Cruz Caps Explosive Night With Title Defense

You can be excused if you were actually surprised when Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber were both able to take solid punches and go on fighting. If anything, UFC 132 was an entertaining reminder of just how brutal mixed martial arts can be. It seemed like every other punch resorted in a knockdown or knockout at some points, as a stretch of five out of six fights before the main event featured someone either being knocked out, TKOed, or at least rocked by a strike.

Even Tito Ortiz got in on the action! Yes, Tito Ortiz.

In the night’s only title fight, though, Cruz showed off his once-novel, now familiar style in a five-round win over Faber, who seemed all too content to play Cruz’s game throughout the fight. Both had their moments, but in the end there are probably few that would disagree that Cruz won at least three of the five rounds. The unanimous decision victory ensured that Cruz’s title reign, which is looking more dominant all the time, would continue on.

Most of the talk will surround the other fights, though, especially two bouts that featured a couple of the best light heavyweight fighters in MMA’s short history, Wanderlei Silva and Tito Ortiz.

Silva competes at middleweight these days, of course, and the weight difference and changed appearance due to surgery that removed scar tissue above his eyes (and fixed his nose, to boot) aren’t the only things different about him. He made it just 27 seconds against Chris Leben, a fighter who is solid enough but wouldn’t have lasted a ten-minute round with the Wanderlei Silva that was terrorizing Japan years ago.

Leben, like many of Silva’s opponents these days, was undeterred by Silva’s mystique and clipped him behind the ear early on, visibly wobbling the former Pride Middleweight Champion. Silva reacted by going to what he’s most comfortable with: the Thai clinch. Before he could ever get his hands secured behind Leben’s head, though, Leben was firing away with crisp uppercuts that easily found their mark on the groggy legend, who face-planted as a result. Follow-up shots sealed the deal as Silva was knocked out once again in ugly fashion.

Ortiz fared much better against a legitimate top ten fighter in Ryan Bader, as he was able to land a short right uppercut of his own that hurt the younger fighter, then choke him out for the submission in round one of their fight. The uppercut, which was thrown at an angle and was almost a half-hook, half-uppercut landed flush and rocked Bader. Then, Ortiz followed him to the ground and when Bader went for the desperation takedown, the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” cinched on a guillotine choke. Bader had one arm in, but still had to tap several seconds later as he was trapped in Ortiz’s guard.

The other finish on the main card belonged to Carlos Condit, who was able to knock out Dong Hyun Kim in their bout. If Leben’s KO of Silva was hard to watch, Condit’s was easier on the eyes, as he kicked things off with a beautiful flying knee that tagged Kim. Kim ended up sitting with his back on the cage and Condit was all over him, throwing lefts and rights that left him unable to defend himself, then unable to retain consciousness, as well. Kim showed an eagerness to work his gameplan and hit takedowns early on, but he wasn’t able to stick around long enough to put Condit on the defensive.

The other main card bout pitted Dennis Siver against Matt Wiman, who worked hard throughout for takedowns and control but ultimately lost a unanimous decision. Siver fought well, though he wasn’t as impressive as in his win against George Sotiropoulos. At one point in the second round, Wiman had opened up two cuts on the forehead of Siver, both of which were bleeding heavily, but Siver pushed through it and did enough off of his back and standing up to get the “W”.

On the preliminary card, Melvin Guillard added another highlight-reel knockout to his total against Shane Roller, who Guillard tagged with an uppercut and left hook that put him down, then a knee that hurt him again as he was getting up. A perfect left hand to Roller after he fell to his back put him away for good and gave Guillard another win. George Sotiropoulos was the victim of a knockout in his fight against Rafael dos Anjos, as dos Anjos clipped him less than a minute into their fight, causing Yves Lavigne to get in and stop the fight quickly.

Elsewhere on the prelims, Brian Bowles and Aaron Simpson took one-sided decisions over Takeya Mizugaki and Brad Tavares, respectively. Anthony Njokuani dominated Andre Winner and had long stretches where he landed unanswered blows, but was unable to finish Winner and settled for a unanimous decision. In the first fight of the night, Jeff Hougland showcased several submission attempts during his unanimous decision victory over Donny Walker.

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Tags: Carlos Condit, Chris Leben, Dennis Siver, Dominick Cruz, Dong Hyun Kim, George Sotiropoulos, Matt Wiman, Melvin Guillard, Ryan Bader, Shane Roller, Tito Ortiz, UFC, UFC 132, Wanderlei Silva