Well there are a lot of things to say about last nights UFC 88 fight card: Some people think that Matt Brown got screwed, I don't. He said he doesn't fight for judges, maybe he should. Dan Henderson won his first UFC fight ever against a great grappler by bringing and executing a masterful game plan to perfection, he fought for the judges and won. Rich Franklin had minimal trouble moving back up to the 205 lbs. weight class with his second round TKO. And of course, I would be silly to forget the dynamite right hand that Rashad landed on the chin of Chuck Liddell, leaving the Iceman limp on the canvas until he came to, one loss further from the title shot he was hoping for.

Watching this fight card definitely helped make up for the fact that I came all the way down here to south Florida to cover the WEC fights scheduled for next Wednesday, which have been postponed due to the threat of Hurricane Ike. In one of the earlier fights of the night Matt Brown faced Dong Hyun Kim in what proved to be a very close decision. Kim won the fight on a split decision, but many people in the arena let their thoughts be known with a chorus of boo's. I personally feel like the judges got it right. Kim definitely won the first round as he appeared to almost end it with a deep rear naked choke which Brown defended nicely. Brown came out in the second aggressive and put in a good performance which I feel won him the round. The third round of the fight was close, but a takedown by Kim and him opening a cut on Brown's face tipped the scales in his favor. It was very obvious from the fighter introductions just before the fight that the crowd didn't like the Kim, one of two Koreans in the UFC, as there were many boo's when he was introduced. So of course they were unhappy when Kim won a close fight, but like I said, I think the judges got this one right.

 

How about Dan Henderson, he held 2 PRIDE belts simultaneously but up until last night had never won a fight in the octagon. That changed after he beat a very talented bjj fighter in Rousimar Palhares. It was obvious from the start that each of these guys would prefer to take this fight to their style, with Hendo wanting to stand and strike while Palhares definitely wanted to bring this fight to the ground. In the first it initially looked to me like Henderson knocked him to the ground a couple times, but it later became apparent to me that Palhares was falling to the ground on purpose in order to try to get Henderson to pounce on top of him so that he could bring the fight to the ground. Henderson wanted no piece of that, and when it did get to the ground Palhares applied what looked like a very tight leg lock which Henderson eventually squirmed out of. Henderson did a good job of keeping the fight on his feet and simply out-boxed his opponent and won the fight on that very game plan.

Rich Franklin looked like the bump back up to the light heavyweight 205 was not a problem for him as he faced former training partner and friend Matt Hamill. The fight looked pretty even in the beginning, with Hammill even landing a big punch which put a nice cut over the right eye of Franklin. This was not enough to stop Franklin though, he controlled the remainder of the fight and seemed to be making progress with his leg kicks. The fight came to an end when Franklin landed a clean kick to the body which sent Hamill to his knees where the referee stopped it.

Onto the main event, I just had a feeling that something wild was going to happen, I just didn't think that I would see Chuck Liddell get dropped like that. What a blow he received from Evans, this at the same moment that Chuck was getting ready to connect with an uppercut of his own. Liddell definitely seemed in control up to that point. I had Liddell winning the first round as he controlled the center of the ring and had Evans back pedaling most of the fight. Some people have been saying that they don't respect the way that Evans fought and that he didn't go after Chuck enough. Are you kidding me?!?? Rashad Evans fought that fight the exact way that he should have... HELLO, he knocked out Chuck Liddell. Does it really matter what happened before that, he did what he had to do to win and that's all that matters. I was surprised and impressed by the speed and quickness shown by Rashad Evans and think he still has some work to do, meaning that he will only get better as time goes on. But do I think he will stay undefeated? No. I'm just not sure who will be the one to beat him.

On a side note, I ran into Mike Brown at the sports bar where I went to watch the fights and asked him about his WEC fight being cancelled. He was obviously disappointed as he felt he was prepared and completely ready to go. When I asked him how he was going to prepare for the fight from here, he told me he would probably take about a week off from training and then get back at it from there. It has got to be tough and disappointing for all of the fighters scheduled to go on that card. The worst part about it is that now it looks like the hurricane is actually going to miss, although I understand the decision was made with everyone's safety in mind.

Until next time...