UFC 103 results

 The biggest news of UFC was the return of two legendary fighters who haven't been seen in the UFC in a while. Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic and Vitor Belfort made their return to be co-main events in UFC 103. Cro Cop was up against fairly young, fairly inexperienced newcomer Junior Dos Santos who was also known for his explosive knock-out power. Vitor Belfort was up against veteran fighter and fan favorite Rich 'Ace' Franklin who is no slacker when it comes to holding his own. These two fights became two of the biggest upsets of the night. There was one fight in particular that didn't get much publicity that I am calling the fight of the night. It was one of the greatest fights I have seen in a long, long time. Enough babble, lets get to the results.

You know what irritates the crap out of me? It's paying 50 dollars for an event and only seeing half of the fights. Back in the day they would show every fight from the beginning to the end and it only cost 25 dollars. I would love to be able to see every single fight instead of having to look it up online and trust what someone else says happened. I have my own opinion on whether or not a fight is quality. Anyway, here are the results of the black matches without detail because I don't want to go on what someone else says. Sorry.

Efrain Escudero defeats Cole Miller with a 1st round knockout

Tomasz Drwal defeats Drew McFedries by a rear naked choke submission in round 2

Jim Miller defeats Steve Lopez with a verbal submission by Lopez in round 2. Lopez threw a punch, grabbed his shoulder, and waved submission to the ref. No word on exactly what the injury is as of yet.

Eliot Marshall defeats Jason Brilz via split decision

Vladimir Matyushenko wins via unanimous decision with a score of 30-27

Here are the results of the fights as seen on pay-per-view. Even though I gripe about how few fights we actually get to see for the money, UFC 103 showed more than normal. They even offered a couple of preliminary fights to view on SpikeTV before the PPV actually started. Hopefully they will continue to do this so people like me who are avid fans and buy each and every PPV wont feel cheated out of 50 bucks after the fight.

The first fight of the night belonged to Tyson Griffin and Hermes Franca. Franca steps into the ring with light purple hair, reminiscent of Carol Burnett in Mama's Family. Round one starts out with an aggressive back and forth between the two until Franca catches a knee to the chin and hits the mat for Griffin to take advantage of some ground and pound. In 3:30 of round one, Tyson Griffin wins by TKO over Hermes Franca making all the naysayers shut their mouths. After the win Griffin called Franca "...one of the toughest guys I've ever fought".

Fight two was Josh Koscheck versus Frank Trigg. Frank Trigg is another guy who has been absent from the UFC for a while (he's been fighting in WEC). Known as a great talent, his return was much anticipated and the crowd couldn't wait to see if he still had what it took to be a name in UFC. His walked into the ring to "Mama Said Knock You Out" by L.L. Cool J and looked extremely pumped up and ready to go. Well, that wasn't enough to win the fight. He got tagged on the chin only 1 minute and 25 seconds into the first round and fell to the mat. Koscheck followed up with several more punches and the ref called a stop to the fight, declaring Koscheck the winner by TKO. Trigg insisted to the ref that he wasn't out and was quite pissed at the stoppage. There was no doubt that he wasn't intelligently defending himself once he hit the ground, though. In the interview with Joe Rogan Koscheck said, "I'm super motivated right now!" and was asking for a fight with the hall-of-famer Matt Hughes.

Fight number three was between Martin Kampmann and Paul Daley. This would be Paul Daley's UFC debut, and a great one at that. After only a short time Daley unloaded on Kampmann against the cage, throwing punch after punch to his temples and face. Kampmann looked like he was out on his feet, so the ref called a stop to the fight declaring Daley the winner by TKO. Once again this was controversial stoppage because Kampmann insisted he wasn't out. When asked about the stoppage by Joe Rogan in the post-fight interview Daley said "I would have hurt him!"

Rob Emerson versus Rafaello Dos Anjos was fight four. In the beginning of the fight Dos Anjos worked on Emerson's left leg (his lead leg). He would shoot for the takedown and Emerson would defend them perfectly. Round one was a good back and forth between the two, as were rounds two and three. The fight went all the way to a 30-27 unanimous decision for the winner Rafaello Dos Anjos.

And we come to the first main event of the evening, Mirko Cro Cop versus Junior Dos Santos. I can't even pretend that I wasn't up on my feet biting my lip as this came on. Anyone who knows anything about MMA knows that Mirko Cro Cop is a brilliant striker who originally fought in Japan for PrideFC. He is hands down one of the absolute best (in my opinion) fighters in the business. It should also be said that since being acquired by the UFC, Cro Cop has had a really tough time adjusting. His last few fights haven't really looked like the Cro Cop we know and love making me curious as to what's going on with him. So I was really excited and rooting for him to come up with a big win. Junior Dos Santos is no one to be played around with. He is also known as an amazing striker with awesome power. Cro Cop said in a pre-fight interview that he was more experienced than Dos Santos, so he wasn't worried about him, and that he was hungry for a win, too. So here we go, all this set up and the fight is on. I'm drooling waiting for a knockout. In round one Cro Cop seemed reluctant to be the aggressor. After only a couple of brief exchanges by both men round one was over with Dos Santos bleeding over the right eye and under the left eye and Cro Cop had a mouse over his right eye. At the start of round two the crowd goes mad. Round two was much like round one except there were fewer strikes thrown by Cro Cop. He kind of acted like he was hurt (this is simply my observation). At the start of round 3 you can see that both men are really gassed with Cro Cop more-so. After Cro Cop takes a strike directly to the left eye socket, he signals to the ref that he can no longer see and therefore submits. I think he gave up long before he signalled, though. Unfortunately for a Cro Cop advocate like myself (I still swear he's not used up), Dos Santos wins in round 3 due to verbal submission. Dos Santos proved himself to be one to watch by winning this fight. In the post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, Dos Santos said, "I hope everybody enjoyed my fight!" while smiling from ear to ear.

On to the second main event of the evening. The return of UFC veteran Vitor Belfort to take on Rich 'Ace' Franklin would prove to be interesting. At the beginning of the fight there was talk saying if Belfort won then he could be the next person to try and knock the amazing Andersen Silva off his throne. At the beginning of round one the crowd starts an early Franklin chant. The two danced around each other sizing one another up. All of a sudden true to his style, Belfort exploded across the cage into Franklin with a temple shot that just grazed him but brought him to the ground. After just a couple more blows to the head the ref declared Franklin out and Belfort was the winner by TKO in round one. He showed a great amount of class by running over to Franklin and checking to make sure he was alright. When Franklin was on his feet the men embraced to show that there is sportsmanship in MMA. And these guys do have class. During the post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, Belfort yelled, "Jesus I love you!" to which the crowd exploded in laughter. Belfort smiled and said, "The glory is to God!" He called Franklin "...a great fighter, a great athlete, a great man". Rogan also interviewed Franklin and asked what he thought happened to end the fight. Franklin responded, "Honestly, at this point I'm a little scrambled." and that "...losing wasn't part of my plan."

Here is one of the fights we were treated to after the main events. Nik Lentz versus Rafaello Oliveira was a great technical battle between two men making their UFC debuts. Round one was action packed with back and forth striking and ground game. Round two was much of the same, and in round three both men seemed to be losing steam. The fight went all the way with the judges scoring the fight 29-28, 29-28, and 30-27 declaring Lentz the winner by unanimous decision.

Here is my surprising fight of the night between Brian Foster and Rick Story. It doesn't get much better than this one. As soon as the bell rings these two come out swinging. It starts out as an explosive striking bout going back and forth. The men take it to the ground and Story has blood pouring out of his nose. He stays in control on the ground, throwing elbows and scrambling to stay in the mount. After just a short time they are back on their feet for another war of strikes. Round two begins much the same way as round one with just as much energy and explosive action. They go back and forth on their feet until taking it to the ground where Story gains control again in the mount. He manages trap Foster's arm against the side of his head for a very rare arm triangle choke. Story said in his interview, "When I heard him wheezing I just squeezed a little harder to try and make him tap." That he did. This was Story's 1st UFC victory.