Ultimate Fighting Rapidly Climbing The Ranks

By: Jake Goldberg

Posted: 9/12/07

Mid-afternoon Saturday I made the decision I would not be heading out into the UConn night, but instead I would have some friends over and watch the Ultimate Fighting Championships. It turned out to be a brilliant call because the UFC, looking to ride the wave of its recent mass popularity, placed a tremendous line up of fights, all for free.

With its fresh acquisition of Pride Fighting Championships - its biggest rival company - the UFC has, for all intensive purposes, monopolized the mixed martial arts world. From here on out with so many good fighters and limited organizations to ruin the sport. All they have to do is not follow what boxing has done from the early 80s to now. They have clearly set themselves up for future success.

Now that the UFC has two sets of champions, it is in the process of unifying the belts and putting Pride's best fighters against its own. For a fight junky, this fix will last for a long time.

The UFC does one thing extremely well, and that is to fill a primal urge to watch a real fight. Inside of a cage, two men square off to either knock the other one out or make them submit. It is something you have to see in order to understand the raw energy that comes soaring through the television. There are five rounds and as each progressive minute passes you move closer to the edge of your seat.

Located in London, the fight brought out some of the most rabid fans that I have ever seen. As the night went on they almost impossibly got louder, like a wave building size and momentum. The crowd could have gone without seats because from what I saw they didn't use them. This was the biggest crowd to see any sort of fight since the mid 1990's. They clearly wanted blood.

Wasting no time what-so-ever with the first fight Houston Alexander had announcer Mike Goldberg screaming, "That dude is violent" due to his first round knockout. Alexander is quite literally a wrecking ball of a man that continues to crash into you until there's nothing left. The fight left most of my friends gasping for air after screaming at the TV for three to four minutes.

Then SpikeTV - who was broadcasting the fight, threw us right back into the action with one of the best nickname in all of sports fighting. Marcus "The Irish Hand Grenade" Davis took on England's own Paul Taylor. In what turned out to be a pretty scrappy fight, both men landed shots, and when it took to the ground, both landed some head-turning shots. Eventually Davis secured one of Taylor's arms and proceeded to bend it back until Taylor gave up.

Watching the submissions of the UFC is one of the more unnerving things you can watch. You never know if the fighter will let go in time or proceed to snap a limb.

It's nothing short of gruesome, yet I can't take my eyes away from it.

"The world's most dangerous striker," Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic was up next and provided the worst fight of the night. His opposition, a huge man named Cheick Kongo, bewildered the crowd by being aable to completely control "Cro Cop" en route to a boring unanimous decision. Here is the strange thing about combat sports - they are fighting. We should be impressed by them since it takes a lot to step in a cage and do battle. However the moment the two men became lazy or boring, they coudn't hear the end of it from the crowd. It's ironic to a certain extent.

After a fight like that the urge to see two men go at it is even higher. Without disappointing us one bit, Matt Hamill took on his rival Michael Bisping in what in my opinion was the fight of the night. Bisping from Liverpool, had tremendous support from the crowd, but this didn't affect Hamill who is legally deaf. This has not stopped Hamill one bit as he has become a world renowned wrestling machine and is said to have incredible strength.

The dislike appeared to be genuine and from the opening bell, they landed everything but the kitchen sink on each other. Trading punches, take-downs and submission attempts, they left the judges of the fight in a very precarious position. The British judge actually scored it for the American, Hamill and the two American judges gave it to Bisping earning him a split decision in my opinion he didn't deserve. The fight left me wanting more and I hope to see a rematch in the future.

With more friends showing up, there weren't places for them to sit with the main event just minutes away. They showed clips of both Quinton Jackson and Dan Henderson pre-fight and it looked as if they could beat up the New York Giants defense worse then the Cowboys did the next day.

The stage had been set, the fans were on their feet, and the pride was on the line between friends talking about who was going to win. This is what fights should be about, the electricity in the air, the scary stare down and an awesome fight. Henderson and Jackson provided all of the above. I suggest that if you can watch this fight sometime do so, because it was a technical brawl that saw one champion go after another, for 25 minutes. In the end, Quinton Jackson won but it wasn't a walk in the park.

I am a boxing fan and always will be a boxing fan, but I could see myself watching more of these fights. The action is there, the talent is in place and most importantly a primal urge is fulfilled in this sport that few other sports can tap into. Congrats UFC, you have a new fan.

Jake Goldberg's boxing column appears every Wednesday. He can be reached at Jacob.Goldberg@UConn.edu.