Time to take a look back at the UFC 132 main card.
After defeating Nate Diaz at UFC 125 Dong Hyun Kim called out UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. At UFC 132 Carlos Condit let Kim know, in no uncertain terms, that looking past the other fighters in the welterweight division and setting his sights at the top was a big mistake.
Cond
it handed Kim his first career loss on July 2, landing a perfectly placed flying knee to Kim’s chin. Not only did that knee give Kim his first loss, it earned Condit a nice $75,000 bonus for “Knockout of the Night.”
The victory also moved Condit’s record to 12-1 in his last 13 fights and 27-5 overall. Of those 27 wins, 26 have come via some form of stoppage.
So, what’s next for Condit, one of the few top ranked welterweights that St-Pierre has yet to face? Speaking to 106.7 The Fan, Condit offered the following, “I would like to think it (the win over Kim) puts me in the top five. There are some other big names that I have yet to fight (Jon) Fitch, (Josh) Koscheck, I have a loss to (Jake) Shields. I feel like I really should beat a guy before I’m ranked above him, but I’m right in the mix.”
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz was fighting for his UFC career when he faced off against heavily favored Ryan Bader at UFC 132. Ortiz made short work of the younger Bader, dropping him to the canvas with a big right hand and then applying a guillotine choke that forced Bader to tap at the 1:56 mark of the first round. After the bout Bader claimed that he had briefly been unconscious from the punch that dropped him.
Ortiz had a good night; he saved his career, pocketed a nice check for his performance ($450,000) and added the $75,000 “Submission of the Night” bonus. Ortiz wasted no time in calling for his next opponent, saying he wouldn’t mind facing the winner of the Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua versus Forrest Griffin bout that is scheduled for UFC 134. The win was Ortiz’s first since he defeated Ken Shamrock back in 2006.
Ortiz would be wise to consider retiring on his own terms at this time, but when your check is almost half a million dollars for, at most, 15 minutes of work, well, that will make anyone think twice about stepping away.
Bader has now lost two fights in a row, the first to current UFC light heavyweight champion. With the loss to a fighter that he was such a favorite against in Ortiz, ‘Darth’ Bader will have some work to do to regain his standing in the light heavyweight ranks.
The lightweight bout between Dennis Siver and Matt Wiman was a very even fight, but in the end all three judges saw it 29-28 for Siver, giving the surging lightweight his fourth straight win. Wiman, obviously thinking that the fight was his, ripped his arm free from the referee when Siver was announced as the winner. Wiman continued his performance, throwing off his hat, and removing his tee shirt before stalking out of the cage in disgust.
The fight between Chris Leben and Wanderlei Silva was highly anticipated, as a knockout was expected from these two ‘stand and bang’ crowd pleasers. Early on Silva momentarily stunned Leben and moved in for the kill. When Silva advanced on his opponent he did so with no defense and Leben took that opportunity to grab the back of Silva’s head and tee off with strong uppercuts that left the ‘Axe Murderer’ sprawled unconscious on the canvas a mere 27 seconds into the first round.
The KO put Leben back in the win column and put Silva’s career in question. After the fight UFC president Dana White mentioned that he thought it would be the last we would see of Silva in the UFC and that he may have to ‘Chuck Liddell’ him into retirement.
The main event was a grudge match between UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and the only man to ever beat him, former WEC champion Urijah Faber. The fight was 25 minutes of non-stop action with the champion offering more aggression throughout the bout. Faber was able to tag Cruz and drop him a few times, but he could not capitalize once he had Cruz stunned. In the end, the odd angles and movement that the champion offered proved too much for Faber to overcome and the unanimous decision went to Cruz.
In the days following the fight the idea of a rubber match was bandied about and honestly, an immediate rematch would probably not be out of line for these two, that’s how good the fight was.
