.

In the first bout of the pay-per-view broadcast Paul Buentello put an exclamation point on his Octagon debut. Going into this one Buentello was seen as the languid counter puncher while Justin Eilers filled the role of the aggressor. But in reality it was just the opposite that held true. Buentello never let Eilers get into a rhythm. He constantly pushed the pace of the fight and rocked Eilers with a couple of big punches before brutally knocking him out with a crushing straight right hand to the chin.

On the undercard, Mike Kyle gave newcomer James Irvin a rough and tumble initiation.

After a few exchanges that saw Kyle getting the better of the rookie, he used a little dirty boxing to set Irvin up for a devastating right hand that put him on the canvas. Kyle followed Irvin down and pounded him a couple more times to secure the knockout.

You have to hand it to a guy that is willing to step up and take a fight with just four days notice, especially when he’s stepping up against a fighter with the caliber of Canadian David Loiseau. Gideon Ray came to the Octagon to give it his all and he did.

Showing tremendous heart, Ray fought back from being dropped on two separate occasions by Loiseau’s textbook knees to his solar plexus. He made it to the end of round one, but Loiseau had delivered some pretty good ground ‘n’ pound forearms along the way, opening a huge gash on Ray’s head. In between rounds the fight was waved off at the suggestion of the ringside doctor, who felt that the cut was just too severe.

In a bout that should help determine the next contender to the UFC welterweight belt behind Frank Trigg, Karo Parisyan and Chris Lytle battled to the end in one of only two fights that went the distance. Coming into this one most people felt that the fighters’ parity on the ground would force a stand up game where Lytle held a slight edge.

In a brilliant strategic move Parisyan negated Lytle’s standup by closing the distance and repeatedly putting him on his back. The perfection of this strategy showed through when, instead of grappling with Lytle, Parisyan initiated a steady, controlling ground ‘n’ pound attack. Though it didn’t make for the most exciting fight of the night, Parisyan’s tactics earned him a unanimous decision.

The opening bout of the night was another welterweight bout featuring contender Nick Diaz and another Octagon newcomer in Drew Fickett. Though Fickett appeared game enough, he couldn’t seem to find any chinks in Diaz’s armor. Poised throughout, Diaz countered anything that Fickett threw his way and eventually got him to the ground and up against the cage. Once there, Diaz was relentless, not taking a breath until he had overwhelmed Fickett with a torrent of strikes to earn a referee stoppage.

With seven of the nine fights on the card ending in definitive finishes, the UFC couldn’t have asked for a more action-packed show. And with a paid attendance of 11,218 fans at a sold out Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas has been a bountiful home for the premier fight promotion in the United States.

Next on tap: UFC 52, Randy Couture vs Chuck Liddell II, on April 16 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.