There really isn’t much you can say about this card, other than “Ohhhh my!!!”
I went into this card with not really knowing what to expect. There were a lot of good potential fights, but not really one that I thought would be an outright show-stopper. A lot of the headlining fighters were of an older generation (i.e. Hendo, Silva, Le) and I wasn’t really sure they had they ability to compete at the top level of the game. I was wrong.
Watching Faber beat Bowles with relative ease was fun to watch.
Watching Wanderlei Silva rebound from near defeat to TKO Le in vintage “Axe Murderer-style” was fantastic.
However, watching the battle between Henderson and Shogun that can only be described as epic!
This fight was the definition of what makes MMA so much fun observe. Watching Henderson turn Shogun’s face into ground hamburger meat for the first three rounds, only to see Shogun come back in the last two rounds to almost beat Henderson was the stuff of legend. Yes, Henderson came out on top – but, no one really lost the fight at the end of the day. I can’t write out here in words why this fight was so amazing aside from what I’ve said above, I can only recommend you try to find it and watch it yourself. Without sounding to dramatic the best way I can articulate it is to say: that this was a ballet of the indomitable human will (from both fighters).
Despite what he says, Henderson v. Shogun was fight that Dana White wanted last week on FOX. This was the five round war, that had shades of Griffin v. Bonnar, that he wanted as the UFC’s handshake to the mass audience. What better way to educate people on the sport of MMA than to show them jaw dropping stand up and ground action that never stopped? I would really have loved to hear Dana White say after a fight such as this on mainstream TV that he was disappointed with the outcome. It’s not to say Dost Santos v. Velazsquez was a bad fight, this one was just that much better.
Just for the record, below are the results from last night event:
- Danny Castillo (W) Shamar Bailey (L) TKO (Punches) Rd1
- Seth Baczynski (W) Matt Brown (L) Submission Rd2
- Miguel Torres (W) Nick Pace (L) Decision Rd3
- Gleison Tibau (W) Rafael dos Anjos (L) Decision (Split) Rd3
- Chris Weidman (W) Tom Lawlor (L) Submission Rd1
- Michael McDonald (W) Alex Soto (L) KO Rd1
- Ryan Bader (W) Jason Brilz (L) KO Rd1
- Stephan Bonnar (W) Kyle Kingsbury (L) Decision (Unanimous) Rd3
- Martin Kampmann (W) Rick Story (L) Decision (Split) Rd3
- Urijah Faber (W) Brian Bowles (L) Submission Rd2
- Wanderlei Silva (W) Cung Le (L) TKO (Knees & Punches) Rd2
- Dan Henderson (W) Mauricio Rua (L) Decision (Unanimous) Rd5
… and that is the last word.
