UFC 66 Results
Sunday, December 31st, 2006
The most notable thing about UFC 66 as a PPV was the fact that the fights were so short. Most fights were over in the first round. It was really only the Ortiz vs Liddell fight that went a bit further although that fight almost ended in the first round. I have to admit, I was somewhat impressed by Chuck Liddell. Chuck is heralded as one of the best punchers of all time and while this is definitely a distinct strength in Chuck’s game, it isn’t really what keeps him champion. It is Chuck’s reach advantage combined with his odd stance angles but most notably it is his ability to sprawl, rejecting take downs. While Ortiz may have lost the fight, he did end up proving himself. Ortiz stood toe to toe with Liddell and took many of Chuck’s haymakers and stayed on his feet for almost 3 full rounds. Chuck’s glove did clip Ortiz eyebrow in the first round causing a cut, otherwise, Ortiz stood and took the barrage of punches. Ortiz had stated that he planned to fight “an Ortiz fight” but this is not what happened. The difficulty is that in order to fight his own fight, Ortiz needed to take down Liddell which involves getting closer to Liddell causing vulnerability to Chuck’s heavy hands. This is simply not a good combination. After watching the fight, I don’t know if I’ve seen anyone fight that can contend for Liddell’s belt. Ortiz was as healthy as he could be for this bout and still came up short in the sense that he did not win back the belt. I still felt a sense of pride on behalf of Ortiz. He was gracious in his defeat and at 31 years old (6 years younger than Liddell), he will be around for a while longer.
Also on the card was Chris Leben from the Ultimate Fighter Season 1 fame vs Jason “The Athlete” MacDonald hailing from Edmonton, Alberta. Jason MacDonald took advantage of an odd angled choke causing Leben to attempt to tap before passing out.
Crowd favorite Forrest Griffin suffered a devastating defeat in the first round. Forrest was basically knocked out on his feet in the first round. Griffin collapsed in emotional agony after realizing his loss. Forrest, who is described as one of the hardest working guys in the UFC, will most certainly be back.
A reminder to anyone who views UFC fighters as one dimensional brawlers was given a clear reminder of the efforts given to this sport by these dedicated competitors. Losing is tough in any sport but with the UFC everyone has a punchers chance at winning and training hard can definitely get you physically prepared for a fight but once you are in the octagon, anything can happen and the result can be devastatingly disproportionate compared to the hard work, sacrifices and injuries. There is no other sport that offers such instant elation in the course of a fight and such vulnerability to sudden devastation. This is one of the reasons why the UFC is one of the most exciting sports around.
This Saturday’s UFC 66 card features one of the most anticipated fights in years – Tito Ortiz v.s Chuck Liddell 2. In the original fight Liddell won after gouging Ortiz’ eye so his vision was impaired. This match up will hopefully be different. Eye gouging in the UFC in my opinion should be treated exactly the same way as low blows. The fighter should be given as much time as needed to recover.
OK so how is this for stupid? I went down the hall to do my laundry tonight and noticed that the laundry room door is now locked. In my 16 unit building apparently we now need to use our main entrance keys to grant ourselves entrance. The reason for this? This is total hearsay but I heard from one of the residents that both dryers were taken out and had all of the change removed. They are now missing and need to be replaced. Idiots. It is suspected that it was done by new tenants, but that would be even more stupid. Never underestimate the stupidity level of the LCD (lowest common denominator).
For anyone who doesn’t know about this show, here is a synopsis taken from tv.com: “Based on Jeff Lindsay’s novel “Darkly Dreaming Dexter,” this new crime thriller tells the story of a strange man named Dexter Morgan. Once an abused and abandoned child, Dexter is now a successful forensics pathologist…but lurking just beneath his charismatic personality is a terrible truth. Dexter has corralled his innate homicidal urges into a closely guarded second career: He hunts down and brutally murders those vicious criminals who have managed to avoid the clutches of the law.” It me a while to get past the obvious parallels with Six Feet Under where Michael C. Hall’s character was making out with Keith (a muscular African American police officer) most of the time and now his character in Dexter encounters a different muscular African American police officer in Dexter on a daily basis within the same station. Sometimes I will have flashbacks and the shows will blend into each other and I will expect Dexter to go over to the Stokes (African American on Dexter) and start groping him. Despite that, it is a very good show. 24 is by far the best show on TV but I would definitely say that Dexter is success. I would like to see more of the dark side of the character a bit more often but I suppose his sense of procrastination and calmness will be challenged in the finale I will watch tonight. Check out if the description sounds like your kind of show.
The weather in South Eastern Ontario is ridiculous. A lot of people think Canadians live in igloos and such. I can tell you that in the summers, the humidity is so bad we need to set up stations around the city to help people cool down so they don’t pass out. The winters have lacked any type of normalcy in terms of snow for about 10 years. If I don’t have snow, I just can’t get into the spirit of Christmas. When we had snow I could ignore all of the commercialization of Christmas but without any snow, it seems to come to the forefront. Today it was 13 degrees celsius. That is September weather! This is just more proof that there is something seriously wrong with our ecosystem. Despite all of this, I did manage to make sugar cookies one night so I will count that as my cheer effort for the holidays.