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How the media covered Forrest Griffin vs. Rampage Jackson
By Zach Arnold | July 5, 2008
First, check out this AP article. It seems as if a re-match between both men is coming, that is if you believe Griffin.
Anyone ask Juanito Ibarra if he’s going to retire now?
Second, Patrick Cote talks about his win over Ricardo Almeida. In short, “This win will change my life.”
The Sweet Science: ‘The crowd at the Mandalay Bay reacted with something between disbelief and minor-league dismay after the main event’
Michael David Smith (AOL Fanhouse): A classic slugfest
The Las Vegas Sun: It was the UFC at it’s best and Rampage says, “I didn’t think Forrest could handle me”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
We already about the quality of fighters on the Affliction card, but maybe Affliction can find better judges to put on their card than Zuffa too.
^we already know about^ – its late i’m sleepy
‘The crowd at the Mandalay Bay reacted with something between disbelief and minor-league dismay after the main event’
Really?
Because it sounded like most of the arena was chanting Forrest Forrest throughout the fight.
Clueless reporting by the Michael Woods. I was in Mandalay Bay last night. The crowd chanted Forrest’s name before the decision and you could barely hear Buffer announce his name because the place went so nuts. I believe that the blogger who wrote that idiotic hit piece was in fact not in attendance and watched the event at home on TV while losing money on Rampage.
The crowd even booed Rampage when Rogan went to give him the mic until Rampage said that Forrest had “whupped him”.
Where did the Rampage get robbed nonsense come from? Forrest dominated the fight. Rampage landed a couple good uppercuts and aside from that took a hellacious beating.
The idiots are out in full force after this main event.
I’m not a fan of either fighter, but it was either a DRAW or Forrest winning the fight. There is no way I can see Quinton winning on the scorecards.
But even the websites are getting in on this garbage. Sherdog is saying it is controversial. They need to get a dictionary before posting garbage like that.
mr.roadblock, either you are blind are severly handicapped to think that forrest dominated.
i do think forrest squeeked out a victory or perhaps a draw, but dominated. please rewatch the fight in a situation where you will not be influenced by an army of drunken, ignorant tuf goobers.
why do you think he absolutely won, because threw numerous punches at the air around quinton. forrest had one moment in the fight, thats it.
griffin is a lucky. he beat a fat one legged shogun that gassed in the first round and a fat one legged jackson that gassed in the first round as well. i would say he got lucky with an indured ortiz, but tito is always indured (thank god mr.roadblock was not judging that fight or maby forrest would’ve won because he punched tito in shoulders).
don’t get me wrong, forrest is solid fighter but for him to hold the most pestigious title in the sport is unsettling to me. with all the upsets as of late perhaps i should revaluate my love of mma. it seems as though any fighter can lose to any fighter on any given saturday.
only one judge gave page the first round, what the f#*k is that. big john is right.
Who cares how Forrest got there. He beat Shogun & Rampage in back to back fights. Any man who can do that should be called Champion.
The Sweet Science article didn’t surprise me for all sorts of reasons. Best to ignore those types.
I had no problem with the decision and wouldn’t have been shocked if it went the other way either. I also thought Henderson could have easily been given the decision of Quinton in that fight.
The people who are really upset are of two types:
First, the snobbish TUF haters, which almost includes me, since I don’t watch the show. They hate Forrest and love their Pride guy.
Second, the people who donated more to Bodog than they could have afford.
The winner of the already scheduled bout (which makes little sense) between Liddell and Evans will probably get the next title shot. Here are some LHW match-ups that do make sense:
W.Silva vs Machida: for #1 contender
Jardine vs Rua: loser drops closer to the bottom of the top 10. Winner fights Rampage
Sokoudjou vs T.Silva: winner is one fight (vs a Top 5er) from a title shot
klown,
If I were running the UFC I would do everything in my power to set up a Griffin v Liddell fight for the title. NYE would be a great time and I am certain it would break all records.
Assuming that Forrest were able to hold the belt, the only “revancha” match that he would have of guys currently fighting in UFC in his weight class (unless Jeremy Horn is moving up) would be Jardine. Jardine needs at least two wins, with one of them against a quality fighter before that can happen.
Everything else is wide open.
Yep, I agree with Rollo. I overheard a lot of people at the bar saying they wanted to see Forrest fight Liddell. The UFC is definitely hoping Rashad gets KTFO in spectacular fashion to set that up.
Forrest Griffin vs. Chuck Liddell is a huge money fight for the UFC.
Dana, I think you should rewatch the fight.
I understand that people may disagree with me, but I had round 1 for Forrest. He dominated the round, set the pace and landed on Rampage at will. Yes, Rampage dropped him but he wasn’t able to advance the position or pass Forrest’s guard, so I didn’t feel that the knockdown was enough to steal the round. I don’t think a knockdown in MMA should mean you automatically win the the round the way it does in boxing. There are so many more things going on in an MMA fight i.e. guarding for takedowns and setting up kicks so the it is easier to knock someone down w/ the typical MMA stance than the wider boxing stance. Also an MMA round is almost the length of two boxing rounds so it is silly to me to discount 4 minutes and 30 seconds of dominance by Forrest for on knockdown and then 28 seconds of not advancing position by Rampage.
I had Rd 1 10-9 Griffin.
Round 2 is clearly a 10-8 round for Griffin in my opinion. If you don’t like a 10-8 round in MMA I don’t mind you doing 10-9 Griffin.
Round 3 was razor close I had it 10-9 for Forrest because I felt he pushed the pace and Rampage refused to engage early in the round. I could see the round going for Rampage though if you were impressed by his efforts at the end. This was the hardest round for me to score.
Round 4 best of the fight for Rampage. I gave it to him 10-9.
Round 5 I felt Forrest pushed the pace and controlled the round 10-9 Forrest.
My scorecard read 49-45 Forrest.
I think UFC is rooting for Liddell to crush Evans. Chuck/Forrest will be the biggest match in the sport to date at New Year’s. Both guys have huge followings.
If I had the book I would set up:
Rampage/Jardine – going to be a slugfest either guy can rematch Forrest for big money or Liddell.
Wanderlei/Vera or Sokodjou – both going to be bang ’em ups that should make Wanderlei look like a monster. If Chuck beats Forrest you have a mega-money rematch of Wanderei/Chuck in a 5-rounder. If Forrest beats Chuck you probably do Forrest vs Rampage/Jardine and Wanderlei fights the winner of the below fight for next title shot.
Machida/Thiago Silva. I wouldn’t risk Wanderlei or Vera against Machida because he could kill their heat with a boring match. His style is also why he shouldn’t be Forrest’s first defense. He could conceivably beat Forrest in a terribly boring fight and ruin Chuck/Forrest.
Machida could also be matched with Vera in a fight or Rua if he gets back soon.
I left Rua out of this because the above fights should all be booked for early – mid Fall and I’m not sure when Shogun will get back in the Octagon.