Posted on 5/29/2007 5:42:41 PM

UFC 71 Fight Results - The Iceman Gets Iced

By BetUS Staff

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It was supposed to be a war. A rematch of never before seen greatness. The champion out for vengeance and the challenger bent on a repeat.

It turned out to be one minute and fifty seconds of everybody holding their breath, and three seconds of anticlimactic explosiveness. How’s that for an oxy moron?

An amazing undercard of unprecedented MMA action culminated in one of the most lack luster main events in recent memory.

Lately we have been privy to one underachieving under card after another, only to be shocked by the sheer magnitude of the main event upset. At UFC 71, we saw some of the best action possible in the octagon under cards, with first round pummeling’s to precision submittals, only to be let down by a blind, be it well timed, right hook to the button.

The prelude to the Jackson Liddell super fight could not have been better groomed, beginning with for Ultimate Fighter 1 standout Chris Leben losing a decision to Ultimate Fighter 3 champion, Kalib Starnes. Action packed from start to finished, Kalib carried the action for all but one minute of the entire fight, when Leben caught him with a shot to the liver and took the wind out of his sails. Starnes quickly recovered, finished strong and toughed out a victory; not a bad start.

Next up, relative unknown Houston Alexander faced TUF 3 winner and straight up tough S.O.B Keith Jardine in what was supposed to be a routine beat down for the Dean of Mean. But Alexander came out chucking, and absolutely overwhelmed Jardine with a barrage of right hooks and uppercuts, putting Jardine out cold at :48 of the first round.

Bring on Terry Martin and Ivan Salaverry. Whoops, a technical and cautious Salaverry is obliterated by an uber-aggressive Martin and at 2:04 of round one its lights out Salaverry and three underdogs in a row come up big.

Now that everybody’s knockout quota has been hit for the night, we’re ready for some technical warfare. Karo Parisyan put on a clinic against Josh Burkman, showing a steady defense and consistent enough striking to break the will of his opponent, instead of just overwhelming him with skill. Perfect.

 

The only aspect of MMA we hadn’t seen yet was a good lesson in submission fighting. No problem, Din Thomas and Jeremy Stephens have us covered. With a textbook display of technical submission skills, Din Thomas schooled 21 year old Stephens and ended his night with a picture perfect armbar stoppage at 2:44 of the second round. Thomas looked like the teacher in the octagon and Stephens like the failing student made to look bad in front of his classmates. Din Thomas is a pimp.

And on to the main event. Liddell’s shot at revenge. The new guy vs the golden boy of the UFC. A cautious start on the part of both fighters, and its over almost before it began. Liddell lunges in and lands a left to the body that is partially blocked by Rampage, who in turn throws a blind right hook in the direction of Liddell’s head…and blammo. It happens to land perfectly on the button. Not a super hard punch. Not terribly accurate. But it landed exactly where it needed to put Chuck on his butt long enough for Jackson to land a few elbows and hammer fists and end the fight at 1:53 of the first round. I don’t know what the punch stats were, but I don’t really remember anything else of significance landing. No brawl, nobody getting beat up. Just a perfectly anticlimactic thud to one of the most hyped fights in UFC history.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that yet again, an underdog takes home a UFC main event.

See, this article ended as anticlimactic as UFC 71

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