UFC 72 – Results
The first bout was Ed “Short Fuse” Herman vs Scott “Hands of Steel” Smith. Ed Herman was full of trash talk before this fight saying that he was going to knock out Smith. Smith has some of the best hands in all of MMA and it was no surprise that Herman went immediately for a take down as he does have the superior ground game while Smith has an advantage standing up. Ed Herman did look in very good shape for this fight. Herman ended up mounting Smith and threw elbows and cut Smith on the nose and blood flowed freely into Smith’s eyes as gravity ran its course. Smith never got the chance to showcase his striking power. Herman ended up taking Smith’s back and submitting him with a rear naked choke. This was likely due to the fact that Smith was distracted by the blood in his eyes impairing his vision. Smith did have Herman in a tight guillotine that went into full guard but Herman was able to escape.
The lightweight battle was between Clay Guida and Tyson Griffin. Once again, the lightweights demonstrated amazing conditioning and excitement in the fight. There were numerous submission attempts and take downs. There was not a great deal of standup but the transitioning and striking from the ground was equally entertaining. Although the fight was very close, it was Guida who looked more fresh in the third round and was more in control overall. Griffin did a great job of defending and being offensive even in defensive positions, but Guida looked like he wrapped things up in the third round by being on top for the majority of the round. Surprisingly, the judges awarded the fight to Griffin. The crowd was very displeased with the announcement and booed Griffin. In the post fight interview, Griffin did mention that the fight could have gone either way. Ultimately, the decision wasn’t the most important thing about the fight, but rather it was the conditioning of the competitors and entertaining nature of the fight itself. Either of these guys are worthy of PPV status.
Jason MacDonald fought his third TUF fighter (after beating 2 others: Ed Herman and Chris Leben), Rory Singer. These fighters were very evenly matched in the 185 lb division. Jason last lost to Rich Franklin but was looking to get back on track. After the first round, MacDonald looked a lot like he did in the Franklin fight. Singer was in control overall and had a few submission attempts as well as doing well in hte standup. In the second round, MacDonald did well to listen to his corner who instructed him to make sure he mounted Singer do some striking. In the end, the fight was stopped due to ground and pound by MacDonald. This makes three victories over TUF competitors for MacDonald.
The Forrest Griffin vs Hector Ramirez fight displayed a very different Forrest Griffin. Forrest spent the rounds picking his shots instead of engaging in flurries. Ramirez had no answer and was looking more for a brawl which never happened. Eventually, Griffin picked apart Ramirez which led to referee stoppage. Forrest must be very relieved that he is back in the running again. Ramirez seemed a bit gassed as the fight went on.
The Main Event featured Rich Franklin vs Yushin Okami. There was a great deal of talk about Okami’s strength before this fight. This fight went the 3 round duration. Franklin did appear to overpower Okami on several occasions. Okami did not mount any offense of any significance until the third round where he almost submitted Franklin a few times. Franklin ended up winning a unanimous decision at 29-28. Franklin did look fairly impressive and appears ready to fight to regain his middleweight title against the winner of Anderson Silva vs Nathan Marquart.
Overall, it was a pretty good PPV despite there being no title matches. The UFC has already announced the cards for the next two PPV events which look very good.