Yeah, this clip might be four years old, but we’ve never seen it before, and we literally watch everything on the Internet that’s related to MMA — even the crap that’s only related in a vague, tangential sort of way — so it’s probably new to you as well. During a 2009 C3 MMA event in Hammond, Indiana, a pair of sluggers nearly produced the world’s first through-the-ropes double knockout. If only the white guy with the braids had lost consciousness, this would probably be the greatest fight-ending in the history of the sport. I guess you’ll just have to settle for one guy getting KO’d out of the ring. At any rate, it goes great with that first cup of coffee.
In this clip from FUEL TV’s Ultimate Matt Hughes special, the UFC Hall of Famer (and current Vice President of Athlete Development and Government Relations) recalls his infamous welterweight title fight at UFC 34 back in November 2001, in which he defeated Carlos Newton via slam-knockout, despite being nearly finished by a triangle choke. At the time, Hughes was returning to the UFC after building up a seven-fight win streak outside of the organization, and Newton had just become champion by bulldog-choking Hughes’s homey Pat Miletich seven months earlier at UFC 31.
From the moment that Newton emerged for his pimpin’-pimpin’ walkout to the cage, Hughes wasn’t impressed. (“This guy’s off in la-la land, thinkin’ this is some entertainment show…I’m gonna mop this guy up.”) And Hughes did just that for a while, until he found Newton’s legs wrapped around his neck. As was often the case when Hughes found himself in trouble in a fight, he picked up his opponent and carried him like a bale of hay.
Hughes claims that he slammed Newton intentionally — even though it kind of looked like he just passed out on the spot — but he does admit that he was dazed afterwards, half-asleep from the affects of Newton’s triangle choke. But since Newton was completely unconscious, the belt went to the challenger. Hughes would defend the title five times during his first championship reign, including a fourth-round TKO win over Newton in a rematch the following year. Newton never fought for a UFC title again, and is currently trying to sell his afro wig on eBay.
The fact that we saw double KO’s twice already in March — this clean double-dinger and this epic stumble-fest — is a statistical anomaly on par with Wanderlei Silva winning by choke. And bizarrely enough, it almost happened again in a fight between Kerwin Sherrill and Derek Thompson at MCF6 in North Platte, Nebraska, on Saturday. This time, it seemed like the referee’s utter shock is the only thing that prevented him from stopping the fight an immediate no-contest/draw/whatever it is that happens when two guys dummy each other up at the same time.
Thompson went on to win the match, and likely claimed that he was “never really that hurt” in his post-fight interview.
(The F.O.F.A. does it again! Congrats to Elias Cepeda for winning his latest fight against Brian Titus in Chicago on Wednesday, in epic fashion. Look out for the full story in an upcoming installment of The Travel Chronicles. Props: YouTube.com/EliasCepeda.)
Last night’s Bellator middleweight title fight between ever-twirling Russian Alexander Shlemenko and hard-sluggin’ Brazilian Maiquel Falcao didn’t disappoint. After an evenly-pitched first round that featured both men making statements with their striking — and Falcao mixing in a couple takedowns — Shlemenko focused his attacks on the body in round 2, hurting Falcao with a liver punch then dropping him with a short right hand. Shlemenko fired down a few more body shots from above before KO’ing Falcao with a precision head-shot. Shlemenko earns the vacant middleweight title in impressive fashion, and will now take a break until the Season 8 middleweight tournament produces his first challenger.
Also on the Bellator 88 card, the featherweight tournament quarterfinals were highlighted by returning contender Mike Richman, who scored his third knockout under the Bellator banner with a head-kick-and-punches stoppage of Mitch Jackson — pretty much the same thing he did to Jeremy Spoon last October, only this time with Dan Miragliotta doing his lovable late-stoppage thing. You can watch the Richman/Jackson KO after the jump, along with five more stoppages from the event. Full results are below.
Main Card
- Alexander Shlemenko def. Maiquel Falcao via KO, 2:18 of round 2
- Marlon Sandro def. Akop Stepanyan via majority decision (28-28, 29-27, 29-27) – Stepanyan was docked a point in round 2 for fence-grabbing
- Mike Richman def. Mitch Jackson via TKO (head-kick and punches), 4:57 of round 1
- Alexandre Bezerra def. Genair Da Silva via submission (armbar), 1:40 of round 1
Preliminary Card
- Frodo Khasbulaev def. Fabricio Guerreiro via submission (arm triangle), 1:15 of round 2
- George Hickman def. Stephen Upchurch via submission (rear-naked choke), 2:19 of round 1
- Clay Harvison def. Ururahy Rodrigues via KO, 3:34 of round 3
- Ronnie Rogers def. Shane Crenshaw via unanimous decision (29-28 x3)
- Joe Elmore def. Jerrid Burke via KO, 4:11 of round 2
(Pretending to talk on the phone when your opponent is waiting for the face-off: Gangster. Photo via @BellatorMMA)
Bellator 88 goes down tonight at The Arena at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Georgia, headlined by Alexander Shlemenko and Maiquel Falcao meeting for the promotion’s vacant middleweight title. This is a big freaking deal, relatively speaking. Here’s why you should care, and perhaps even tune in to the Spike broadcast at 10 p.m. / 9 p.m. CT.
Currently riding a nine-fight win streak, Shlemenko is 7-1 under the Bellator banner, winning the Season 2 and Season 5 middleweight tournaments. Though he lost his first title challenge in a 2010 decision against Hector Lombard, Shlemenko at least holds the distinction of being the only guy who Lombard wasn’t able to KTFO during his Bellator run. (We’d call that a “half-win.”) Shlemenko’s Season 5 tournament sweep in 2011 should have secured him a rematch with Lombard, but the Cuban slugger buggered off to the UFC, vacating his title.
Enter “Big Rig.” After an odd one-and-done career in the UFC, Maiquel Falcao eventually landed in Bellator, where he scored three consecutive unanimous decision victories last year to win the Season 6 Middleweight Tournament. And so, Bellator’s last two middleweight tournament winners will now face each other. So will Falcao’s power triumph over Shlemenko’s fancy spinnin’-shit? Check out some relevant videos after the jump and let us know what you think…
(Knockout of the Night: Saad Awad’s surgical strike on Guillaum DeLorenzi)
Bellator held their Season 8 lightweight tournament quarterfinals last night at the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, featuring a wild-and-wooly three-rounder between David “Caveman” Rickels and Lloyd Woodard, and a dominant promotional debut by hot 155-pound prospect Will Brooks. Our own Jason Moles was in attendance, and will be bringing us an interview with Bjorn Rebney later today. In the meantime, here are the videos of all six stoppages on the Bellator 87 card (courtesy of Troll Smasher), with complete results at the end of this post. Enjoy.
(Alexander Sarnavskiy’s rear-naked choke of Thiago Michel)
In light of a brutal leg-kick domination at Strikeforce: Marquardt vs. Saffiedine, this old clip from “Countdown to UFC 115″ seems especially relevant. UFC heavyweight Pat Barry‘s professional MMA career began in 2008 with three consecutive KO/TKO’s in the Midwestern regional promotion Combat USA — the first two by leg kicks, the other by head kick, all in the first round. As Barry describes it, “I threw six kicks, three fights…more money than I’ve ever made in my entire life.” Barry was quickly snatched up by the UFC, where he did the same damn thing to Dan Evensen at UFC 92.
Most of us tend to forget that UFC heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos is a BJJ black belt under the Nogueira brothers, probably because we’d like to continue living in a world where we can convince ourselves that a 6’4″, 240 pound killing machine has some discernible weakness other than being a really nice guy when he’s not caving in your face like a Silver Shamrock Halloween mask. That’s right, I just referenced Halloween 3. I’m less a writer, more a prophet.
But unfortunately, the video that awaits you after the jump proves once and for all that JDS is, like me, an absolute master of his trade. In the video, we see a young Junior competing in his second professional MMA fight against Eduardo Maiorino, who sadly passed away from a heart attack just two days ago at the tender age of 33. After opening the fight with a signature flurry of punches, Dos Santos secures a takedown and is able to latch onto a guillotine choke from half guard that seems to be less technique and more Junior using his cyborg strength to vice grip his hapless opponent into submission.
On August 16, 2009, Khabilov faced Akin Duran at an M-1 Challenge event in the Netherlands. The fight lasted all of 28 seconds. Watch as Khabilov takes the center of the ring, corrals Duran into a corner, clinches, then drops Duran directly onto his head with a belly-to-belly suplex, knocking him out immediately. Duran never fought again.
A few months ago, we ran a story about the above fight between Justin Kristie and David Baxter at Warrior Nation XFA 3, in which Kristie choked Baxter unconscious as the first round buzzer rang only to have Baxter be revived by the ringside physicians and allowed to continue, ultimately resulting in an unbelievable second round TKO win for Baxter. And while the events that transpired were oddly humorous on a surface level (you know, in a David Carradine sort of way), there was no denying that a serious injustice had been carried out before our very eyes.
Well Nation, you will be happy to know that the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission recently overturned Baxter’s victory to a no contest. It’s an unfortunate turn of events for Baxter, but in reality, he should just be thankful that he walked away from the whole ordeal without the loss he deserved. Unfortunately, the referee who allowed this fight to continue was not taken behind a barn and beaten senseless with a mahogany cane, which is the real travesty here.
Do you agree with the athletic commissions call, Potato Nation?
Cruickshank bumps his official UFC record to 2-0 as a lightweight, including his previous decision win over Chris Tickle. Any ideas on who he should fight next?
(When Marcus Davis says he’s going to be Sloth for Halloween, Marcus Davis IS Sloth for Halloween.)
Before Nate Diaz decided to put the Funyuns aside and start making a serious run at the 155 lb title, he floated between the welterweight and lightweight divisions for the majority of his UFC career with mixed results. However, his greatest performance at 170 came at UFC 118, where Diaz faced off against Irish-American powerhouse Marcus Davis. Known for his Angel of Death right hand, Davis was fresh off a TKO victory over the UFC’s favorite narcoleptic French Canadian, Jonathan Goulet, at UFC 114, and planned to do the same with Nate. But as Rory Markham and Melvin Guillard should have informed him, one-punch knockout power stands no chance against the iron chin and hailstorm of pitter-patter punches that constitute a Diaz beating.
The fight was classic Diaz — taunting within the first 30 seconds of the fight, getting rocked yet continuing to taunt upon recovery, breaking their opponents will until they finally give up — and received Fight of the Night honors when all was said and done. While we can assume that Nate blew the extra cash on beluga caviar and front row tickets to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Davis undoubtedly spent his hiring Thedus’ finest doctor to remove the baby alien that Diaz had somehow implanted in his right eyeball.
“I thought about that fight too, I’d take it if they offered it to me. I was actually thinking about it today. I was thinking about it today whenever I watched the fights, I watched the whole card today, and I was like it would be crazy if I got to fight Andrei Arlovski…If it happened, I would accept it. Andrei’s a great athlete. I remember when he won the title, I remember when he lost the title, I’ve followed his career. He’s a great fighter, a real athlete, a real fighter too, so it would be an honor to fight him. If it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. That’s just something that popped in my head this morning, what if it did happen? That would be crazy.”
That would indeed be crazy — especially considering that AJ was competing successfully at 170 pounds as recently as October 2011. Then again, their size difference isn’t much of a difference at all. Arlovski was also victorious in his World Series of Fighting appearance, TKO’ing Devin Cole in the first round of the show’s main event. Arlovski has now gone four fights without suffering a scaryconcussion, which is as impressive an accomplishment as anything else that happened this weekend. Check out the Arlovski vs. Cole fight after the jump, and tell us who you think would win the hypothetical moneyweight matchup between Rumble and the Pitbull.
(Marcin Mencel vs. Mateusz Zawadzki at MMA Night of Champions on 10/27/12. Video props: MMANewsPL via MiddleEasy)
Okay, so maybe it’s not as funny as some of these, but I still LOL’d at the part where both guys were being stretchered out of the ring and the DJ decides to blast “We Are the Champions” in the arena. These Poles, they love their irony.
This gif comes to us from Saturday’s Jungle Fight event in Sao Paulo, where Nova Uniao product Ari Santos made short work of opponent Robert Fonseca, finishing him in just 63 seconds. Anytime the Seagal Kick is landed in MMA competition, it’s worth mentioning — but Santos picks up mad style points by dazing Fonseca with a front kick, then lowering the boom with a jaw-crumbling flying knee. Ari Santos, you are officially on our radar!
If you’re interested in seeing a very crappy, TV-shot version of the complete fight, we got you covered after the jump.
In their continuing efforts to convince you that Vitor Belfort has at least a puncher’s chance against Jon Jones at UFC 152, the UFC has just made the Vitor Belfort vs. Tank Abbott fight from UFC 13 available on YouTube. Just 20 years old at the time, Belfort had made his Octagon debut three months prior at UFC 12, winning the four-man heavyweight bracket in a combined fight time of two minutes. Belfort’s subsequent “superfight” against Abbott — still a somewhat legitimate competitor back then — turned out to be another blitzkrieg. In just 52 seconds, it was all over.
But even more so than the overwhelming striking performance from the Phenom, I think my favorite part of this video is 3:30-3:41, where Belfort calls out for his beloved trainer “Stankie,” and we get a glimpse at a younger (but still pretty old) Al Stankiewicz. Then, we see that Stankie’s hands are wrapped as if he was going to fight that night. Classic.
In a related story, betting odds for Jones vs. Belfort have calmed down somewhat, and the champ is being offered as low as -740. You can also turn $100 into $12,000 if you bet that the fight will be a draw, and the fight actually turns out to be a draw. I’m just saying. What were going to do with that $100 anyway, you know?
Toughest chin: That has to be Masakatsu Funaki and my last opponent Ruben Villareal. Funaki I hit and kneed so hard that my palms and knee were bruised, until the final knee where I grabbed Funaki’s hair and drilled the knee in his face, but boy, every time he got back up, it was crazy. Villareal, although I had a rib out and couldn’t hit a bag the last two weeks [of training], I still hit him hard, and right on his chin every time. First he said to me, “Damn, you’re fast.” I said “Thank you,” then I hit him again and he said, “And you hit hard.” I told him, “Apparently not hard enough!” It was funny.
Heaviest hands: I was very fortunate never to have anybody connecting full. I have pretty good defense. So I honestly can’t tell you; I’ve never been hit hard. Though I guess in training I have. Pedro Rizzo has very heavy hands.
Rule #63 of MMA showboating: Don’t extend your arms in a Diaz-salute during a fight unless you’re absolutely, positively sure that your opponent lacks the power to knock you out; otherwise you could potentially look like a fool when your opponent leaves you sleeping. (Rule #63b: This rule counts double if you have a stupid fucking haircut.)
The wonderful knockout above comes to us from Sunday’s Tuff N Uff show in Las Vegas, where Shai Lindsey tried to be a cage-gangster, but instead fell prey to a very slick switch-front-kick right to the chin from Carlo Junio. Since this knockout happened at the very end of round 2, an inept referee might have woken Lindsey up and given him a chance to get his revenge in round 3. Luckily, the ref on that night was consummate professional Mike “Am I Hallucinating That Mustache?” Beltran, who handles his business properly.
As Reddit/MMA reminds us, today is the seventh anniversary of Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic‘s meeting at PRIDE Final Conflict 2005, an instant classic that still ranks among the greatest heavyweight fights in MMA history. Emelianenko had already held the PRIDE heavyweight title for two-and-a-half years by the time he made his belt defense against Cro Cop, and entered the match with a PRIDE record of 10-0 with one no-contest. Meanwhile, Cro Cop had earned his shot at Fedor on the strength of a seven-fight PRIDE win streak that included victories over Alexander Emelianenko, Josh Barnett, Kevin Randleman, and Mark Coleman.
Though both fighters would later complain that they came into the fight less than 100% healthy, Emelianenko and Filipovic put on a thrilling war for the entirety of the three-round, 20-minute fight. Cro Cop started strong, breaking Fedor’s nose with punches and punishing him with kicks to the body, but Fedor regained momentum as Cro Cop’s cardio began to fade, slugging his way to a unanimous decision victory. It was Emelianenko’s toughest fight to that point, and arguably his most entertaining. As for Filipovic, he may have fallen short of the PRIDE heavyweight title that night, but his greatest career triumph was just around the corner.
After the jump: If you have the time to spare, the complete fight is below…
(Props: YouTube.com/JonJones. Fight starts at the 13:50 mark, but it’s worth it to watch the entrances, just to see Jackson and Jones walk out to those obviously patched-in nü-metal tracks, I guess because the UFC couldn’t secure replay rights on YouTube for the songs they actually walked out to. It’s hilariously jarring. Couldn’t they find generic rap tracks to include for situations like this?)
After winning the UFC light-heavyweight championship in March 2011 with his demolition of Mauricio Rua, 24-year-old Jon Jones attempted his first title defense in September at UFC 135 in Denver, against former champion Quinton Jackson. And for the second title fight in a row, Jones gave nothing and took everything. Over four rounds, Bones picked his shots and wore Rampage down, confounding Jackson with his unorthodox kicks and elbows, and clowning ‘Page whenever the inspiration struck. (Skip to 31:08 for an all-time classic.)
After winning the first three rounds handily, Jones closed the curtains in the fourth frame, taking Jackson down with ease then finishing him with a rear-naked choke. It was the first time Jackson was ever stopped in the UFC. To put it lightly, aging legends have never really performed well against Jon Jones, and Dan Henderson might not fare any better at UFC 151 — that is, if Hendo actually makes it to the fight. There are some nasty rumors swirling around right now…we’ll update you if they turn out to be legit.
Ronaldo Souza‘s recent fights have proven that his standup skills are catching up with his tremendous ability on the mat — and his striking improvement reached an important milestone on Saturday night, when he scored the first lights-out K.O. of his nine-year fight career.
“Jacare” faced 9-1 Jackson’s MMA product Derek Brunson on the main card of Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman, and in Liddell-esque fashion, Souza found his opponent’s chin with a back-pedaling counter-right that dumped Brunson on his face. A few more follow-up shots, and it was all over. Even more impressive than Souza’s finishing power was the fact that he stopped throwing as soon as he saw that Brunson was unconscious — even if referee Mike “Stache God” Beltran clearly wanted the fight to keep going.
But Souza vs. Brunson wasn’t the only great knockout from this weekend’s Strikeforce card. After the jump: Ovince St. Preux’s one-punch shutoff of T.J. Cook.
Yes, there is a woman in the world who could love this man. Her name is Rose Namajunas, and she’s a straw-weight MMA fighter who upped her record to 4-0 on June 30th with a 33-second domination of Jen Aniano Rose at a King of the Cage event in Wisconsin. Check out the beatdown above, and get to know Rose a little better in the videos after the jump…
In seven seconds, Ryan Jimmo went from being “one of the most boring fighters in the world” to the greatest celebration-dancer since Jamie Varner. Also, he tied the UFC’s official record for fastest knockout thanks to his one-punch demolition of Anthony Perosh at UFC 149. As Dana White explained at the post-fight press conference, “It probably would have been the fastest knockout in UFC history, but the ref was far away from the action, and it took him so long to get there…[The fight is] actually stopped when the ref touches and stops the fight. So if the ref was in position…[Jimmo] probably would have gotten the fastest knockout.” Meanwhile, Duane Ludwig’s unofficial knockout record continues to be absolutely meaningless.
Jimmo’s dramatic UFC debut actually made it onto SportsCenter’s Top 10 Playsthat night, where it was likely beaten out by at least one guy catching a fucking baseball. Sadly, the clip above doesn’t include the complete robot-dance that Jimmo did immediately following the knockout. You can see a gif of it after the jump, courtesy of caposa.
Thanks to Manny Yarborough GOAT for digging up this classic fight from King of the Cage 4 back in June 2000, in which a young Duane Ludwig beats the absolute dogshit out of MMA pioneer Shad Smith, who entered the cage wearing the same pair of sneakers and white socks that he showed up to the arena in. No, this would not be Shad’s night. Ludwig’s Muay Thai was nasty even back then, and the referee was as shitty as most local refs were in those days — two factors that combined to produce an uncomfortably violent late-stoppage. Skip to the 2:25 mark for the beginning of the end.
After the jump: Shad’s 2004 King of the Cage bout against Krazy Horse Bennett, which is worth watching just for their pre-fight promo packages. A credit to humanity, both of these guys.
(From Tuff-N-Uff’s “Festibrawl 2″ event last Friday. Props: TuffNUffTV via Tru)
In retrospect, Ashlee Evans-Smith should have touched gloves; it might have given her an extra second of consciousness before Veronica Rothenhausler demolished her with that straight right. And how about those follow-up shots? God damn, this girl came to murder.
The fight was officially called at 0:05 of round one — which makes it two fights in a row that Rothenhausler has won by five-second knockout. Seriously. We can’t find video of her previous mauling of Noelle Cherry, so if you have it, please send it in. The latest victory increases Rothenhausler’s record to 3-0, with all wins by first-round KO/TKO. Time to give her a shot, Strikeforce.
Last month at New England Fights: Fight Night III in Lewiston, Maine, Young’s MMA product Bruce Boyington added his name to the regional MMA knockout hall of fame with a spinning wheel-kick that snored up Keegan Hornstra in just 10 seconds. After his devastating victory, Boyington gets up in the camera’s face and shouts “You seen that befoah? You seen that befoah?” Well, yeah, we have — but that doesn’t make it any less impressive, Bruce.
Speaking of which:Edson Barboza‘s wheel-kick knockout of Terry Etim has now made the Final Four of ESPN’s 2012 ESPY Awards voting for “Best Play of the Year,” where it’s up against some college bullshit that I’ve never even heard of. Vote here and help Barboza get the recognition he deserves.
Following up our presentation of Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen 1, here’s the other UFC fight where Anderson Silva looked less-than-invincible, at least momentarily. This was Silva’s third middleweight title defense, back at UFC 82 in March 2008, and Dan Henderson dominated the opening round, taking Silva down about two minutes into the fight and grinding down on him with punches for the rest of the frame. Henderson also puts a good deal of effort into covering Silva’s mouth and nose with his hand, a cheap breathing-obstruction trick that occasionally bleeds into gouging/fish-hooking territory. (Side note: Skip to the 14:07 mark, and you’ll see the rough draft of the front kick that Silva used to dummy up Vitor Belfort.)
Silva got even in the second round, brawling a bit with Hendo before letting his precision striking take over. At the 21:16 mark, Silva nails Henderson with a knee, kick, and punches that the challenger is never able to recover from. Silva gets on top of Henderson and works his jiu-jitsu until he sinks a particularly nasty rear-naked choke. After the fight, Silva takes a moment to explain that Henderson was good, but he’s no Rich Franklin. A real…class act? Anyway, the Ohio fans loved it.
After the jump: Silva’s UFC 134 title defense against Yushin Okami, which also ended violently in the second round.
If you work in an office, you probably spend the first half-hour of your day drinking coffee, reading blogs, and lamenting the bad decisions you’ve made in your life that led you to this point. So make this morning a special one by watching the entire five-round battle between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen at UFC 117, which went down back in August 2010 in Oakland.
Sonnen may have a tendency to “talkee too muchee,” as the Brazilians might say, but you have to give him credit — he came to fight that night. Sonnen showed no signs that he was psyched out by the aura of the Spider, and aggressively pursued the champ for all five rounds. When it was all over, Sonnen had out-struck Silva by a stunning 320-64. Unfortunately, the judges were not well-versed in the Stockton scoring system, and awarded the fight to the guy who didn’t get choked out at the end. Still, it was a hell of a fight — can the sequel possibly live up to the original?
After the jump: A fan-made ‘Silva vs. Sonnen 2‘ hype video from Bruthamuzone, which is pretty killer despite the use of Limp Bizkit.
Despite his legacy-damaging losing skid in 2010-2011 under the Strikeforce banner, the Last Emperor still managed to go out on top. Judging from his dominant performance against Rizzo — in which Fedor showed flashes of the speed and power that established him as a legend in the first place — he could have gone another five years beating up faded legends and local cans. Instead, he walks away with his health and his dignity intact, and riding a three-fight win streak since November.
Raise a glass of vodka to one of the greatest of all time, and enjoy ten classic video moments from Fedor’s career after the jump…
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