UFC 78 Review

UFC 78 came and went without a bang. The event was titled "Validation" but it could have been called "UFC 78:Boring" instead. The event, held at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey, could not be called disappointing as not many expected this card to be any good to begin with. There was no real main event and no real stars last Saturday night in the cage. Most of the top fighters such as Rampage Jackson, B.J. Penn, and Matt Serra were instead outside the cage at ringside watching the fights.

The best match of the night didn't even make it on the pay-per-view. Chris Lytle and Thiago Alves battered each other for two rounds before it ended in a doctor's stoppage. Viewers who bought the show never got to see that or the Akihiro Gono vs Tamden McCrory fight. Gono won the "Submission of the night" award from the UFC but they decided to make fans pay to watch it on their website instead of showing it on TV.

We were stuck with lackluster fights such as Frankie Edgar vs Spencer Fisher and Ed Herman vs Joe Doerksen. Many fans said that the best fight shown was the Herman-Doerksen battle. The fight was interesting but no one went home and called up their friends to say "Hey, you missed the great Ed Herman fight!"

The main event was a battle between former TUF champions, Michael Bisping and Rashad Evans. Neither of them could deliver a knockout blow and it ended in a split decision win for Evans. Joe Rogan, the UFC announcer, tried to hype up the fight and called it "a very exciting fight." The fight was almost as exciting as watching paint dry. There was nothing exciting about the three-round fight at all. Mike Goldberg and Rogan were saying throughout the fight that Evans was fatigued and tired, but he was more active on his feet and throwing more punches than his opponent.

UFC president, Dana White, insisted to the media that the main event was a big deal and a great match during the weeks before the event. The more he kept on hyping it up, the less interested the fans were of the main event as well as the entire card. This was the weakest show the UFC has had in recent memory and if they continue to have lackluster cards, the fans will stop buying the pay-per-views and stop watching.