UFC 88: Breakthrough

[Quatarian]

Chuck Lidell vs. Rashad Evans
Cleanest connection of fist to face I've ever seen. Does this signal the end of The Iceman? Not sure, but Chuck sure as hell isn't invincible anymore.

Rich Franklin vs. Matt Hamill
I thought Matt Hamill just got outclassed here. Not sure what his game plan was, but obviously letting Rich kick the dog-shit out of his leg and pick him apart with punching didn't work.

Dan Henderson vs. Rousimar Palhares
Wow, Palhares looked wicked on the ground... the 2 times he was there. Dan Henderson showed, in my opinion, what it means to be a veteran of MMA and to have a well-rounded game instead of being a one-trick pony.

The rest of the fights seemed pretty standard.

What did you all see?

Q

[Tapout]

I thought Matt Brown won his fight. Was kinda disappointed when he lost the decision. I'll have to watch it again to see if I missed something but that's what I got from watching it lastnight.

That was a killer knock out by Rashad. I wanted Chuck to win again but after watching that shot over and over you could tell he put everything into that swing and it connected. Was pretty damn sweet.

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[Excellent1]

Griffin vs Evans: predictions?

I'm going to go with Griffin, even though I don't care for him much. He's a good fighter, and a crazy bastard in the bargain, so I do give him props.

As for 88, it was nice to see Franklin win for a change, lol. Poor bastard. Will interesting to see who ends up knocking off Anderson Silva.

Also looking forward to the Lesnar / Couture fight, should be interesting. One thing about the UFC, just when you think you're watching someone who can't be beaten, they suddenly become a has-been (Arlovsky, Hughes, Liddel, etc). No disrespect to them, just interesting how quickly the dominant fighter is suddenly pretty much gone from the scene.

[vis]

Liddell was out for a good 3 or 4 minutes, that was awesome.

On a sadder note, they found Evan Tanners body today in the desert in California. He had gone on a soul searching trip into the desert, and sadly I don't think he did a very good job at finding it.

[Tapout]

Offtopic: Sad news today. Evan Tanner died.

I liked him more than most fighters. What a bummer.

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Edit: I'm slow I guess. Was posted above. Still sad though. Not what I expected to read when I opened up www.ufc.com today.

[Excellent1]

Yeah, I saw that about Tanner last night. Sucks. He seemed like a good guy, and 37 is too young for anyone to go.

Hope he found some peace.

[PRWraith]

I gotta be honest everyone at the bar was shocked with that punch to lidell.

[Excellent1]

Yeah, Liddell has just been so dominant for so long that it's hard to imagine him being caught with a punch like that. After seeing him lose to "The Dean of Mean" (rofl), and now Evans, it's just another reminder that UFC is the real thing. You get grown men in there with the strength and conditioning that these guys have, and it's going to absolutely mean that either guy has a shot at knocking the others head off.

[slivers55]

Well Liddell is 10 years older then Rashard, and to be honest that looked more like a lucky punch then anything to me.

[Excellent1]

Yeah. My point was that it proves the ufc is the real thing. If you didn't have people like Rashad getting a good punch in and ending the fight once in a while, you would know it was staged. The fact that the fighters there are almost all capable of knocking out someone as dominant as Liddell has been is pretty amazing.

From a business standpoint, they love a familiar and consistent "champion" at each weight class because it obviously sells the sport much better than having a new title holder every fight, so there is always going to be that chance for corruption to sneak in the bigger the sport grows.

Hopefully it stays real. As for the age difference between Rashad and Liddell, I think Chuck is by far the better fighter, age isn't a concern. To be honest, I think what got him was overconfidence. He just started coming forward all the time in that 2nd round and not respecting Rashad. The results speak for themselves. Just my take on the fight.