“UFC 73: Stacked Preview”
With the influx of talent from the recently purchased PRIDE FC, UFC 73: Stacked, broadcasting live this Saturday night on PPV, looks like the beginning of a welcomed trend. A cursory glance ahead suggests that despite running more shows than ever before, future UFC PPVs have the potential to feature similar levels of talent. UFC 74 has both Randy Couture fighting Gabriel Gonzaga and Josh Koscheck taking on Georges St. Pierre. There are even rumors of Diego Sanchez being a part of the card, though no one can quite figure out who he’ll be fighting (every name from Japanese star Hayato Sakurai to BJ Penn has been bandied about). This is almost assuredly a direct result of UFC President Dana White’s desire to fill the undercard of high profile fights with the stars of the future. White claims to have learned the lessons boxing’s mistakes have taught. When Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. set every record imaginable with their May fight, White was among the first to publicly criticize the promoters for not loading up the card with top talent. White was correct. On that day, a golden (boy?) opportunity was missed to expose the largest paying audience in fighting history to a new generation of potential draws. Instead, no major talent was focused upon and the next big fight was a UFC bout, not a boxing one. Rather than act as the springboard to a boxing revival, de la Hoya-Mayweather Jr. came across as more of a grand sendoff. Contrast this to UFC 71, headlined by Quinton Jackson challenging Chuck Liddell for the UFC light heavyweight title and the difference is night and day. New stars were made (Houston Alexander), current stars saw their status solidified (Karo Parisyan), and as millions witnessed Jackson slay the unbeatable Liddell, in the brief moment it took Liddell’s limp body to crash to the mat, a top draw was born. UFC 73 is following the footsteps of Jackson-Liddell. Featuring two title fights, a slightly manufactured (aren’t they all with Tito Ortiz?) grudge match, and the debut of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, one of the sport’s greatest heavyweights, there have been few UFC cards that can match this one for depth.
No matter what fight goes on last, it is Tito Ortiz that draws this show’s buys. In light of the 90-minute documentary that aired on Spike TV a few months ago, where the viewer was left with the indelible impression that Ortiz was afraid to fight White, there is some question to how strong is The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’s drawing power. Still, in 2006, Ortiz was a North American record setting machine: his fight with Forrest Griffin set a then MMA PPV buys record; his being a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 3 was part of a dynamic that saw the show reach a high in ratings subsequent seasons haven’t been able to touch; his July fight with Ken Shamrock set a then MMA PPV buys record (again); his October fight with Shamrock set a still standing (and unlikely to be broken anytime soon) MMA ratings record; and his December fight with Liddell set yet another MMA PPV buys record, one that may or may not still stand (pending the final tally from Jackson-Liddell). For Ortiz, 2006 was a good year. Even if his drawing power took a substantial hit as a result of the documentary, there’s no reason to believe he won’t still be able to generate tremendous casual fan interest. Going from 1,000,000 buys to 500,000 means one has still convinced half a million people to plunk down $40 to watch a fight. When it comes to a million: half the buys ain’t half bad.
Ortiz’s opponent is TUF 2 heavyweight champion, Rashad Evans. Evans also has a bit of a drawing track record to his credit. In January, he headlined this year’s most successful Fight Night, a show that drew a 1.7 rating. To be fair, much of that may have been residuals from the unprecedented interest in Liddell-Ortiz 2, which aired a few weeks earlier, and to the surprisingly strong turnout for the UFC debut of Heath Herring (no doubt generated from the repeated playing of his infamous pre-fight knockout of Yoshihiro Nakao after the Japanese fighter had planted a kiss on Herring’s lips). However, no other Fight Night special has approached those numbers, and he was the name on the marquee, so some credit goes to the Evans.
Ortiz’s recent career has been odd. One has to go back to UFC 33, Zuffa’s disastrous “coming out party,” when he beat Vladimir Matyushenko, to find a fight where Ortiz soundly defeated a quality opponent. For all they meant at the box office, his victories over Shamrock carry little weight in terms of pure sport. He looked flat awful against a middleweight Patrick Cote, and barely earned split decisions over Griffin and Vitor Belfort. He obviously lost twice to Liddell.
It is a happy coincidence for Ortiz that Evans is very similar to Matyushenko. Matyushenko was a junior college national champion, and later excelled at the University of Nevada, all this after an international wrestling career as a member of the Belarusian national team (in 1994 he defected to the USA). Evans was a 2000 junior college national champion while wrestling for Niagra County Community College. The next year he moved from the 165 lb weight class to 174 lbs and transferred to Michigan State University. He did not have great success in the Big Ten, compiling a record of 48-34 over a three year period, but anyone that can compete in that conference knows a thing or two about wrestling. Added to Evans credentials is the fact that he defeated legendary wrestler Greg Jones during his MSU tenure. (Jones was a 3 time NCAA champion.)
Much of the fight’s breakdown seems reminiscent of Matyushenko-Ortiz. Back then, many thought that Matyushenko’s superior wrestling credentials would nullify Ortiz’s biggest strength, and the Belarusian would be able to out-wrestle the former two-time California State Wrestling Champion en route to a victory. Today, one can see a similar plot thread emerging. The better credentialed Evans is expected to out-wrestle Ortiz and get the win. It didn’t happen then, it may not happen now. Let’s look at the fight in three separate categories: wrestling (takedowns and clinch work), striking, and grappling/ground and pound.
STRIKING
Despite the high-kick that knocked Salmon out colder than his namesake at the grocery store, Evans hasn’t shown a great ability to strike. He once demonstrated a willingness to throw “punches in bunches” but has changed that in recent times. Against Brad Imes, Evans would throw one punch after another, mostly consisting of repeated hooks, and never with any real rhyme or reason. This seemed to change late last year, specifically in his most impressive professional performance to date, his decisive TKO of Jason Lambert. Evans was more willing to patiently attempt to counter rather than just throw on a wing and a prayer. He repeated this pattern with Salmon, again waiting back and countering with one or two punches at a time. He tends to favor a straight right as both a lead and counter.
Ortiz is a better striker than for which some give him credit. Yes, Liddell knocked him out twice, but over the course of both fights, Ortiz put together two solid rounds; the first round of the first fight and the second round of the second fight both saw Ortiz out-pointing Liddell on the feet, moving in and out with his strikes, mixing up his punches with technically sound (though a tad underwhelming) leg kicks. No one will soon confuse Ortiz with Anderson Silva or Mirko CroCop, but he has improved a great deal over the years.
Advantage: Slightly for Tito Ortiz. Evans has shown more power while standing, but Ortiz has shown the ability to hang with some of the sport’s best strikers. Evans is more likely to knock Ortiz out than vice versa, but Ortiz’s technique should prove superior and allowed him to score more while on the feet.
GRAPPLING/GROUND AND POUND
Evans has never impressed in the submission department. He has enough ability to avoid being tapped by fighters like Stephan Bonnar, but doesn’t truly pass the guard with regularity nor does he overly attempt anything approximating a submission hold. Until he fought Lambert, Evans never showed aggression on the ground and his lay and pray was dry paint drying levels of bad.
Ortiz has competed at the highest levels of submission grappling on earth, only losing twice while participating in the prestigious Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World Championship. Though he has only tapped out one man in MMA, using a neck crank variation on Yuki Kondo, Ortiz knows his submissions. He’s not at the level of Marcelo Garcia or anything, but he can evenly grapple with most on the planet. Ortiz is more than willing to open up while on top and has made elbows from inside the guard his fighting signature. There are few, if any, men in the sport that drop elbows like Ortiz.
Advantage: Strongly for Tito Ortiz. Where Evans can simply avoid submissions, Ortiz can perform them. Off his back, one suspects that Evans will still be a fish out of water. Conversely, even though one can’t imagine Ortiz wants to fight off his back, he’s likely to be far more comfortable there than Evans. Ortiz is in better position to pass the guard and perform sweeps should the need present itself. He has defined ground and pound and whatever Evans can dish out in that department, he’s only following the blueprint drawn by Ortiz.
WRESTLING
Just on paper, Evans is a better wrestler. Men like Rulon Gardner, Brock Lesnar, Shelton Benjamin, the aforementioned Matyushenko (in fact, Benjamin and Matyushenko both won while wrestling for Lassen College, in back-to-back years, ’96 and ’97 respectively), Cain Velazquez, Tom Erikson, and Matt Lindland have all won National Junior College Athletic Association Championships. However, this isn’t a straight wrestling match, this is mixed martial arts, and that changes things a great deal. The distance is greater and there’s that tricky little issue of having to worry about getting punched square in the face that both make takedowns … more challenging. Sean Salmon, a better amateur wrestler than Evans, but someone not even near Ortiz in terms of MMA, was able to take the first round from Evans back in January using nothing but his wrestling. And Sean Salmon was a guy that can, and likely someday will, fight at 185 lbs.
Evans was also more decorated at lower weight classes. At 165 lbs he was obviously a great wrestler, but on Saturday he’ll compete 40 lbs heavier. Ortiz knows what to expect from great wrestlers at that weight class. Though he lost, he managed to go the distance with Randy Couture. I’ve seen Randy Couture fight. Randy Couture is (not) a friend of mine. You, Rashad Evans, are no Randy Couture. Even Couture commented on how physically strong Ortiz was, a fact that countless others have verified over the years. Evans has fought bigger men before, Imes immediately springs to mind, so he’s been in there with giant, powerful people, but Ortiz’s strength might be something for which one simply can’t prepare. Evan’s technical superiority may be offset by Ortiz’s raw power.
Sometimes lost is the fact that Ortiz will likely be better in the transitions department. Whether it be rolling from the guard and moving into a single leg, or being able to shoot for a double after escaping rear-control, Ortiz will simply be better and more used to the normal positions of MMA based wrestling. The angles that need be defended against in MMA are greater in number and uniqueness and Ortiz may be able to surprise Evans by attacking from a location the TUF 2 winner isn’t expecting.
Advantage: Even. If Evans can keep the fight upright, his wrestling base will be more valuable, but as soon as they start playing a game that more resembles ADCC than NCAA, he’s in danger.
INTANGIBLES
Those pesky “x-factors” always seem to make the difference, don’t they? This is the one category where the advantage is clearly for Evans. Fight fans know how good Ortiz is. He’s slightly tweaked his game over the years, and made subtle improvements here and there, but he’s basically the same guy that took opponents down, brought them to the fence, and let his elbows drop like hail on a brand new car. Evans, though, is a different story. On TUF 2, he appeared to want to stand more than one would expect from a straight wrestler, he then began his professional UFC career by becoming more of the traditional lay and pray wrestler, and has now transformed once again into something approximating a well-rounded MMArtist. In 2006, he went from narrowly managing a split decision victory of Sam Hoger and a majority decision over Stephan Bonnar, to laying utter waste to Jason Lambert, knocking out The Punisher in the 2nd round with punches from the mount. He followed all that up with a highlight-reel high kick KO of Sean Salmon. The latter two fights ended in ways that were improbable a year prior.
There is also the matter of how this fight is viewed by each fighter. For Ortiz, this is just one more thing he needs to do in order to return to the light heavyweight title picture. As talented as Evans is, and may one day be, in the eyes of Ortiz he’s just another fighter. When one has fought Liddell, Belfort, and Couture, all at or near their respective peaks, an up and comer can’t exactly be the kind of opponent that truly motivates a man to take his training to the next level. For Evans, this is the biggest fight of his career, plain and simple. He knows that a win over Ortiz propels him into instant superstardom and could even possibly earn him a shot at the light heavyweight championship. Saturday is Evans chance to become a true name in the sport and that’s all the motivation he’ll need.
The final piece of the intangible pie would be where each man trains. Ortiz was ahead of his time in taking himself up to Big Bear, high in the mountains with the thin air that guarantees a deep gas tank, and secluded from the distractions of the outside world. He has recently moved into a several-thousand square foot training facility/luxury home that was once owned by none other than Oscar de la Hoya. When training, Ortiz is assuredly the big deal in the camp, and everyone around him knows it. This is a huge benefit as it should allow him to receive all the focus he needs and promises that if he’s not in perfect shape, it’s his fault, no one else’s.
Evans has been spending his days and nights with Greg Jackson’s Camp, just a little south of Ortiz, in New Mexico. Like Big Bear, Jackson’s camp trains in higher altitude conditions, infamously scaling a local mountain in what is a cardio killer. Jackson’s camp, despite a few recent losses, has quickly become one of MMA’s top locals at which to train. Evans will find no shortage of great training partners, and on any given day could find himself wrestling with Mike Van Arsdale, grappling with Diego Sanchez and Nathan Marquardt, or striking with Keith Jardine and Georges St. Pierre (who has been known to make the lengthy trip down from Montreal). If the old adage that a fighter is only as good as those around him is true, then Evans is very, very good. However, there may be one slight disadvantage to training with Jackson. Marquardt is scheduled to fight UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva on the same card, which means that within one camp there are two fighters taking on the biggest challenge of their life. Time is finite and though one guesses it won’t be a factor, there’s always the chance that the Jackson camps attention is split too many ways and that one, or both, of these men could see their training suffer. Ortiz is getting all the attention when he trains, Evans might not.
Advantage: Evans. Even though there’s a chance the Marquardt fight could take from Evans’ training time, all the other un-quantifiables are in his favor.
Winner: Call it a pick-em if you want, this one is a very intriguing battle. I lean towards Ortiz taking it by either ground and pound TKO or judges decision, but an Evans victory would be far from the most surprising thing this year. Tito Ortiz defeats Rashad Evans by unanimous decision.
Elsewhere on the card:
Anderson Silva defends his middleweight title against relative (to the masses) unknown, but very talented, Nathan Marquardt. Marquardt is a modern fighter, with no area of his game greatly stronger than the other. He began his career as mostly a submission grappler, and has a black belt in jiu-jitsu to solidify his claim of owning solid ground skills, but his recent fights have seen him mostly stay standing. Of course, standing with Silva for too long is like breathing radon: it’s hazardous to one’s health.
One fact to remember: in 2007, three world-class strikers have all been knocked out (Mirko CroCop by Gabriel Gonzaga, Duane Ludwig by Paul Daley, Carter Williams by Paul Buentello) and still, no champion has successfully defended his title. Silva is both a world-class striker and a champion. Still, Anderson Silva knocks out Nathan Marquardt in the third round.
For the first time, Sean Sherk will defend his lightweight title, taking on Hermes Franca. Franca is the proverbial whirling dervish of activity, never throwing a strike in any way that resembles crisp and clean, but often making it work. He comes in with out of control punches and big knees that have a nasty habit or connecting. On the ground, he is an outstanding grappler and will never stop looking for submissions; Franca does not tie up someone and look for a return to the feet, he forces opponents to constantly be on the defense and never gives them a moments rest. Also, unlike many jiuj-jitsu practitioners, Franca loves leg locks. Don’t be surprised if Franca sits down while in Sherk’s guard and goes for a heel hook.
Sherk’s game plan is as simple as it is effective. Stay standing only long enough to bring it to the mat. He is not a great striker, but his defense is tight, and he possesses one of the sport’s best shots. On the mat, he can feel like a rock, and with no neck and short arms is built like one to such a degree that locking on a submission can be impossible – no one has been able to do so in 34 professional fights spanning eight years. He is not overly aggressive on top, but will throw short elbows when he feels it’s safe. He likes to pass the guard, but will probably find it difficult to do so against Franca.
Sean Sherk retains his title by unanimous decision.
The last big fight on the card is the UFC debut of legendary heavyweight Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. A winner of both a 32 man RINGS tournament and the first ever PRIDE heavyweight champion, Nogueira has been there and done that. Never is that more true than his fighting Heath Herring, a man he has defeated twice. The first time was when in the fight to crown the first PRIDE heavyweight champion, the second time was to advance in a PRIDE Grand Prix. In their combined fights, Herring and Nogueira have fought one another for a combined 31 minutes, and never in that entire half-hour had Herring been anything but outclassed. This is Nogueira’s first time in a cage in many years, but he’s too talented to lose this fight.
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira taps out Heath Herring in the first round with a triangle choke, transitioning from an oma plata. (How’s that for specific.)
A note about the Chris Benoit story: I have purposely chosen to not write about it, and did not discuss it on my radio show. I do not think I can offer any new insight into what happened and am not sure I’d be qualified to dole out any advice/analysis of the situation. What took place, and how fans deal with it, is a question better answered by the philosophers or the Bible, not by me.
Want more analysis of UFC 73? (You do? Really?) Head over to f4wonline.com and give Mike’s radio show, Five Star Radio, a listen. If you can find a better breakdown of this Saturday, we’ll buy you a donut (provided said donut is imaginary). Plus, this week’s episode clocks in at over 3 hours in length and celebrates one year of existence! It’s an anniversary extravaganza~! {plug}
Send us a news tip: newstips@wrestlingobserver.com
Note to webmasters/reporters: When recapping news from this site or from our newsletters, please include a link to www.wrestlingobserver.com
For the most in-depth and detailed news and analysis on pro-wrestling and MMA, always turn to Wrestlingobserver.com/Figure Four Weekly Online, the #1 website of its kind on the Internet. Members receive online access to both the Wrestling Observer and Figure Four Weekly newsletters and growing archives, Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer three times per week, the popular Bryan and Vinny Show twice per week, additional radio shows including Figure Four Daily with Alvarez, Mike Coughlin's Five Star Radio, the Dr. Keith Lipinski Show, The Adam and Mike Big Audio Nightmare, Tough Talk and the Karl Stern Wrestling History Show, the infamous BOARD, and more! Members also have full access to the thousands of hours of audio in our radio show archives which date back to 2005. For your convenience, we offer secure online payments using your VISA, Mastercard, American Express, Discover card or PayPal account. Don't miss out on the fun, sign up now! Don\'t miss out on the fun, sign up now!
Want full access? QUICK AND EASY $10.99 SIGNUP!
