Last year in May Quinton “Rampage” Jackson dominated and knocked out the ‘poster boy’ of the sport Chuck Liddell and quickly became the new face. Now just over a year later it is Jackson who has been replaced. Forrest Griffin, a 5-2 underdog, looking more like your accountant than someone contending for the UFC Light Heavyweight championship, dethroned the champion with a unanimous decision. Moreover, he battled off the deck to do it. After being knocked down in the first round, it appeared that this a microwave fight that was over before it began, but griffin was able to neutralize the disadvantage, then recover, and survive the round. In round two he would change the complexity of the fight with a swift kick to the back leg, wobbling the champion, then taking him to the ground. For the next 4 ½ minutes of round two, and for the rest of the fight for that matter, Jackson was on his back or on the defense. His strikes had no nothing behind them seeming to never be able to get a solid base or balance necessary to deliver his normally ferocious punches. Griffin the quintisential strategist, had and executed a perfect game plan with the exception of the first round. The scorecards read 48-46 on two, 49-46 on one. So once again a champion falls which is the best thing about this sport. The tension that one slip of concentration, one moment of indecision, can put you in a position that you can’t recover. It’s that very tension, not the blood or the gore that attracts true sports fan to it. As opposed to boxing where upsets are few and far between, and where there are more sleepers than epic bouts, MMA will always have the element of surprise as fighting disciplines create scenarios that can’t be calculated on paper. So you just have to watch and see what happens…..and people are.

In a great match that was worthy of PPV Anderson Silva won the Pride Championship Title with an impressive “tap out” victory over the Dan Henderson. What was most impressive about his victory was not so much the submission but the fact that Silva won the mach on the ground. Henderson a former Olympic gold medalist in Greco/Roman wrestling appeared to have match fought where he wanted it, as to best suit his fighting discipline. However it was Silva that applied the lock and ultimately the submission via tap out.