MMA In 2006: Dominations of The Year
Posted by RB, 14 Dec 2006
Now that the New Year Eve shows of Pride and the UFC are the only big fight cards left to look forward to in 2006, it is time to look back on the past year of mixed martial arts action and reminisce over the highlights of the last twelve months.
'Fights of the year' are one way to do it, but they tend to pick out the fights that went into the late rounds, and which had healthy dosages of 'toing' and 'froing'. A war, as they say, with plenty of action coming from both directions. Which, needless to say, does pick out great fights.
But it also leaves a lot of other great fights unmentioned: namely, the bouts where a fighter ran through their opponent in a fashion more dominant and impressive than anyone but their diehard fans expected. Fights that should have been competitive, but turned into steamrolling affairs where one fighter (often the favourite, too) had no answer for the other's stellar showing on the night. In short, demonstrations in the art of extreme man-handling.
Each year such fights always account for some of the most exciting and memorable bouts, whether they can be called 'fights of the year' or not (and, yes, some of them can be). With that said, I give you five great dominating performances from 2006.
5. Chuck Liddell vs Renato Sobral
Renato Sobral had been on a tear since he beat Trevor Prangley, Mauricio Rua, and Jeremy Horn all in one night back in September 2003. In fact, he had been undefeated since before then, his last lost being against Chuck Liddell in November 2002. And his recent wins had been decisive and swift -- most recently he had tapped out Mike Van Arsdale in under a round after a vintage Randy Couture had taken three to do the same thing. All taken into account, he was long overdue for his rematch with Liddell.
… And then came the fight. The first round opened and both fighters circled for over a minute with almost no strikes thrown and no takedowns attempted. Then Babalu initiated the first real exchange, throwing some strikes before chasing 'The Iceman' across the ring looking for the takedown. This exchange ended twenty seconds later with Big John McCarthy stopping the fight as Chuck was unloading a continued assault on a grounded and disorientated Babalu. After four long years in the making, Babalu's well-deserved shot at the Light Heavyweight belt was shot to hell in one and a half minutes. Liddell had put on another domination masterclass.
4. Mirko Filipovic vs Wanderlei Silva
Another long awaited rematch this year to turn into a domination, 'Cro Cop' vs 'The Axe Murderer' was put together as part of the stellar 'Final Conflict Absolute' card this year and went down as one of Cro Cop's finest career highlights. A 'cemetery' left high kick knockout, coming after five minutes of action that saw Wanderlei beat up and outclassed on the feet, brought a swift end to the action. By the time the kick came, in fact, swelling over Wanderlei's left eye meant he didn't even see it coming. After the first meeting between the two over four years ago, when Cro Cop was still learning the MMA game and Silva fought him to a draw, the difference this time around showed that Crop Cop is at his peak in the MMA game just now, and the (hopefully) forthcoming rematch between him and Fedor should prove to be the biggest MMA attraction in a long time..
3. Alistair Overeem vs Sergei Kharitonov
Coming into this fight at Pride 31: Dreamers, this looked to be a great matchup between one of Pride's most talented veterans of the Light Heavyweight division in Alistair Overeem, and one of their fastest rising stars of the heavyweight division, former Red Devil team member Sergei Kharitonov, who had only been defeated once before at the hands of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira -- widely recognised as the second greatest heavyweight in the history of MMA behind only Fedor.
Kharitonov, both having the cleaner record and being a natural heavyweight (unlike Overeem), was a -400 favourite coming into the match, and was expected to continue on his path straight to title contendership. As it transpired, he was completely taken apart by the lighter Overeem in one of the most one-sided displays of ground and pound in recent MMA history.
After little more than a feeling-out process on the feet, Overeem executed a beautiful takedown that saw him effortlessly ground the larger fighter and get the side mount position. From there, a punishing and prolonged ground and pound attack ensued that saw Sergei put in a progressively worse position the longer the fight went on. The referee stepped in (rather belatedly) after Overeem had worked from his side mount to trap Kharitonov in a position that forced him to 'block' ten or more vicious knees with his face, as commentator Mauro Ranallo put it. Not only was Sergei's face a swollen mess by the fight's end, but it became apparent post-fight that Overeem's knees from earlier in the fight had dislocated Kharitonov's right shoulder. If Sergei Kharitonov was a runaway train on a collision course with Fedorville before this fight, as soon as the fight started Overeem had jumped aboard, slammed on the emergency brakes, and started the train back up in the opposite direction.
2. Anderson Silva vs Rich Franklin
Anderson Silva was put on the fast track to title contendership when he was matched up against Rich Franklin after just one previous fight in the Octagon. Of course, he had proven his mettle in other MMA organisations as a world class fighter with reknowned striking and clinch work, but with Franklin's contract coming up for renewal the UFC were likely pushing to give Franklin a big test that would either prove his value as a highly paid champ, or significantly devalue him and thus save the UFC from a costly contract re-negotiation.
Expectations coming into the fight were mixed, and Anderson Silva shocked the MMA world when he engaged Franklin in a Thai clinch from which he could not escape and hammered him with a vicious torrent of knees to the body with unstoppable momentum. From inside the clinch the knees quickly wore on Franklin, inducing him to expose his head, and Silva planted several of his devastating knees square to the face, leaving the champ drunkenly stumbling across the ring to make distance. Here Silva pounced on the opportunity to finish, following up with further strikes and forcing the referee stoppage. Pictures of Franklin post-fight showed a severely broken nose, literally pointing at forty-five degrees off the side of his face. Thrown into a title shot on the back of just one UFC victory, Anderson Silva had established himself in under five minutes of ring time as undoubtedly one of the most dangerous strikers in the UFC, right behind Chuck Liddell.
1. Georges St Pierre vs Matt Hughes
The road towards this matchup was like a perfect mirror image of the one leading up to Babalu vs Liddell. St Pierre had been defeated by Hughes two years earlier and gone on a long and impressive winning streak since. Like Sobral, the man he was facing was the most dominant UFC champion of his weight class by a large margin. St Pierre was also overdue for his title shot, but to a greater extent than Sobral -- not only did he get down on his knees in the cage and beg to get the rematch, but once the match was finally put together, it had to be postponed as St Pierre was forced to pull out due to a groin injury. Finally, two months after Hughes stopped BJ Penn at UFC 63 on the night St Pierre's long awaited title shot had originally been scheduled, the fans got to witness the matchup they had been anticipating for months: Matt Hughes vs Georges St Pierre II.
And that is where the parallels between Sobral/Liddell and St Pierre/Hughes ended. St Pierre might have went in the underdog, but when the bell sounded and the action commenced, he convincingly outclassed Hughes in every department, to an extent that shocked even some of 'Rush's' most ardent fans. On the feet Hughes was outworked and repeatedly tagged with hands and shin bones, St Pierre working up a solid jab that proved effective throughout the entire time standing. Then towards the end of the first a superman punch gave St Pierre an opening and he unleashed a flurry that put Matt on the mat (excuse the pun) as 'Rush' rushed (I know, I know) to finish the fight before the round ended. He failed to beat the clock, but the crowd was going wild as round one came to a close, with Hughes apparently seconds away from losing his belt. Pierre increasingly dominated Hughes in the standup of round two when, just over a minute in, a stunning high kick connected to Matt's head as he came in for the shot, and put him on the floor for a second time. Pierre unleashed a second flurry of elbows and punches on the ground that looked much like the end of round one, and this time there was no bell to save Hughes. Big John stepped in as Matt was losing consciousness amidst a flurry of elbows he was unable to do anything about.
Georges St Pierre had just put on a perfect performance against the most dominant champion in MMA history, beating him on every single point and stopping him via strikes in an extremely decisive fashion. Matt isn't one to make excuses when he loses, and it is just as well -- it is unlikely any could be found to take away from Georges' dominating showing that night. Not only did Georges put on the greatest domination of 2006, but his performance that night is probably among the very best the sport has yet seen.
