Fighters Only

Issue 017

September 2006

July 8th 2006 Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas

Review by Hywel Teague Photos by Josh Hedges, courtesy Zuffa Inc.

The most anticipated match of the year, that’s what the rematch between Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz was being billed as. A grudge match to end all grudge matches. The biggest collision of egos the UFC has ever seen. A monumental clash of personalities that would generate so much force that seismologists were expecting an earthquake to radiate from downtown Las Vegas. They were bitter rivals indeed. But lo and behold, as with everything that gets hyped to death, it proved to be utterly anticlimactic.

Shamrock, once the “world’s most dangerous man” and now the world’s worst loser, got pummelled by the younger, fitter, more dangerous and, let's be honest here, immeasurably better fighter Tito Ortiz in one minute and eighteen seconds.

Now, as if it wasn’t bad enough that Ken was dispatched in such a brutal, efficient and highly predictable one-sided manner, what followed stole any chance of Ken retaining his fading credibility.

After five flush elbows to the face, Ken was pretty much out of it. He had bought a one-way ticket up Queer Street and no way was he going to turn around. The guy’s hands were down, his legs went limp, and to top it off, his eyes were looking in different directions. And he had the gall to protest the stoppage.

The stoppage was bang on, there is absolutely no denying it. If Tito has been allowed to carry on his destruction of Ken’s face, we would have been looking at a man way past his prime being carried out on a stretcher. But the vociferous boo’s from the crowd and the chants of “bullshit” seemed to say that the audience were disputing Herb Dean’s decision to stop the fight. Were they really? Unfortunately, yes they were.

From a distance of thirty or forty rows of seats away, it may seem that Shamrock was in a position to fight back. Even when watching it on the big screen, it may appear that he had a fighting chance. Dean jumped in and flung himself between Tito and Ken, only for Ken to pop up to his feet a second later protesting that he was fine. To the casual observer, it looked like Dean had made a big fuck up.

Herb Dean is one of the most sought after and qualified MMA referees in the world. A full-time referee and sometime MMA fighter, he has officiated fights everywhere from Tokyo to London. The guy has been in charge of literally hundreds of MMA fights. You’d think he’d know what he was doing, right?

Well whatever you think, the fact is this. Dean got it right. Acting with the power invested in him by the State Athletic Commission, he called a halt to the fight because he deemed that Shamrock was not intelligently defending himself. It seems that in the training manuals they hand out to referees, a fighter lying on his back with his head on a fence and allowing a guy who weighs over 205lbs to ram his elbow into their jaw is frowned upon. For some strange reason, if they let it happen not once, not twice but five times in a row, they stop the fight! As Dean himself said, “I stopped the fight because he received five elbows without any attempt to defend himself. I believe he was unconscious. I think he was out with the first one.”

“At that critical time, he was unable to defend himself. I was certain of that. I can’t think of another reason to take five elbows without doing anything else. I can’t be accountable for how fast he’s going to recover.”

So Shamrock got done. Ortiz handled him with a brutal ease he had been promising for months. He rammed the nail into the coffin of that little rivalry, since referring to his feud with the aging brawler as “history”. Shamrock has been bleating on about a rematch already, but come on, does anyone care?

The ‘Maine-iac’ defeats the Pitbull in plodding affair

Here is a question for you: When did MMA become like watching boxing?

The illogical focussing on the heavyweights, the interminable procession of rematches, the long fights that are painful to watch and leave you twiddling your thumbs and the questionable decisions. All we need is for Dana White to get a Don King hairdo and you’d think the UFC had transformed into the sport of pugilism. OK I’m being harsh, we’ve got a long way to go before things get this bad, but every once in a while you come across a fight where I, as a spectator or viewer, actually feel like tapping out to. The third encounter between Andrei Arlovski, one of the greatest products of careful match making and marketing the UFC has ever seen, and Tim Sylvia, the insufferably tiresome giant with the blind hairdresser, was one such fight.

Having fought twice before in a pair of pretty exciting fights, they held one win each. Andrei won the first contest via submission after dropping the 6’8” Miletich-trained fighter with a scud missile-like right hand in May of 2005. Sylvia lost his belt to the Belorussian in that contest, but reclaimed it in April of this year when he stopped Arlovski in just over two and a half minutes.

Both guys knew that the other could deck them in a heartbeat. As they had got each other’s number in the previous fights, neither guy really wanted to engage this time. Sylvia’s reach and dynamite right hand left Andrei wary, while Andrei’s speed and movement meant Sylvia was playing it safe throughout.

What we got was five rounds of occasional exchanges between the two, and an awful lot of two fighters looking at each other deciding what to do next. Andrei may have bloody quick hands and a killer instinct for wounded prey (he is ruthless with his finishes) but he’s become gun-shy since getting stopped by Sylvia. He’d almost forgotten just how chinny he was, as the last time he’d been tagged was way back in 2002 when Pedro Rizzo rearranged his face with a right cross and left him flat on his back.

After getting destroyed by Rizzo, Arlovski was presented a series of hard-to-lose matches. Bloated light heavyweights, journeymen and B-class fighters litter his record from 2002 to the present, with the only real challenges being his three fights with Sylvia. The UFC loved this dynamic looking, rough and ready champ, they wanted him to stick around.

Sylvia, guided by one of the best coaches in the business and a product of one of the most successful teams out there, played a clever game in nullifying Andrei’s strengths. The effective straight punches he threw left Arlovski’s face pretty marked up, but the leg kicks are reported to have severely damaged Andrei’s leg, not to mention his confidence.

It doesn’t look like anyone will beat Tim soon, at least not from the UFC’s heavyweight roster, but you have to ask how much of that is due to him being such a big strong guy and how much is due to him being a genuinely talented fighter. Jeff Monson (22-5-0), the highly accomplished grappler who stopped Anthony Perosh in the first round on the undercard, has got himself a title shot and will get to test this very theory out, but that’s more due to the lack of decent challengers than it is to Monson’s achievements in the Octagon.

Three consecutive wins by Monson in the UFC this year has put him in line for a title shot, and on paper that seems sound, but lets look at who he has fought. His first fight in the UFC was against Brandon Lee Hinkle, who is best known for beating up fat cop Sean Gannon in the UFC. Marcio ‘Pe De Pano’ Cruz, a world champion jiu-jitsu competitor, had only two fights to his name when he took Monson to a decision and Perosh was an Australian heavyweight who was 5-1 and had never fought out of his home country. So now Monson has got a title shot, and I bet the UFC are dreading having to market this fight. Sylvia is one of the most uncharismatic fighters on the planet. He walks, talks and looks funny. Monson, who stands a full 11 inches shorter than Sylvia, is a softly spoken anarchist who protests against the war in Iraq, has communist tattoos and has been investigated by US secret services. I really don’t envy the UFC spin doctors! If I seem somewhat negative about this show, you’ll have to forgive me. I was genuinely looking forward to the Tito-Shamrock fight as I thought it would be one of the most entertaining beatdowns on offer for a while, but the main event of Sylvia-Arlovski was such an ordeal it almost soured the entire show, which was criminal considering the wonderful announcement that Wanderlei Silva is to fight Chuck Liddell later this year! As if anyone could have predicted that fight!

The implications of this fight are massive. Never has there been a confrontation between two rival promotional champions. Finally we will find out who the number one 205lb fighter in the world will be, and it’s an absolute guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

So what were the under-paid guys on the undercard up to? Kicking ass, mostly. And I mean mostly.

Stevenson put himself top of the 155lb tree, and set an inevitable showdown with Ken-Flo (Kenny Florian) by beating Yves Edwards. Stevenson ground out a victory over the man many saw as the defacto lightweight champion (when the title was left in limbo some years back). Edwards didn’t lie down though, his unorthodox southpaw striking caught Joe a number of times but Big Daddy’s wrestling would always be too much for him. The fight-ending cut was a shame, if entertaining (a bit of blood is always nice). With a laceration on top of Edwards’ shaved skull pouring blood over the canvas, the doctors called a halt to the fight. Yves was dying to fight on but knew they wouldn’t have let him.

Frank Mir, two words guaranteed to raise either a chuckle or prompt a snort of derision from any self-respecting UFC fan. What on earth is he doing back, honestly? Does anyone like Frank Mir? Unbelievably arrogant, Mir has been kicked out of his club in Vegas by long-time coach Ricardo Pires for not training hard enough. He turned up to this fight horribly out of shape (as he has been since, oh lets see, forever!). He just about squeezed out a decision over Dan Chistison, but was put under plenty of pressure on his way there. What is worse is that Mir, always a favourite of the UFC, earned $56,000 for this single fight. That’s over ten times the amount his opponent got, and just short of Jeff Monson, Drew Fickett and Joe Stevenson’s wages combined.

Josh Burkman and Josh Neer put on a pretty entertaining scrap, with both guys giving it plenty of gusto.

Hermes Franca, the criminally under-used lightweight sensation who has finally got his career back on track and is currently enjoying a five-fight winning streak dispatched Joe Jordan by submission in the third round of a very entertaining fight, while the UFC showed some savvy by bringing in French Muay Thai champion Cheick Kongo to beat up a very game Gilbert Aldana.