UFC 75 Disappoints- Jackson-Henderson, Cro Cop-Kongo
By Gary Jones: The card started out good with a nice beat down in a light heavyweight bout between Houston Alexander (8-1) and Italian Alessio Sakara (11-6). The fight lasted about a minute, though, with Alexander kneeing Sakara several times in the head and dropping him to the canvas. Not wasting any time, Alexander, 35, plopped down upon Sakara and started raining blows on his head, prompting the referee to step and stop the slighter.
None of it was very skilled-looking, however, and it resembled something you might see on the street with a couple of none-fighters slapping at each other. Nonetheless, it was satisfying compared to most of what would follow. Alexander, though he’s getting up there in age, he’d make a good fight for Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, especially considering that Jackson is such a sucker for knees to the head, which is Alexander’s main weapon.
In the next bout, welterweight Marcus Davis (13-3-0) then took on British fighter Paul Taylor (8-2-1). Taylor started fast, knocking Davis down with a right kick to the side of the neck. Taylor then leaped on a still stunned Davis, and proceeded to land 10 consecutive right hands to the head. I thought for a moment they would stop the fight seeing that Davis was in serious trouble. However, Davis wrestled out of it and got on top of Taylor, at which point it was his turn to start showering blows on Taylor. As the British fighter attempted to wrestle out of the down position, Davis grabbed his left arm and placed it between his legs and exerted pressure to force Taylor to tap out. Again, the fight was over in the first round.
There were few punches that were thrown in the fight, aside from a handful when Cro Cop was down on the mat in the 2nd. However, nothing substantial was landed by either fighter. Rounds two and three were a repeat of the first round, as Kongo continued to push around the terrified looking Crop Cop, and periodically kneeing him. In the end, Kongo not surprisingly won a unanimous decision 29-28. Cro Crop looks over-the-hill and should consider another line of work because he’s got nothing left.
In the next bout, British fighter Michael Bisping (15-0-0) went up against Mark Hamill (5-1-0). The first two rounds easily went to Hamil, a former Collegian wrestling champion, who landed a large number of left hands, blooding up Bisping’s face badly in the first rounds. Additionally, Hamill took Bisping down to the canvas with leaping wrestling takedowns many times in the two rounds, though he often left him up afterwards without a struggle. In the 3rd round, however, Hamill seemed to tire badly, allowing Bisping to land a large number of punches - mostly jabs - to the head.
However, it was by no means a huge round for Bisping, as he took some head shots as well and was taken to the mat several times. When the judge announced afterwards that Bisping had won a split decision, I was shocked because Bisping had clearly lost the first two rounds of the fight. However, being that the fight was in England, I wasn’t so surprised by the final outcome. Nevertheless, it left a bad taste in my mouth.
In the main event between Pride middleweight champion Dan Henderson (22-6-0), and UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (28-6-0), who was coming off a recent one-round knockout victory over Chuck Liddell to capture the UFC lightweight title. In this case, Jackson’s light heavyweight title was at stake. However, by looking at them, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Henderson, the much smaller man, was going to have problems with the hulking Jackson, a fighter with excellent striking skills. However, the bout was mostly a lot pushing and wrestling on the ground. In fact, very few punches are kicks were landed during all five rounds.
Jackson, 28, normally a fighter that tends to throw a lot of punches in most of his bouts, was unable to get in punching distance from the grappler Henderson, who made it a point of staying in contact with Jackson for much of the fight. It was all very dull, mostly non-stop wrestling. In the end, not surprisingly, Jackson won the bout by unanimous decision. However, what was surprising, though, was the fact that Jackson out-wrestled Henderson during much of the action, seeing to wear him down as the bout progressed.
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Posted September 12th, 2007 l 158 views
