What fights have you watched today?

Pride MW GP 2003

Fedor absolutely destroys Goodridge. He has brought a whole new meaning to G&P would be good seeing him against the giants over in UFC though.

Liddell wins a war with Overeem and ultimately knocks him out. Good performance on the comeback trail for Chuck.

Jackson edges out Bustamante with his strikes and slams considered superior to the submission attempts of Murilo. Both fighters come off quite well here for me. Jackson racks up another big name opponent and Murilo who is a MW has shown willingness to compete at the highest level.

Rodrigo Vs Ricco. The submission attempts of Rodrigo score more than the takedown attempts of Ricco. I must admit as a BJJ guy i love the scoring in this fight. But i can see why the UFC fans use it against the pride fans quite a lot.

Cro Cop detsroys Igor to confirm he is a serious JW contender and the best striker we've ever had. I usually say stuff and strike but i think the proper term is sprawl and brawl. Cro Cop is great at it.

Yoshida gets Tamura to tap out with a good choke hold in a surprisingly good fight.

Wanderlei detsroys poor Kazushi. Not even good watching any more. This WW legend has no business fighting at 200 pounds. Crazy stuff.

Bushido sees a debut for Shogun. Cro Cop wins another deadly head kick and Newton again confirms his WW greatness beating Renzo.

Jackson outstrikes Lidell with an incredible display of counter punching. Softens him up and then lands big takedowns. Ultimately winning with a sustained G&P attack that Liddell is unable to defend against.

Wanderlei outstrikes Yoshida and does more damage to take the decision in the other semi final.

Henderson destroys Bustamante to keep his name amongst the elite.

Sakuraba faces Randlemann, lol why am i even having to write that down. Wanderlei, Rampage, Kimo, Cro Cop, Randlemann, what do they all have in common? Sakuraba had no business facing any of them but somehow manages to beat 2 of them including former HW champion Kevin Randlemann. Can't get over how much Randlemann looks like Mayweather btw. Quite a tactical wrestling affair with Randlemann being the aggressor here. After one of the takedowns Sakuraba feints for the knee bar, Randlemann tries rolling out of it, Saku takes his arm and gets an arm bar in and it's game over for Kevin.

Rodrigo Nogueira is matched up against Cro Cop for the interim championship awaiting the return of the last emperor. Nogueira is so effective from his back you can see him 3,4,5 steps ahead of his opponent, so dangerous when he has someone in his guard. Rodrigo ends up taking full mount with a forums and pound attack, as Mirko bridges to escape Nog locks on the arm bar and sets up a huge rematch with Fedor.

In the final we see the two best LHW fighters in Pride and arguably the whole world as Wanderlei and Rampage get it on.

Almost all over straight away as Jackson goes for a huge slam but walks right into a guillotine, once on the mat he works his way out of it though. He begins some G&P attacking and Silva defends well on his back. They stay on the mat for quite a while with Rampage doing some slight damage but unable to land a big attack as Silva keeps a tight guard. With the attacks getting less and less frequent the ref resets the action Wanderlei exploded into action landing huge shots and when Quinton tried clinching he just ate knee after knee. Huge victory for Wanderlei outlining his status as the best MMA star in history.

 

Or better yet had a lightweight grand Prix in 2000 when the stars on Shooto were just getting noticed, atleast then he'd have had some sort of title.

 

I'm enjoying this thread too!

 

UFC 45

Good card. Very good card.

Lindland got revenge over the guy i cant spell right, last time out he went for a take down but instead of spinning him round he fell flat on his back and knocked himself out. This time he got the right result and forced the tap.

Lawlor looked incredible, so raw but hard hitting. Very good win for him here.

Ricco Rodriguez looked very poor against Pedro Rizzo. Essentially the fight ended after a leg kick in the first round. From then Ricco struggled putting weight on his left leg, couldn't shoot effectively and was out struck for a points loss.

Tank Abbot lol. Just lol.

**** Vitale, that's the guy Lindland beat, Vitale.

Hughes beat the smack talking Frank Trigg in a arctical Wrestling affair where Trigg dropped his guard for one milli second and Matt took his back and locked in a RNC from the standing position. Trigg tapped but only one tap so Matt locked it in until he passed out backwards. Great win.

Anyways, Larry Landless has done my fukin head in since watching UFC. Big John has his "let's get it on" which is fine because he's one of the pioneers, all the other refs just get on with their jobs, this Muppet comes in with stupid haircuts trying to get a new catchphrase going "let's rock and roll" and it seems like he's there for the fame not as an actual job. Anyways he totally messed up here. Goes something like this: Baroni kicks the **** out of Tanner, play is stopped and a cut is checked, after the restart Tanner gets Baroni in a clinch, lands big knees and takes him down. There's G&P but not full bloodied blows, Larry comes in and says "Do you wanna stop" Baroni says "No" Landless says "Are you sure" Baroni says "Yes" and then the Muppet stops the fight anyway. Awful stoppage. Worst in MMA history so far. Actually second worst, as I've watched all these in a short time i still remember every event and in UFC Japan Sakuraba went for a takedown but Big Job thought he had been knocked out so stopped the fight. Atleast that result for turned over, this one didnt. Shame on Landless.

 

UFC 46

Serra Thomson and GSP all win convincing decisions on the prelim card.

Mir batters Sims to become the probable number 1 contender with the complete lack of depth in the division. Rodriguez and Rizzo have both lost a handful of fights now, Barnett is disqualified and Couture left the division. Randlemann is over in Pride, McGee has just lost, who else is there? No one.

Newton lost a close decision but he's been competing for 5 years now, his greatness is secured for me.

Penn has an astonishing victory Hughes where he dominated him, took his back and choked him out. Probably sets himself the second best fighter in history behind Wanderlei. How can he move to number 1? Beat Ludwig down at 155.

Up at LHW Belfort beats Couture on a fluke punch. A legal punch but a complete fluke none the less. Must see a rematch to this.

 

Yeah the first fight with stomps, bang out of order that.

But yeah I've said it a few times now, looking at records doesn't really tell the story with the early Shooto/UFC/Pride organisations competition for big names.

Watching the sport as a whole chronologically like I've been doing it seems clear right now no HW names exist at UFC. The top two names, Mir and Sylvia both have such a shallow resume. Compared with the big 3 over in Pride. Plus the next line in Pride like Igor, Kerr, Coleman, Herring, Fujita. The division in UFC is so shallow. Literally anyone can win 3 or 4 prelim fights and be in line for a title shot right now.

 

Right now being January 2004 lol

 

Pride HW - GP 2004 16 names in the HW division, how many of these should be replaced by UFC men if we were to do a genuine top 16? Who would replace them? Rizzo, Rodriguez, Arlovski, Barnett, Sylvia and Mir? Interesting thought.

Obviously this is gonna skew with my timeline a bit but i like watching the gp fights in one big go.

Just prior to this was Pride 27 and Bushido 2. Some good wins there for the usual crowd. Mark Kerr lost again and Sakurai lost but other than that the big names all won, most of them in dominant fashion. Silva, Shogun and Cro Cop especially.

The first round of the GP was Total Elimination.

Herring overwhelms Takahashi and shows better ground defence then I'm used to seeing. Most of the time he holds guard until the reset, here he was reversing and looked more adept on the ground.

Kharitonov destroys ninja to announce himself as a serious contender, by default you'd have to put him as one of the top 8 at this point.

Silva, Schilt and Ogawa all land first round submissions to advance to the next stage.

Randlemann proves he's one of the best around by destroying Cro Cop who until this fight looked to be the best striker in MMA to date.

Big Big Vs Yokoi i couldn't find a version of but Rodrigo wins by second round submission.

Emilianenko and Coleman have a terrific battle which sees Hammer start very strongly, taking Fedor down and almost getting a RNC locked in, however it isn't quite locked, Fedor remains calm and when he gets his chance he locks in an arm bar and moves through to the final 8 himself.

Bushido 3 sees Filipovic and Gomi win their fights but Newton drops a debatable decision.

Critical countdown starts with Sakuraba defeating Schembri to right the earlier wrong of his shock defeat.

Quinton Jackson scored another great victory over Ricardo Arona and proves he's still one of the best out there.

Hunt gets submitted in his MMA debut.

The quarters see Kharitonov and Ogawa score big stoppage victories to progress through to the semis. Kharitonov and Ogawa are actually unbeaten so far, but both have a fairly shallow resume.

Rodrigo once again beats Herring but this time more decisively. First round is quite competitive, Rodrigo has the edge striking actually which shows how well rounded he is. On the mat Herring has moments of success as he gets a couple of reversals in and some ground and pound. Round 2 starts with Nog almost immediately going for a guillotine, but then he spins into an anaconda choke and ends the fight.

Randlemann Vs Fedor is pretty much the same as Coleman Vs Fedor. The fight starts with Kevin slamming Fedor around the ring like a rag doll, landing a huge suplex at one point. But once both on the mat Fedor again shows his great ground skills to reverse the attack and land a Kimura, excellent stuff.

Bushido 4 sees routine victories for Filipovic, Sakurai, Gomi and Rogerio.

Final conflict sees Bustamante and Randlemann upset against bigger men as both lose their fights on the card. Filipovic wins a war with Fedors little bro, a war that was very back and forth but is ultimately determined with a head kick as Cro Cop does best. Wanderlei destroys Yuki Kondo and stomps his way to victory in a way that would see him lose in the Octagon.

In the semi finals Nog ends the unbeaten record if Kharitonov again utilising his ever improving striking ability and his ATG grappling ability.

Fedor cuts through Ogawa like a knife through butter. Strikes him to the ground, lays on the Ground&Pound and then lands an arm bar, quite similar to what DJ did against Reiss actually.

So the final sees a rematch between the two best HW fighters in history. The first 3 minutes see a chess battle for positional superiority with Fedor trying to get the G&P going and Nog trying to get a submission going, a third of the way into the round there's a clash of heads and the fight is stopped.

So yeah I've just spent almost all weekend watching Pride fights to get a NC in the final. Meh.

Need to watch 3 UFC events now to get the timeline back up to date as I'm now in August 2004.

 

It was a great grand Prix.

Shame about the ending though.

 

UFC 47.

Just gonna say it's amazing how far UFC has come at this point. The event is presented much better now with story lines emerging, in depth analysis, interviews, features and more accurate records for the fighters.

This was quite a quiet card for my liking. Diaz overcame Lawler in a war where he stood and traded with him until he knocked him out. **** knows why he fought like that but he proved he's the real deal here tonight.

Arlovski ended the cabbage hype with a decent performance but he's quite inconsistent results wise.

All about the main event. Finally Tito faces Liddell. I mean I've seen all this in a microcosm were in able to detach from reality whilst watching event after event so for me this saga has lasted weeks, in real life it lasted years. Tito said he was gonna stand and trade with Lidell and he did. However he totally underestimated the hand speed of Chuck.

Round 1 was very close and Tito was edging it for me but Lidell landed a combo at the end of the round that staggered Ortiz to nick it.

Round 2 started at a quicker pace, Chuck threw a punch at Tito and cut him, Ortiz starts dabbing at his eye and Chuck goes in for the kill, raining blows sensing victory and Tito crumpled in a heap.

Chuck cemented his greatness here. Tito showed such humility in defeat also.

Great main event made up for a less than stellar card.