UFC 88:"Breakthrough" Review

UFC 88 did not disappoint  as the main event between Rashad "Sugar" Evans and Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell  ended in a knockout by Evans.

Evans shocked the world by knocking out "The Iceman" in the second round.

Liddell was going for an uppercut when Evans connected with an overhand right which knocked Liddell out cold.

Most fans expected Liddell to win because he was the better striker of the two.

Liddell pressured Evans throughout the whole fight while Evans patiently waited for an opening.

Evans was dancing the whole night. He danced before the fight, during the fight, and after the fight.

Some people are turned off by Evans' dancing and consider it to be nothing more than showboating.

Fighters such as Matt Hughes have been turned off by Evans' so-called showmanship.

Unfortunately for the Evans' bashers,  Evans danced all night long on Saturday.

Evans was a big underdog but if you looked at the match-up more closely, Evans had a very good chance to win.

The undefeated fighter from Niagara Falls was a lot faster and more athletic than the older Liddell.

Liddell was never able to catch Evans with a lot of good  punches due to the speed and great footwork of Evans.

Round one was very slow-paced as both fighters were feeling each other out.

The second round was much like the first round until Evans connected  and ended the fight.

Evans should get a title shot against UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin.

As for Liddell, he will have to probably win two or three fights in order to get another title shot.

The media asked him if he was going to retire and he said no.

Why does the media always ask fighters if they are going to retire after a tough loss? It is ridiculous.

Liddell shouldn't retire but he does need to keep his hands up instead of dropping them so low that a fighter such as Evans can easily connect.  

Maybe Liddell needs new trainers and sparring partners as well to keep his training fresh and get new ideas from other trainers and coaches.

If Randy Couture loses to Brock Lesnar in November, you can bet the media will ask  the 45-year-old Couture if he plans to retire.

In other fights, Dong Hyun Kim defeated Matt Brown by split decision. 

Kim clearly defeated Brown and dominated the first and third rounds of the fight.

The biased UFC commentators, Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan, kept on insisting that Brown won the fight even though anyone with a unbiased opinion knew that Kim had won the fight.

Kim had a few takedowns in round three and also cut Brown. 

In round one, Kim almost finished the fight with a standing rear naked choke.

The crowd in Atlanta was very racist and booed Kim throughout the fight. 

The disrespectful fans and UFC commentators  were all over Kim after the judges awarded the decision to him.

The South Korean was very gracious after the fight and displayed nothing but class despite all the hostility thrown his way.

In another exciting fight, Nate Marquardt defeated Martin Kampmann by TKO in the first round.

Dan Henderson defeated Rousimar Palhares in a dull match. Palhares kept on going for takedowns which Henderson defended throughout the three-round fight.  Henderson won by unanimous decision.

In the co-main event of the evening, Rich Franklin moved up a weight class to fight Matt "The Hammer" Hamill.  Franklin won with kick to the liver which dropped Hamill. Franklin started to rain down punches on Hamill and the referee stopped the fight.

Overall, this was a good UFC pay-per-view. There were five fights on the main card and three ended  by TKO. 

The next UFC show will be on Spike TV on September 17.

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.