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UFC 75
By Zach Arnold | September 8, 2007
I will add results links as they are created.
Results (coming soon): Yahoo Sports | MMA on Tap | Sherdog | Sprawl ‘n Brawl | Javno | Lancanshire Telegraph | Fox Sports
All predictions, spoilers, news and notes go here.
A funny spoiler (view it in full page mode)…
Kevin Iole – Silva, Drwal put crowd to sleep (now changed to Silva, Drwal KO crowd)
Sherdog – Drwal/Silva – The second round is an absolute war
Iole – Has Mirko Cro Cop become Mirko Washed Up?
Topics: Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 145 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Excellent fight, hooray for Rampage!
Also: ‘Scramble your ass’ is my new favourite piece of corner advice.
All of Juanito’s fighters won tonight (albeit one needed a wacky home-town decision to pull it off). That was a fun card all around.
My only real beef is them playing Liaudin-Torres over Drwal-Silva. Foolishness.
The first two fights were good.
“Move to 155 pays off for Tibau
Gleison Tibau dropped from the welterweight division to lightweight and the strength difference was apparent as he manhandled Terry Etim at UFC 75 en route to gaining a unanimous decision.”
Is Iole aware Tibau has fought at 155 twice in the UFC, or is his writing just that misleading?
No, he’s just wrong. I chuckled when I saw his live posts were under the headline of “MMA Experts Blog.” Iole an MMA expert? Please.
“My only real beef is them playing Liaudin-Torres over Drwal-Silva. Foolishness.”
dude, the Silva Drwal fight was fucking TERRIBLE
Jess’s fight was way better.
How can you say the Drwal-Silva fight was terrible. It most certainly not the worst fight on the card by any means.
I haven’t seen it on TV yet, but giving that fight to Bisping was one of worst examples of judging I’ve ever seen. Everyone I spoke to in attendance had it 30-27 Hamill.
You haven’t seen it on TV yet…
So I’m assuming you haven’t seen it? As I’m guessing you weren’t there.
It was AWFUL. The first round showed promised but both men were absolutely 100% gassed as FUCK by midway thru the 2nd.
HOME TOWN DECISION!!!!!
On second thought, I MIGHT (and that is a strong MIGHT) be able to see where the decision to Bisping went. It was hard to see what strikes actually hit and missed. And a lot of those could of made the decision on who won the fight.
Scandalous!
Peebles was the swingman.
We all saw this, and it’s bullshit.
Dave Meltzer had the first round for Hamill, Third Round for Bisping and said he needed to watch the 2nd round again, but had it slightly for Bisping.
Neither had a good performance. Hamill was gassed. And Bisping needs to drop down to 185 lbs (where he would actually be good).
“For those who care, Oregon is clobbering Michigan 32-7 at halftime.”
Yeah yeah. Eat it Arnold.
After 3 Rounds:
ROUND 1 – Henderson
ROUND 2 – Quinton
ROUND 3 – Quinton (Both had time on the ground, but Quinton won it on the superior striking at the beginning of the round)
Overall, a fantastic night of fights.
Rampage vs Henderson was FANTASTIC.
Very very happy with that fight. You had a really nice mix of standup and ground work and watching it on television, you could really appreciate how much the guys were really working for position.
This is a rematch that I’ll be happy to see.
Something all title fights should aspire to. Definitely not Couture-Rizzo 1, maybe not Penn-Pulver 1, but much better than the 7 minute driveby that many UFC title fights have been as of late.
UFC 75 Thoughts
Houston Alexander vs. Alessio Sakara – Houston proves he is no joke. It is like Sokoudjou all over again, just at a lesser scale. I doubt the guy has stamina. Any way to get him to fight Drew McFedries?
Mirko Filipovic vs. Cheick Kongo – How the mighty have fallen. I guess that is what happens when a fighter gets pumped up fighting mostly scrubs, and then wins an Open-Weight tournament by only being one Heavyweight, a Heavyweight who was basically exhausted from his previous fight. Mirko weighed in at 220 lbs. Welcome to the Light Heavyweight Division. Mirko loves to attack, but once somebody starts to fight back, he can’t handle it. he has no jab. Just a one trick pony with that leg kick.
Michael Bisping vs. Matt Hamill – Sherdog.com had it 29-28 for Bisping. Meltzer’s website admitted the fight was really close. i had it 29-28 for Hamill. It might have been a hometown decision, but not a horrible one. I would have to be near ringside to see what punches really landed. It was hard to tell on TV.
Marcus Davis vs. Paul Taylor – Best fight shown. What a one round war. I really enjoyed this. Not much to say beyond that.
Quinton Jackson vs. Dan Henderson – A few rounds were close. It could see 3 or 4 rounds for Rampage. It wasn’t overly exciting, but both worked their butts off. Henderson really needs to drop down to Middleweight. The UFC needs an instant contender, and he has a hard time with the bigger grapplers at Light Heavyweight (Arona, Rampage, Nogueira).
Agreed. 25 minutes of un-commerical interrupted bliss.
Actually, maybe this is one for the conspiracy theorists, but I think that Cro Cop is still on the juice. I don’t think it’s for nothing that he’s been fighting in England…
Wacky theories aside, Cro Cop is very disappointing. He basically did nothing standing the entire fight, and only took it to the ground when Congo fell down. I think he should have tried to keep it on the ground the entire fight, even though most MMA fans seem to think he’s invincible on his feet. It’s not for nothing he never won a K-1 title, and he lost his MMA fight against Mark Hunt. Not to mention losing on his feet to Fedor. Maybe Cro Cop just gassed, or wasn’t strong enough to take Congo down. Either way, he’s done in the UFC. Maybe Zuffa can match up CC against Arlovski to see if one of them can salvage their careers. How the heck CC can lose to a B-level fighter in Congo is still beyond me.
Bisping needs to drop to 185. Hammill was robbed. And I’m a Bisping fan. I also don’t ever need to see Hammill fight again.
Also, am I the only one that thought Henderson won the fight? Arguable, I know, but I don’t know where two of the judges got 49-46. I thought Hendo won at least 2 rounds.
Good fight, good win by Rampage.
I get a feeling there may be a huge, long-running controversy over the Bisping/Hamill decision. Most decisions that get argued usually have nearly 50/50 split on who should have won the fight. For this fight, so far, it looks like over 90% think Hamill won. I had it 29-28 Hamill, myself, and even if you think that it was a fair decision based on the scoring system, that just shows that the scoring system is badly broken.
Wow, the poll for Hamill/Bisping on the UG has 31 votes for hamill winning, 1 for Bisping and 1 for a draw. I can’t believe the odds of having 2 out of 3 judges that saw the fight Bisping’s way.
It all comes down to what punches landed. Nobody at home could tell as much as those judges. There were a lot of close strikes. It was impossible to see.
The UFC, specifically Marc Ratner, is responsible for bringing in the judges, officials, inspectors, etc. and essentially acting as the athletic commission when they run shows in unregulated places like the United Kingdom.
Two people that watched the event with me are now pretty sour on the whole sport in general, saying that it’s corrupt and full of crap. I had to try to convince them that it was just incompetence and gutlessness on the part of the judges, and not corruption.
Again, when making the argument to my pissed off friends that the judges were simply incompetent and gutless as opposed to corrupt, I basically had to say never mind the fact that the judges on these unregulated UFC shows are hired by the UFC, paid for by the UFC, chosen by the UFC, flown in by the UFC, etc. In the case of that particular fight, I think it was just a case of the judges being gutless in not wanting to have the fight scored 2 rounds to 0 headed into the final round, which is unfortunately not that uncommon to see, and then giving the final round to Bisping, which at that point would give him 2 rounds to 1.
Bisping should hang his head in shame!
Ten point must system strikes again!
Anyone who thinks the UFC’s drug testing will get rid of drug users obviously hasn’t followed international sport for the last 47 years. Its laughable to point the finger at former Pride fighters and not understand this.
[…] blogs are better than half the shit being written on the front pages of MMA sites across the net. Here’s what he has to say about the bullshit judging for Bisping/Hamill, and it perfectly explains the anatomy of a bad […]
Regarding drug testing on these unregulated UFC shows, here’s the deal for anyone who may be wondering what people are talking about when they bring that up.
Zuffa claimed in public interviews prior to UFC 70 in England (and UFC 69 in Texas, for that matter) that there would be drug testing, and in fact there was no drug testing at either event. When this fact became publicized in the mainstream media, they vowed to do drug testing at UFC 72 in Northern Ireland. At that event, there were allegedly four fighters who were drug-tested (and 12 who were not), but even the identity of the four drug-tested fighters was not ever released, nor were the results ever released in any context other than Dana White saying, “Trust me, everyone passed.”
If you’ve been following the industry from which the UFC draws most of its inspiration, you know from the past few weeks that “Trust me, everyone passed” is not a valid way of doing business. If they’re really going to do testing like an athletic commission would do testing, they need to be legitimate in the quantity of fighters tested (ie, not four out of sixteen), and the public disclosure of, “Here’s who was tested and here are the results,” just as any legitimate athletic commission testing program would do.
Here’s a Yahoo Sports article in which the UFC claims that they will be doing the drug testing themselves for UFC 75, although they said the same thing before UFC 70 and UFC 69 as well.
Bispig is a cash cow in UK. There is no coincidence that he was handed that decision.
As long as they send it to the Nevada not the Californian lab, I’m sure everyone will pass.
Steve— I don’t think there’s any funny business going on with the labs in California or Nevada. I think the reason that there are more positive tests in California is: A) Nevada allows a higher level of marijuana in a fighter’s system than California before it’s considered a “failure,” and more importantly: B) California tests a lot more fighters.
If you test more fighters, you’re going to catch more people who are cheating or taking other banned substances. That’s not a bad thing, that’s a good thing. If there are, say, six people who are cheating on any given card and the drug testing manages to catch three of them, that’s an amazingly high percentage given the fact that the testing timeframe is not random. Fighters know the date on which they may be tested weeks or months ahead of time (it’s the date of the fight), which is different than every other major sport. If you know ahead of time when you’re going to be tested, anyone who knows anything about drug testing will tell you that it’s more of an IQ test than a drug test.
I know, apparently they use the same labs, but its still funny.
It’s a little strange to see that approximately 99% of the judging backlash is going against Cecil Peoples and maybe 1% against Jeff Mullen. Cecil Peoples wasn’t the only judge making that call. Jeff Mullen got it wrong just as much as Peoples did, and they should both be blamed for it, not just one or the other.
I do agree that Peoples is not a very good judge in general, but I do think he’s a good referee, and his judging in general is not quite as bad as The Three Stooges of Judging (Dalby Shirley, Abe Belardo, and Glenn Trowbridge).
I am very curious to see if Houston Alexander can take that freakish physic of his past round 1.
Mirko is finished. He doesnt have the desire anymore. Just look back at previous interviews where he mentioned about fulfiling his contract and then thats it. I think he wants out of game.
Big up to Jess Liaudin. Been to a couple of Pancrase London classes and his been training us. His a real kool guy. Looked very impressive last night!!
My observations…..
I love how they had no highlights at ALL for Bisping in that fight, I don’t think he landed one clean punch the whole fight. I’m all surprised that they made no mention that the decision was iffy, and Bisping has no class at all for even attempting to say that he won that fight.
Houston Alexander has brought passion back to the UFC!!!! That quote alone has made him one of my favorite fighters.
Mirko is done, the guy is a bum and i think he fought like one. He needs to get his passion back, maybe he should train with Houston.
The Irish Hand Grenade is garbage and that fight should have been stopped earlier.
Rampage really impressed me with his ground game against Hendo. Its a part of his game you don’t get to see and appreciate as much, he did a great job. Hendo fought well but Rampage was the better man.
“Mirko is done, the guy is a bum ”
I’m down for people being critical about fighters and fights, but shit like this is weak as fuck and doesn’t belong on an intelligent site like this.
Anyone who thinks that Bisping was even close to winning that fight is sucking the Zuffa teet. If Meltzer really believes that, I’m pretty bummed. I watched the fights today live on the stream, then again with a lot of friends on Spike. Almost everyone was pulling for Bisping but not a single person thought he won the fight. Shit was corrupt as fuck and I’m not sure if I’d ever spend another dollar gambling on a UFC fight after that shit.
if you look at the results from wrestlingobserver.com, you’ll see that they were from a correspondent who was at the event live yesterday. dave has nothing up on the site yet regarding his own opinion on the show
“You haven’t seen it on TV yet…
So I’m assuming you haven’t seen it? As I’m guessing you weren’t there.
It was AWFUL. The first round showed promised but both men were absolutely 100% gassed as FUCK by midway thru the 2nd.”
Hywel, I was there mate. As I’m assuming you were too.
Sheldon, if you think Marcus Davis is garbage after watching that fight then I’ve got to question your judgement. A lot of fighters would have been out of it after the damage Taylor inflicted but he recovered and won the fight in the same round. Very impressive and he deserves a fight against a higher profile opponent.
I’m sisappointed in Bisping’s post-match interview. “Back to wrestling”. What does that say about you if he’s apparently not good enough for the UFC but the only reason you got the victory was down to flawed judging.
After having watched the second round of the Bisping/Hamill match, I can sort of see where it could’ve swung either way. Bisping was more aggressive in his striking and defended well from the bottom in the second round but it was very, very close. Could you imagine how a draw would’ve went over with that London crowd though?
Bisping’s striking prowess was left exposed for what it really is: Mediocre. It was also interesting seeing him totally lose his cool in-between the 2nd and 3rd round, though that little bit was cutout for the Spike TV broadcast.
Then there’s Mirko. I don’t even know what to think about the guy these days. I’ve always been a big fan but he just doesn’t seem to want it anymore. Maybe it was too soon after the Gonzaga-KO to be fighting again but that sounds more like me just making excuses to alleviate my own frustration. Kongo beat him fair-and-square and if he keeps training with the likes of Rampage and Ibarra we could see some stellar improvements. What’s next for Kongo, and is Mirko finished in the UFC?
Rampage/Hendo was a terrific match. Does Henderson move down to Middleweight? If Shogun beats Griffin at UFC 76, is he in line for an immediate title shot against Rampage?
Other than the debut of Shogun and a personal desire to see Jon Fitch melt some face, UFC 76 is looking a little lackluster.
Yeah, Mirko will probably finish his contract and be done with it. A shame.
“I want everyone to keep in mind what Luke Thomas said about Matt Hamill being in the UFC on the 9/1 edition of Inside the Cage radio. :)”
Yes, I said I wasn’t sold on him in the slightest. So did everyone else. I don’t recall very many people saying Hamill was an excellent light heavyweight that was going to give Bisping all kinds of problems with his power punches and ring generalship.
Houston v Alessio – HA is for real. Dude needs to fight a top 5 soon
Taylor v Hand Grenade – Davis is in a stacked division, but should fight one of the losers of the upcoming top 5 bouts ie Fitch, Diego, Kos, etc
Bisping v Hamill – Fucking horrible.
Crocop v Kongo – BJM is the worst ref I’ve ever seen. I’ve been on that wagon now for 2 years and taken a lot of shit for it, but he is now making it totally apparent for the rest of you that he does indeed suck. How in the world after 6 nut strikes, 4 back of headers, and 2 throat strikes CK doesnt have a point taken is taken is beyond me. But, CC needs to drop to LHW.
Hendo v Page – Everything I’d though it would be. QRJ has matured so much as a fighter. Bring on Sho and Wand.
Ivan,
I could see putting blame on the UFC if they wanted the responsibility. But they don’t. They are trying to get a commission put up in the UK so all of that testing, judgng, and weighing in is out of their hands. And it is only stupid to not run shows in a hot market just because of one regulatory glitch in the system.
Ivan,
Another quick point on the drug testing…. Get your facts straight. The UFC went over the the UK at UFC 70 with all intentions to drug test. Marc Ratner even had the system in place to do so. At the last minute, it was the Zuffa lawyers… Not White, Not Ratner, not The Fertitta’s…. Who said no to drug testing for legal reasons. When you leave that small detail out of the equation, it makes your argument look kind of dumb.
************
Like I have said before…. Unless somebody was ringside, it is impossible to see who won that Bisping/Hamill fight. A lot of those punches were close. Who got hit the hardest and who got hit the most is something that wasn’t apparent on TV. For anybody to claim so is FULL OF IT!!!! I’m not defending Cecil or Jeff, but they had the best seat in the house for those scores.
And people need to stop blaming the 10 Point Must System for this. I have yet to hear of a better system that would actually work. And Pride’s system allowed for more split decisions then anything else… And their system was both corrupt and horrible.
The Bisping/Hamill fight is an interesting one, but both fighters know the rules ahead of time. Hamill won the first round. Bisping won the third round. I agree with this. The guys on Sherdog agree with this. The guy on Meltzer’s website agree with this. It comes down to that second round, which was close. Yes, Hamill beat Bisping in the first round worst then Bisping beat him in any of the rest of the rounds, but that is how the fight goes. But fighters know this.
I could see if it is a bad decision if everybody thought Hamill won the fight. But Sherdog.com’s PBP had Bisping WINNING THE FIGHT!!!! Must have not been too bad of a decision then.
Irish Hand Grenade was horrible? That was an awesome back-and-forth fight. That is what MMA is all about. When a fighter is down, it does not automatically mean he’s out. He’s an exciting fighter and one of the great moments of UFC 75.
Hendo VS Rampage was a great fight. As long as the fans continue to boo fights like this, MMA will never be mainstream.
Mirko Cro Cop is done. He’s scared to get knocked out. It’s like a quarterback in the NFL. Once the QB is scared of getting blindsided and KOed, he no longer can throw the ball and do his job. Mirko should just hang up his gloves. This game is no longer for him.
This isn’t Pride any more. If he thinks that he can just wait for that perfect moment to throw the left kick to KO his opponent, then he needs to wake up. UFC fighters now have real coaches and game plans and a lot of money at stake. Any fighter can be dangerous with a game plan and solid execution. CroCop’s game plan is and continues to be “left kick to head.” For shame.
Oh yeah… Hamill was robbed.