UFC 123 Quinton Rampage Jackson vs. Lyoto Machinda November 20th, 2010 from Detroit Michigan
4 former champs in the ring in one night.
Rampage Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida - light heavyweight
Machida has recently lost his belt in a rematch against Mauricio Shogun Rua. Before then he was undefeated. Usually he trains in his home country, Brazil, but for this fight he has moved his training to San Diego, California. In Brazil it is hard for him to find sparing partners in or above his weight class. In San Diego he trains with the Nogueira brothers and Junior Dos Santos. They definitely have different fighting styles than Rampage but they are a much better size match.
Rampage's camp oddly enough is less than 100 miles north of Machida's in Orange County, California. He also often trains overseas, in the UK at Wolfslair MMA Academy. To avoid being away from his family any more than he already is, he moved all his training to within 10 minutes of his home. Like Machida, Rampage has also been champ in this division and took the belt in 2007 from Chuck Liddell by knockout in the first round. He defended it once that same year against Dan Henderson to become the first undisputed light heavyweight Champion but lost it in 2008 to Forrest Griffin. Since then he has only fought 3 times, two wins against Keith Jardine and Wanderlei Silva and a loss to Rashad Evans, his opposing coach on the 10th season of the Ultimate Fighter. The win against Silva was pretty important to Rampage because the two had met twice before when they fought in Pride, another MMA league. Rampage lost both times and actually refuses to watch footage of the second fight when he was knocked out cold and fell stiff legged through the ropes (Pride fights in a boxing style ring, not a fenced in cage). Rampage has become a super strong and aggressive fighter. Most of his wins have come from either knockout of TKO. He's a little obnoxious and incredibly arrogant but for some reason I have always really liked him. He always wear a ridiculously large chain around his neck and howls like some sort of wild animal. In an interview he says he doesn't know when he started the howling but he remembers the day he got good. He was biking through his neighbourhood one evening and a woman on the street told him she heard a pack of wild dogs that are coming up fast so he better hurry home. And he just said Mrs. Johnson, that was me! I feel like Machida was kind of a boring champ, I'd like to see Rampage back at the top!
Matt Hughes vs. BJ Penn - welterweight
Similar to Machida, Penn has recently lost his lightweight belt to Frankie Edgar and in his last fight lost the rematch against him. He is back fighting at 170 now to face Hughes in their 3rd fight rubber match. These guys have fought two times before. In their first fight in January of 2004, Penn won by submission at the end of the very first round taking the belt from Hughes. The second time they fought it was very different. Penn was Challenging Hughes for the belt that he had fought back for and It was set to be a 5 round fight. It didn't make it that far as Hughes got in Penn in a crucifix and finished him in the 3rd round. If you don't know, a crucifix is when a fighter has top control and ties up both arms, leaving the bottom fighters head completely vulnerable to a nice little beat down. In this position Penn had no chance to get out of the hold and the ref had to put an end to the punishment.
I am so excited for this rubber match. Hughes is coming off a three fight win streak where he took out some big guys. The first was a unanimous decision win against Matt Serra in May 2009. The next was a TKO defeat of Renzo Gracie, a pretty famous family name in the UFC in April 2010. And the third was his first round submission victory over one of the Gracies' top students Ricardo Almeda in September 2010. This will be his thrid fight in 2010. He hasn't had three fights in the same year since 2006, fighters usually average 1 or 2 fights a year. Although that number is getting higher with UFC events happening more and more often as they get more popular around the world.
Although BJ has lost his last two fights you can't under estimate him at all. He held the welterweight title in 2004 but it was taken from him when he decided to leave the UFC to join another fighting league in Japan called K-1 where he fought and defeated Duane Ludwig, Rodrigo Gracie and Renzo Gracie. After loosing to GSP and Hughes his first two fights back in the UFC in 2006 he has mainly fought in the lightweight division. He took the lightweight belt from Joe Stevenson in 2008 and defended it three times against great fighters Sean Sherk, Kenny Florian, and Diego Sanchez before loosing it to Frankie Edgar in April 2010. I wasn't really been a big fan of BJ when I started watching the UFC but since watching old fights thanks to Spike reruns I do like him. He just has a very different training style. When I have seen his training the the UFC countdowns he has a very laid back, mellow approach. Maybe its the Hawaiian thing but other fighters seem to be a lot more intense and care more. BJBJ on the mat. He wants to take a tired BJ to the mat like he did the second time they fought and beat him that way.
George Sotiropoulos vs. Joe Lauzon - lightweight
I like both these guys but I'm definitely going with Lauzon. He is from a small little cowtown and has often been seen as the underdog in his fights. In his UFC debut against Jens Pulver we was brought in to be a stepping stone for Pulver. He ws brought in to get knocked out as many people saw Pulver as a big up and coming name in the UFC. Lauzon went in and knocked him out cold in the first minute of the very first round. Since then Pulver has lost almost every fight but that's not the point, before then he was winning almost every fight and had a lot more experience than Lauzon. After this win Lauzon was selected to be a contestant on the 5th season of The Ultimate Fighter. He fought under BJ Penn's leadership and ironically enough the opposing coach was Jens Pulver. Lauzon made it pretty far that season, loosing out in the semi-finals. He had the opportunity to fight in the season 5 finale anyway and won the submission of the night bonus for his defeat of Bryan Melendez. 6 of his last 8 fights have been awarded bonuses, either fight of the night, knock-out of the night or submission of the night with only 2 being losses. Lauzon was a major gamer before he got into fighting, he would sit and play video games for 8-10 hours a day. It got to the point where his eyes would burn from looking at the tv screen for so long, he knew he had to find something else to fill his time. He chose to try out jiu-jitsu training and made a complete switch from 8-10 hours of video games a day to 8-10 hours of training a day. He has a really great work ethic and goes by the saying, don't put off to tomorrow what you can do today. The way he talks about past fights is really interesting. He knows exactly whats going on and what his game plan is and is able to explain himself very well. When he fought Kyle Bradley he knew the voice of his opponent's coach and was able to hear his instruction. When he saw Bradley going for the big hook he was able to duck out of the way and get the takedown. His most recent win was a beautiful armbar submission of his housemate from The Ultimate Fighter and huge trash talker Gabe Ruediger. I don't mind the trash talking if you can back it up and this guy definitely did not.
Sotiropoulos trains all over the world. Where ever he can get training and experience he will go there and get it. He has fought big names like Joe Daddy Stevenson and Kurt Pelligrino and worked both of them. He has not loss since 2006 and including that has only lost twice in his professional career. He seems like a class act but I really just like Lauzon better in this one. Both fighters are very strong and technically skilled. They are submission artists with aggressive knockout power. In the end it is going to come down to who can push harder for longer.
The other fights I'm not as excited about I'd like to see. Id like to see Mark Munoz and Paul Kelly pull in the W as well as Edson Barboza, mostly only because I just nicknamed him the Captain. But with the 3 top fights I know this card is going to be another great one to watch no matter what and I'm definitely looking forward to Saturday night.
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