It was said to be the biggest UFC event of the year.........and simply put, they delivered. With some top fighters competing, it's hard to ignore that these were going to be some good fights. And we even underestimated that by far. Now, because eight of the nine fights ended quickly and they ended up showing every one on the event, I'll be doing a quicker recap of them, besides the main event of course.
The undercard had some promising fights, and ended up being insanely entertaining. Matt Brown defeated Ryan Thomas via 2nd round submission in a welterweight fight he was losing, but kept hanging on until he locked on a nice armbar. Aaron Riley and Jorge Gurgel had a great war at lightweight that Riley won by coming back from the 1st and wining the last 2 rounds to get the decision, and may have gotten Fight of the Night honors. In another lightweight fight, Mark Bocek easily dominated Alvin Robinson, and got a 3rd round submission win. In what was easily the Knockout of the Night, Jeremy Stephens knocked out Rafael dos Anjos in the 3rd round with a BEAUTIFUL uppercut that dropped him. This lightweight fight could've been Fight of the Night too considering dos Anjos was winning while going for submission attempts left and right.
The main card equally shared some great highlights too. The first fight was between middleweights Nate Quarry and Demian Maia. I like Quarry a lot, but this was a bad fight for him to take, and he was submitted in the end of round one by a rear-naked choke by a top-class jiu-jitsu fighter. Next was a heavyweight fight between Gabriel Gonzaga and newcomer Josh Hendricks. As was expected, Gonzaga ended up connecting with a right in the first round, and got the TKO win with ease. Another welterwight fight was next as Dustin Hazelett and Tamden McCrory. This was a great fight while it lasted, but Hazelett locked on an armbar that almost tore McCrory's arm off, and forced him to tap out in the 1st. It easily got Submission of the Night honors. Lastly, there was a highly-anticipated lightweight fight between Kenny Florian and Joe Stevenson. Interesting to note that Stevenson was expected to hold his own......but, Florian dominated Stevenson, and got a rear-naked choke in the 1st round to get the win. Amazing performance.
Then it was time for the big main event fight for the heavyweight championship between Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar. I should mention that soon after the fight started, the power went out here at home, and we all freaked out, but it came back on for us to see the end of the fight. Regardless, we ended up staying up until 3 AM to watch the fight again during the 2nd showing, and see all of what happened. Lesnar won the first round by getting a couple of takedowns, but most of the fight was them attempting to physically control eachother. The second round saw both fighters tiring already, but both were connecting with some hard strikes; Couture drew first blood when Lesnar got cut above his right eye. And then it happened......Lesnar caught Couture with a right-hand that dropped him, and Lesnar got on top, and hammered Couture until the referee stopped the fight. With that, Brock Lesnar, in only his 4th fight of his career, became the UFC Heavyweight Champion.
A fantastic event if I do say so myself. And the UFC is still looking to top it with their last pay-per-view of the year, including 2 title fights and other highly competitive fights to boot. And even though I'll be on my vacation in California during that event, with some luck I'll still be able to see it...........please let there be some luck.........
-Joe
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