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UFC 46 Review
by Tanner Rhoden, Ironlife.com writer
UFC 46 will be talked about for a long time to come in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. We saw three great young fighters make their debuts. We saw arguably the biggest upset in MMA history. And, we also saw the most disappointing ending of a main event in the history of the sport.
The first fight of the night pitted Matt "The Terror" Serra vs. Jeff Curran. Jeff Curran accepted the fight on nine days notice. Originally Matt was supposed to fight Javier Vazquez. Javier injured himself and had to pull out of the show. Next they had Ivan Menjivar lined up. He had to back out too. So, with only nine days till the fight Jeff Curran agreed to come up a weight class and fight Serra.
Curran fought with great heart and determination but Serra was just to strong for him to handle. Matt controlled, more or less, the entire fight using his jiu-jitsu and wrestling.  They had a couple decent exchanges with Matt also getting the better of Curran there.
Serra won by unanimous decision. Curran is one of the strongest fighters in the world in his own weight class. If Zuffa brought him back I'm not sure exactly who they could match him up against. I, and I think the fans as well, would really enjoy seeing Matt fight against Hermes Franca next.
Next we saw Josh "The Punk" Thompson taking on Hermes Franca. Being a fan of the sport and being in the media for the past four years you begin to develop relationships with a lot of the fighters. You become friends with them. I consider Hermes Franca a friend of mine. So, speaking from a non-biased standpoint, I can sit here and honestly say that Hermes was screwed out of this decision. Josh won the first round by scoring takedowns and being the aggressor. The second round was dominated by Hermes. He even knocked Josh down with a punch that round. You could see Landless looking very closely to everything going on. Hermes almost ended the fight again in the third round. I thought for sure that Larry was going to stop the fight. You could see him almost jump in there a couple more times.
When the scores were being read out EVERYONE in the media said that Hermes won the fight. So, you can see the shock when we heard Thompson's name read out. I think it even shocked Josh himself. The crowd was very unhappy with the decision.
I'm not sure where this takes either fighter. Since there's no champion right now I'm not sure how there can be a clear cut #1 contender in the division. Guys like Genki Sudo, Duane Ludwig, Yves Edwards, Matt Serra, Josh Thompson and Hermes Franca can almost beat one another on any given night. It's a very competitive weight class to fight in. Only time will tell what happens here.
The next fight saw Karo "The Heat" Parysian take on Canadian champion, Georges St. Pierre. You could tell that Karo didn't want to waste any time in this one. In what seemed to be a matter of second, Karo went for that same exact rolling kimura that he caught Dave Strasser with. St. Pierre had great defense and escaped. The rest of the round saw Karo working from his guard and actually landing the better shots. St. Pierre stayed inactive until the very end of the round when he started landing some crushing shots to Karo's head.
The second round was dominated by St. Pierre standing and on the ground. He opened up cuts under both of Parysian's eyes. It looked as though Karo was just hanging on for dear life near the end of the round.
The third round saw Karo, once again, almost catching Georges with a kimura. Georges escaped and stayed away from Karo for almost the rest of the round. He scored one more solid takedown at the end of the fight to secure a unanimous decision.
Both fighters are young and exciting. I expect to see both of them back very soon.
The first televised fight of the evening showcased Jorge Rivera who was coming off a huge victory over David Loiseau and the American fighting debut of Lee Murray. If you're a fan of MMA in the states you were definitely anticipating this one.
Everyone at the Mandalay Bay and watching around the world was expecting a standing war. Both are well known for their striking ability. So, was it a big surprise when Rivera shot in and took Murray down? At first I would have said yes, but Murray was just coming off a KO victory over Brazilian, Jose Landi-Jons, better known as Pele. I bet Rivera had this in mind.
After the takedown Rivera got sloppy. Maybe he underestimated Murray's ground game. Right away he found himself defending against an arm bar. Next, Murray switches to a triangle then back to an arm bar forcing Rivera to tap out.
This was a huge victory for Murray. As far as his future in the UFC goes? The sky is the limit.
Next up was the "Bad Blood" rematch from UFC 43. It pitted Wes Sims against Frank Mir. Their first encounter ended after Sims stomped Mir's head in from a standing position. This caused the match to be stopped with Sims being disqualified.
The first round saw Mir come out with a powerful takedown then easily getting mount. He began to rain down elbows and punches to Sims face which opened up a cut around the left eye. He then went for a side choke on Sims. It looked as though to the audience that Mir had caught Sims with this choke. And right when you think the fight is about to be over, Sims does the best Dusty Rhodes impression I had ever seen when he started shaking his finger to indicate he was in no danger. He didn't stop there though. He then pointed at Mir and flipped him the bird.
The second round began much the same with Mir scoring a beautiful takedown. He was unable to get much after that though. The match was stood up do to lack of action. Sims then came at Mir with his first offense of the fight with a crushing knee to the midsection. The fight then slowed again with neither really getting the upper hand on one another. Both looked very gassed. Then Frank Mir came out of nowhere with a combination of knees and punches to score a crowd pleasing KO. Both fighters embraced each other at the end.
Next up was a fight that had everyone buzzing. BJ Penn,  the #1 ranked 155lbs fighter in the world, came up a weight class to fight arguably the more dominant fighter our sport has ever seen in Matt Hughes. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I didn't really give BJ any chance of winning this fight. I couldn't create any logical scenario in my head that would've showed me any way for Penn to win. I am now eating crow.
The first round saw Matt Hughes on his back quickly already defending BJ's relentless jiu-jitsu game. Penn worked hard on the ground to pass Matt's guard. As he started to get into full mount, Mat turned over and gave BJ his back. It was the beginning of the end for Hughes right there because it only took BJ about ten seconds to sink in a rear naked choke forcing Hughes to tap out.
This was the biggest upset in MMA history as far as I'm concerned. I tip my hat to BJ Penn and wish him the best of luck with his next fight at 170lbs. As far as Matt Hughes goes.........everyone gets beat in this sport. That's what makes it so beautiful. No one is perfect. He got caught, and that's that. Now go back and work some more on your game and come back stronger than ever.
Next up we had "The Ronin" Carlos Newton taking on UFC newcomer
Renato "Charuto" Verissimo. Renato came in with a lot of people looking forward to watching him fight. A lot of us had just heard about the guy. He's BJ Penn's Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor. He's been a national jiu-jitsu champion in Brazil. And, in his previous fight, he destroyed Gil Castillo. Everyone expected a fantastic display of jiu-jitsu between both of these fighters in this one.
What can I say about this fight? "Charuto" dominated from beginning to end. He constantly had Newton defending against submission attempts and strikes. He dominated the fight standing. He made Newton's jiu-jitsu look bad. He impressed the hell out of me and everyone watching the fight around the world. I had never seen Carlos look so puzzled in a fight before. Nothing he was doing worked. If someone can do that to Carlos Newton you know they've got something special.
Renato left that night with a unanimous decision victory as well as new fans around the world.
Next up was the main event between "The Natural" Randy Couture and "The Phenom" Vitor Belfort. So much hype and speculation went into this fight. It was a rematch from UFC 15 back in 1997 where Couture was the victor.
The round started out with a quick exchange. It appeared at first that Vitor landed a left hand on Couture. When they brought the camera in close to Randy's eye you could see there was something wrong. He was obviously in a lot of pain. John McCarthy stopped the action and called in the doctor to check out Randy. What happened was that Vitor's glove cut opened a very sensitive part of Randy's left eye. It didn't take long for the doctor to call the fight off making Vitor Belfort your new champion at forty-nine seconds of the first round. Everyone in the arena was pissed, including myself. "How could they stop this?" "That's the weakest thing I've ever seen." I was thinking and hearing all these things at the same time walking out of the arena trying to make my way down to the press conference. Then I remembered something. Shit happens. Randy and Vitor didn't do this on purpose. Dana White didn't have this planned out. Those are the people that should be angry, not me. It was a fluke thing that hardly ever happens. This time it just happened in one of the biggest fights of the year. A rematch between the two is trying to be set up for the June event.
This show was incredible to watch live. But, I guess the fans watching at home didn't get to experience it like me. They only got to see a minute of highlights from the undercard. Apparently the Thompson / Franca fight was supposed to be televised. There was some miscommunication between Dana White and the production crew. People keep looking at the negatives. I'm looking at the positive things that came from this show. We now have three new UFC fighters in Lee Murray, Georges St. Pierre and Renato Verissimo. All three showed incredible talent. I can't wait to see all three of them fight again. There was also a beautiful knockout with Mir just about taking Sims head off. Also, we had a changing of the guard with BJ Penn choking out Matt Hughes.
Stay tuned for the next UFC on April 2nd.
To view more pictures that Tanner took at UFC 46, CLICK HERE
* Article by Tanner Rhoden, Ironlife.com writer
* Back to Issue #6 Frontpage
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