The evening featured two bouts featuring contestants from The Ultimate Fighter reality series, and a main event fight featuring Ken Shamrock and Rich Franklin. As with other live sports broadcasts, this one featured inane commentary in which television personalities offered absolutely no useful information whatsoever. (Fear Factor's Joe Rogan basically described every competitor as a well-rounded fighter with solid striking skills, good grappling techniques and a killer instinct.)
THE MATCHUPS
Fight 1. The fights themselves provided a good variety. The first featured middleweights Diego Sanchez and Kenny Florian, from New Mexico and Boston, respectively. Diego had demonstrated some solid skills during the show's regular season, as well as determination and a killer instinct. He spoke often about his "destiny" as a UFC fighter, and he proved it this night, defeating Florian just a couple minutes into the fight by technical knockout. Though much was made of Florian's grappling skills as a Brazilian Jujitsu black belt, Diego proved to have little problems taking Kenny down and effortlessly passing the guard and side control at will. Diego quickly achieved the mount and kept it while pummeling Kenny's face until the referee ruled that Florian was clearly unable to mount an "intelligent defense" (i.e., one that involves more than just covering the face and going fetal.) To be fair, Diego was favored by most observers (including this one): although they are of similar size on paper, it is clear that Diego is fighting at his natural weight while Florian probably should be in a lighter class. Diego is more experienced. And although it is politically incorrect to say it, Diego has the "advantage" of having grown up in a less privileged environment. Florian grew up in an upper middle-class family and his father is a surgeon; Diego's upbringing was decidedly more working class. It is no accident that the great boxers of the modern era have always come from economically and political disadvantaged ethnic origins. Poverty breeds scrappiness, in general.
Fight 2. In the heavyweight finals, Stephan Bonner of Chicago faced off against Forrest Griffith of Athens, Georgia. In contrast to the middleweight bout, which ended quickly, the Bonner-Griffith match lasted the full three rounds, and incredibly, was an action packed slug fest the entire time. Though Bonner is a student of the legendary groundfighter Carlson Gracie, he was also a Golden Gloves champ. Thus, although there were some parts of the fight that ended up on the ground, both fighters seemed to prefer going toe-to-toe. This is not surprising for Griffith, who derives a fierce joy from a knockdown drag-out brawl and seems to enjoy getting hit almost as much as he likes dishing it out. Anyone who has ever gotten into a ring has to respect the conditioning of these two fighters, who went full steam through most of three rounds, even though it was clear that both men were running on fumes the entire third round. (Personally, I'd rather run 10 miles than go three rounds in a ring.) Both fighters ended an exhausted, bloody mess. In the end, all three judges scored the fight 29-28 in favor of Griffith - an announcement that had Bonner comically collapsing in (half) mock despair.
