Written by Jim Murphy
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Monday, August 04 2008
Cantwell TKO’s Stann, Varner beats Hicks in an action packed card televised live on the Versus TV network.
Even when things have gone right for Zuffa, LLC lately they still can’t catch a break. On Sunday night, a Zuffa owned promotion presented an excellent card featuring stunning upsets, decisive knockouts and a fight of the year candidate. And once again it was the promotion nominally considered Zuffa’s #2 among the company’s promotional properties, World Extreme CageFighting (WEC) that served up the excitement. On the heels of WEC 34 in Sacramento, an event that offered a couple of ‘fight of the year’ candidates headlined by Urijah Faber’s featherweight title defense against Jens Pulver, WEC 35 provided the non-stop intensity that has often been missing in many of the recent UFC events.
In the main event, WEC welterweight champion Carlos Condit survived the toughest challenge of his title reign to emerge victorious over tough judoka turned striker Hiromitsu Miura. “Survived”, in this instance at least, is not mere fight journalist hyperbole—with both fighters clearly past the point of exhaustion in the waning moments of round 4 it was more of a case of one mustering the energy and the opportunity to put the other away than it was an achievement of any sort of dominant victory. At several points in the fight Miura appeared to be on the verge of providing the second title change of the evening, only to see Condit eventually escape with his title in a spectacular display of toughness and heart on the part of both men.
Though Condit likely was ahead three rounds to none heading into the decisive fourth frame, this does nothing to convey the incredible effort put forth by Miura. Early on, Miura’s strategic response to Condit’s excellent clinch game became apparent—he used his slick judo skills to throw or sweep the champion anytime he tried to tie him up. In the process, he displayed some of best judo-to-MMA application seen on this side of the Pacific in league with PRIDE/World Victory Road Olympic gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida.
And, much like Yoshida, Miura wasn’t afraid to get involved in standup exchanges. In the opening round Condit was clearly surprised by his opponent’s handspeed and “pop”. On the ground Miura did an impressive job defending against Condit’s submissions and repeatedly used his background in judo fundamentals to extricate himself or reverse the position to his advantage. As the 4th round began, both fighters were nearly “out on their feet” and only Condit’s toughness and determination—combined with Miura’s exhaustion preventing him from pressing his offensive advantage—allowed him to prevail.
The decisive sequence began when referee Herb Dean stood up the two fighters after a spent Miura was unable to continue a ground and pound attack. As the combatants reengaged, Condit caught Miura with a knee strike that sent the challenger to the ground face first. The champ less mounted his opponent as he fell on him, and despite Condit’s hammer strikes to the back of the head having little force behind them Miura was simply running on a less than empty tank and just couldn’t defend himself. After a half dozen uncontested blows Herb Dean had no option but to step in and call a stop to the match of the year candidate, declaring Condit the winner by TKO.
The toll of the bout was evident in the post fight, with Miura all but passed out on the canvas for nearly five minutes from sheer exhaustion. Condit wasn’t in much better shape, and appeared on the verge of collapse during his interview where he rightfully commended his opponent’s toughness repeatedly. This matchup was intended to be a showcase for Condit on national TV against an opponent perceived as “beatable”, but instead it turned into one of the toughest fights of his career. A rematch of this epic is a no-brainer, and could blossom into one of the great rivalries in the nascent history of mixed martial arts in America.
On the undercard, a rematch between decorated US Marine combat hero Brian Stann and Steve Cantwell with the light heavyweight title on the line had a completely different result from their first go-round. In their first meeting, Cantwell made the mistake of getting into a slugfest with the tough as nails and powerful—but somewhat one dimensional—light heavyweight champion. Cantwell may have also underestimated the heavy hands of “The All American”, but whatever the motivation the result was a TKO victory for Stann in under a minute. This time around, Cantwell employed a more tactical striking game leveraging his superior fundamental boxing and kickboxing skills, resulting in a diverse attack of kicks and effective counterpunching. The gutsy Stann had no answer for this well rounded assault, and eventually succumbed to the TKO late in the 2nd round.
Though the two fighters had exchanged sharp words in advance of the bout, Stann displayed nothing but class in defeat. Shortly after the stoppage he embraced his opponent, then placed the light heavyweight title belt around the new champion’s waist before ducking out as to not infringe upon Cantwell’s moment of glory in front of the Versus cameras. Win or lose, Zuffa should be making Stann a highly visible presence in the mainstream media—his tough, powerful fighting style plus his background as a legitimate war hero is as an effective of a refutation for the media’s clueless and repeated mischaracterizations of the sport as can be made.
Jamie Varner’s night was a little easier in comparison with the other two champions featured on the card, as he stopped Marcus “The Wrecking Ball” Hicks midway through the first round. Despite the relatively quick stoppage, Hicks impressed everyone with his toughness and ability to take a punch. Hicks is something of a lightweight, African-American version of Jeff Monson who makes up for his diminutive stature (5’6”) by using his strength and low center of gravity to take down his opponents at will. Varner was no exception—in 2:30 Hicks took the champion down twice. The quick thinking Varner caught Hicks on a third takedown attempt with a big knee, and then unleashed a barrage of punches before punctuating the sequence with another knee strike that sent him to the canvas. Hicks makes like Ben Rothwell and pops right back up from a power striking onslaught that would have left 99.9% of professional fighters out cold. Varner then unleashed another multipunch combination that Hicks walked right through, before catching him with another knee. At this point Hicks was clearly out on his feet but unwilling to go down, necessitating yet another three punch combination to put him down for good.
Varner was clearly impressed by his opponent’s tenacity and ability to absorb punishment, and in a strange case of role reversal all but demanded a rematch *for* Hicks. To his credit, he was very humble in victory and more interested in effusively praising his opponent than celebrating his victory. Varner concluded by insisting that Hicks was “the real deal”, and fight won’t disagree with that assessment. Should he be able to temper his game with a bit of patience, Hicks could do very well in a potential rematch with the WEC lightweight champion.
In the opening televised bout, bantamweight prospect Brian Bowles dominated Demacio Page with his well honed boxing and submission skills. Page was on the defensive from the outset, fending off Bowles’ slick multi-punch combinations and an early guillotine choke attempt. After a missed kick attempt by Page, Bowles knocked his opponent to the canvas with a hard counter right hand. As Page was getting to his feet, Bowles met him coming up and locked in a very tight guillotine choke that forced the tapout at 3:30 of the opening round.
The WEC’s next big event will take place at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida on September 10, 2008. In the main event, WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber will defend his title against tough Portland, OR native Mike Brown. The undercard features a rematch of the controversial Paulo Fihlo/Chael Sonnen bout from December 2007. Also on the card is “Razor” Rob McCullough, and an intriguing featherweight bout between veterans Jens Pulver and Leonard Garcia. Pulver was last seen in the epic battle with Faber mentioned at the outset of this article, while Garcia has spent much of 2008 fighting a cocaine trafficking charge. Now exonerated from wrongdoing, Garcia will no doubt be anxious to get his fighting career back on track. The card is expected to once again air live on Versus and on paper looks to be yet another very entertaining evening of MMA action.
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