After watching UFC 43, I was very excited about the possibility of Randy Couture fighting Tito Ortiz for the light heavy weight title. Sure enough UFC 44 arrived in the mail yesterday compliments of
Netflix. I had another two and a half hours of fighting to watch and the line up looked very intriguiing - lot's of heavy weight ultimate fighting.
The match of Rich Franklin v Edwin ‘Baby Face’ Dewes (Light Heavyweight) was pretty one sided but still had alot of good action. Edwin is really young (21 I think) and Franklin is older and much more experienced. That's pretty much how the fight played out.
Jorge Rivera v David Loiseau (Middleweight) was a great fight. Jorge Rivera kept battling through even though 2 huge gashes were opened up on his skull from the powerful elbow snap of David Loiseau. This one went the distance and it was a good thing for Loiseau that the 3rd round ended - because he was getting pummelled at the end of the fight. Rivera - who's used to fighting much bigger and stronger heavy weights is tough.
Tim Sylvia v Gan McGee (Heavyweight Title) was another promising fight - 2 really big guys. Tim Sylvia is like 6'8" and Gan Mcgee is 6'11" - two giants. I had seen Tim Sylvia fight before and without exception next to Royce Gracie - he's the second toughest fighter I've ever seen. This proved true 1 minute into the first round when Gan McGee decided to take a nap. Great 1 minute fight though - great KO.
The ufc fight between Andrei Arlovski and Vladmir Matyushenko (Heavyweight) was another great looking fight. I had heard that Arlovski was going to fight Tito Ortiz in the upcoming new UFC Champion bout, so I was excited to see him fight. It didn't take long for Arlovski's long reach to prove extremely effective and his uppercut ended this match with a KO.
Karo Parisyan v Dave Strasser (Welterweight) was a good fight and the first submission win of the night. It's amazing how quickly a submission can end the fight - this was close until Parisyan got ahold of Strassers arm and put it in a arm lock I haven't seen before (Kimura arm bar) - and he locked it - 2 seconds later the fight was over.
Nick Diaz v Jeremy Jackson (Welterweight) - this fight ended with a submission as well - a great fight up until then though. This was a grudge match between a striker and a wrestler, with Nick Diaz's training under Royce Gracie proving beneficial. There was alot of striking and alot of wrestling and it looked like it was going Jeremy's way for the win until Diaz got the arm bar.
Finally the main event - Randy Couture v Tito Ortiz (Light Heavyweight Title). The last fight I watched with Randy Couture was against Chuck Liddell (who was supposed to fight Tito Ortiz - but Tito bowed out of the fight and Randy replaced him) and he beat him up - it wasn't close it was a pummeling with him fully mounting chuck liddell and beating him until the ref. called the fight. I expected this fight to be much closer and it started out looking that way, but the tide quickly changed. Randy took ortiz to the mat over and over and over again, managed to get a full mount and pound him - however tito avoided most of these punchs - and the fight ended with ortiz on the ground attempting a feeble leg lock - while Randy patted him on the butt in a more teacherly way - like saying, "What exactly did you think you were doing - nice try but your screwed." The pats were mixed up with some nice fists to Tito's upper back thigh. It ended with the judges unanimous decision - which officially made Randy Couture the first man to take the heavy weight title as well as the light heavy weight title.
Awesome fights.