Smark Rant: UFC 21 Return of the Champions!

The Ultimate Fighting Championship 21: Return of the Champions!

– Gosh, I didn’t even realize that the champions had left.

– So the biggest change in a while tonight sees the debut of rounds, with the 10- point must system as well. At the time I wasn’t fond of rounds, but watching all these endless 12 minute matches, I’m glad to have the rest period after 5 minutes now. So this is basically now the modern product, outside of some cosmetic name changes to the various weight classes. This was a full nine PPVs before Zuffa took over.

– Live from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Finally we’re out of the deep south!

– Your hosts are Mike Goldberg & Jeff Blatnick.

Middleweights: Royce Alger v. Eugene Jackson

Alger is the hometown guy so is likely to lose badly. Jackson is from Pancrase and is more of the well-rounded MMA fighter than the one-dimensional Alger should be. Alger tries for the takedown and can’t get anything, as Jackson keeps his back to the fence and hooks in a guillotine. Alger fights out and they trade some good strikes on the fence, allowing Alger to get the takedown and side control. He even gets full mount and pounds away, but stops for a weak submission attempt and almost loses the momentum. A few more shots and they stand up again with Jackson reeling. Frankly I’m shocked. Jackson takes him down with a guillotine and throws a couple of knees, and the first round ends with Jackson throwing punches. 10-9 for Alger by my count, due to the control on the ground and more effective striking there. You could make a case for Jackson’s standup, though.

Second round and Alger shoots in again and gets a sloppy takedown, as he’s clearly running out of gas. They trade again and Jackson is clearly at the advantage, and a HUGE left ends it for Jackson at 1:20 of round 2. Shockingly entertaining fight, but Jackson’s power and training was too much.

Heavyweights: Tsuyoshi Kosaka v. Tim Lajcik
Lajcik is some sort of wrestling/boxing hybrid, which seems like easy prey for Kosaka. He’s got the MMA look, at least, with a good physique and Tapout shorts, although the lack of douchebag tribal tattoos might hurt his chances. They do a quick exchange and end up with Lajcik on top in a kind of lazy half-mount, but Kosaka casually grabs his ankle and forces Lajcik to counter out. Lajcik is back on top, but still leaving all sorts of limbs open with some weak ground and pound. This is going nowhere, especially once Kosaka gets into the butterfly guard. They stand up as the round ends. Lajcik was dominant, but not overly so. 10-9 for him.

Round 2 and Lajcik has a nice sprawl to block a takedown and wins up on top in full mount, but Kosaka does a SICK reversal into an ankle lock attempt. Lajcik, amazingly, rotates out of it with some good flexibility, and ends up on top again, and Kosaka is going for the arm now without results. TK uses his signature guard and elevates over for control from the side (just as Blatnick was talking about how that was exactly what Kosaka was trying for!) and Kosaka pounds away as the round expires. 10-9 Kosaka, he had all the aggression. And it’s a moot point anyway, because Lajcik’s corner throws in the towel to give TK the win. Dammit, I wanted to see if my judging was accurate.

Middleweights: Flavio Luiz Moura v. Paul Jones
Is this a prelim that made it to the main draw or something? Moura lays out Jones with a right, right out of the gate, and gets the back, but Jones survives and gets the top. Not much going on in the guard and Jones gets side mount and finishes with a rear naked choke at 4:21 of the VERY FIRST ROUND. Sadly Bruce Buffer doesn’t call it the VERY FIRST round yet, but merely the first. You’d think with a name like “Flavio” he’d have to be tough, but I guess not.

And then things go all pro wrestling, as Frank Shamrock and Tito Ortiz have a face-to-face showdown in the Octagon and sign the contract for UFC 22. I am incredibly pumped to get there.

Middleweights: Jeremy Horn v. Diaju Takase
Takase wants a boxing match and Horn throws some nasty kicks in response and then batters him with Muay Thai knees to bring him down. Horn gets side mount and throws a NASTY knee to the head from there, then gets full mount and lets it all hang out. Takase survives, but another flurry ends it at 4:42 of round one. Horn was becoming a monster with every fight.

Lightweight title: Pat Miletich v. Andre Pederneiras
Pederneiras is making his debut here and is only 1-0 overall in MMA. So how come he gets a title shot already? There was some weird booking in these shows. Miletich comes in with knees on the fence, then backs off for a quick exchange. Andre keeps backing up as nothing is going on, and they go back to the fence as round one ends. I’d go 10-8 for Miletich here, as Pederneiras barely even threw a punch. But I know how hesitant they are to do that score, so 10-9 is more likely.

Round 2 and Andre is still moving backwards rather than engaging, and Miletich punishes him with a leg kick, forcing Pederneiras to pull guard. Big John stops things to check a gushing cut over Andre’s eye, and they stop it to end the slaughter. In wrestling we’d call this a squash match. This was slightly less boring than Miletich’s usual fights. Speaking of wrestling, Mikey Burnett cuts a heel promo on Pat Miletich, claiming to be the real lightweight champion and flipping off the “ignorant” crowd. That’s a really stupid direction to be taking for a company that was trying for legitimacy at that point. Get approval in places other than Alabama, and THEN do the goofy pro wrestling trash talk. And we continue down that road with Ken Shamrock, who cuts a promo on Tito Ortiz and talks up Burnett’s supposedly-deserved title shot. Burnett would never get his rematch, despite his great talking.

Main Event, Heavyweights: Marco Ruas v. Maurice Smith
We’re definitely getting to the tail end of Smith’s usefulness to the sport. Ruas takes him down on the fence, and they tie each other up on the ground with nothing happening. They move to the center with Smith in guard, but he gets a nice reversal at the same time that Ruas tries for a heel hook. Smith wriggles out after a good shot and gets top control as round one ends. 10-9 for Ruas, pretty clearly. Ruas complains loudly about his knee in between rounds, so they call it off and Smith wins a crappy fight. That’s a huge disappointment. So with a bunch of time left over, we get…

Prelim fight, Heavyweights: Ron Waterman v. Andre Roberts
You’d think Waterman would have made it to the main draw by this point, but maybe that’s hindsight talking. Prelims are only 2 rounds at this point, but I’m thinking we’ll only need one of them. Quick note: They still announce this as an “alternate bout”, even though it’s not providing an alternate to anything without the tournament format. Waterman is throwing knees from the clinch right away, bloodying up Roberts instantly, so Big John pulls Waterman off to check the cut. Roberts is dumb enough to continue, so Waterman keeps making hamburger out of Roberts’ face. And then Roberts gets a crazy right out of nowhere and knocks Waterman down, but he can’t follow up. Waterman calls for more, so Roberts KNOCKS HIM THE FUCK OUT. Whoa. Well, I was right, it didn’t go past the first. Were I a betting man, outside of Pokerstars, I would have lost some money on that fight. Very entertaining, though.

So we find out in an offhand way from Maurice Smith that Bas Rutten has vacated the heavyweight title already, after months of their bullshit “tournament”, and now we’ll need another champion. But that’s not important, because next time out SEG tries for their one home-run swing left with FRANK SHAMROCK v. TITO ORTIZ!