UFC 47: It's On!

Only one out of two men fulfilled their prediction for UFC 47, and that man was none other than my boy, "The Iceman" Chuck Liddell. A vicious assault by the iron fists of Liddell midway through round two caused a "power outage" in Ortiz . Pandemonium ensued as "The Iceman" brutally destroyed "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy", as Chuck began paving his way to total domination of the 205lb weight division. Anyone who wishes to dispute this fact, feel free to direct all comments to the likes of Jeremy Horn, Vernon White, Renato Sobral, or Randy Couture whom my boy recently "Iced" into retirement. Let this be a testament to the outcome of Liddell vs Ortiz 2 on December 30th, 2006. It happened before - and it will happen again...

UFC 47 featured 8 matches that were, for the most part, pretty entertaining. As I mentioned in the header, Tito Ortiz vs Chuck Lidell was very heavily hyped as Lidell accused Ortiz of ducking him when Ortiz said he would not risk his friendship fighting Lidell. They both talked a good game with Tito claiming he would break Chuck's jaw and such but the match itself failed to live up to the heavy hype.

The best match of the night was easily Yves Edwards vs Hermes Franca. It was very exciting. Yves seemed to be a little more versed in MMA but Hermes has a never-say-die attitude and is no slouch either. This fight had a little of everything- lots of striking and mat-work featuring a ton of technique on both fighter's parts. Both fighters showed respect towards each other.

Another good fight that deserves mentioning is Robbie Lawler vs Nick Diaz. Diaz trains under Cesar Gracie and tries to play Lawler's game and slugged it out with him. He connected with a shot that could have ended the fight but only fired Lawler up.

On the other side of the spectrum, Wade Shipp vs Jonathan Wiezorek was a disappointment. Both men seemed out of shape. Shipp started off strong but got tired very quickly. This fight started off as a good brawl but turned into a boring stalemate after awhile. Wiezorek was barely able to block Shipp and seemed a bit amateurish in my opinion.

Overall, a pretty good card. Only a couple of matches that could have been replaced. The other being Chris Lytle vs Tiki. Mike Brown vs Genki Sudo was a good technical match up which saw some good take-downs and submissions. Mike Brown proved to be a tough competitor who refused to play with Sudo's clownish antics. Also, Cabbage Correira vs Andrei Arlovski was a good fight. Arlovski clearly seemed to be the better fighter but Cabbage can take a hit. He reminds me of a smart Tank Abbott. Good fight. This was a good card for UFC and recommend it to UFC fans.