The Greatest MMA News Column 10.13.09: Ortiz vs. Griffin 2
Posted by Dan Plunkett on 10.13.2009
A look at the rematch between Tito Ortiz and Forrest Griffin and its impact on UFC 106, Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers and the promotion of the event, thoughts on all things WEC 43 including the scoring of Cerrone vs. Henderson, and more!
Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin 2 set to co-main event UFC 106 on November 21.
"The Huntington Beach Bad Boy" Tito Ortiz was once the most dominant light heavyweight in the UFC. Going into 2003, Ortiz had defended his light heavyweight championship a record five consecutive times, a mark which as of this day has only been matched by two other fighters. Then the Californian ran into two brick walls; the first named Randy Couture, and the next named Chuck Liddell.
For the next few years Ortiz would try and work his way back to the title he had held for more than three years. He came close when he was given a title shot at UFC 66, but brick wall #2, Chuck Liddell, was right there once again to stop him.
On his road to that title shot, Ortiz took a fight against young Forrest Griffin. Griffin, who was only a year removed from winning season one of The Ultimate Fighter, didn't seem to pose much of a threat to the former champion. The first round went as many expected the fight to go as Ortiz took Griffin down and unleashed a fury of elbows that busted Griffin open. In the second, Griffin was able to keep the fight standing by stopping the former California state junior college wrestling champion's takedowns.
The third round saw a mix of what the first two rounds had to offer. Griffin was only able to defend some of Ortiz's takedowns, but he only spent one minute of the round on his back. That takedown with a minute-and-a-half left in a round seemed to seal the deal for Ortiz though, as two judges gave him the fight, while the other judge gave rounds two and three to Griffin.
That was three-and-a-half years ago. Since then, Ortiz, now 34, hasn't had a win against an opponent not named Ken Shamrock. Griffin went on to win the light heavyweight title in 2008, but he is coming off of two consecutive losses. These two are meeting in the middle at UFC 106.
Neither man is in danger of being released should they lose, but in terms of relevance within the light heavyweight title picture this is a must win for both men. A loss for Ortiz would launch talk that he's "too old" to be champion again. After all, this is his first fight since having surgery to repair his back in October of last year. Tito's only excuse should he lose this fight will be that he was rusty, which is a path I'm sure he, and the UFC, will take should that be the case.
Griffin's past two fights are not ones he wants to repeat. First, he lost his light heavyweight title to Rashad Evans by TKO in the third round. Then in August Griffin took on middleweight champion Anderson Silva – the result wasn't pretty. Silva completely dominated Griffin, knocking him down three times in the one round fight. A third loss in a row for Griffin would put him out of title contention for quite a while.
This change to the card is only for the better. With a main event featuring a Brock Lesnar title defense and a co-main event of Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin, you can expect this card to be the second best selling UFC pay-per-view of the year.
In the main event of the night, Brock Lesnar will defend his UFC Heavyweight Title against Shane Carwin. While Carwin isn't a drawing card, he does have a feud going with Brock Lesnar. On top of that, these two are mirror images of each other; I expect that to be something the UFC dwells on a lot in promoting this fight.
As you can see, Brock Lesnar has no problem attracting PPV buyers. At UFC 100, Lesnar made by far the biggest impression of the night, mostly for his post-fight antics as opposed to his dominant win over Frank Mir. Due to that, I expected UFC 106 to draw near a million PPV buys before there were any other fights announced for the card.
The addition of Ortiz vs. Griffin II easily pushes this event over the million buy mark. Until Brock Lesnar came along, there was no bigger draw on PPV than "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy." His second fight against Chuck Liddell was the first MMA PPV to surpass one million buys. In fact, Tito Ortiz has been a featured fighter on three events which broke the UFC PPV buys record (59, 61 and 66). His opponent, Forrest Griffin, is also a very good draw. Forrest's last two fights have drawn nearly 2 million buys combined (more than 2 million by some accounts). You don't just have two strong personalities fighting here, you also have history. That history will help this show even more.
My prediction for UFC 106 PPV buys (though it will probably change once the event gets closer and I have a good idea of the hype behind it. But I digress): 1,300,000 buys.
Talking about the two main events isn't enough for this show. It's not just a card featuring three very popular fighters that will draw; it's a great MMA card all around.
On the main card we have Minotoro Nogueira making his UFC debut against rising star Luiz Cane. I don't want to get too much into these fights because I'd have little to write about once the event draws nearer, but I'm very excited to see Cane take on a very tough light heavyweight contender. In welterweight action, Jon Fitch will take on Ricardo Almeida in a fight which I don't have very high hopes for in the exciting department. Rounding out the main card is Karo Parisyan vs. Dustin Hazelett. Hazelett has been out since November of last year with an injury, though he may have been faking it so he could attempt to win more money for submission of the night (kidding, but it is a good idea).
Should the UFC decide to continue this ‘prelims on Spike' thing through UFC 106, we could get to see the NYBA Phil Baroni return to the Octagon against Amir Sadollah. Also on the preliminary card, Mike Saunders takes on Marcus Davis in what may end up being the fight of the night. Hopefully they show three preliminary fights on Spike this time, as I'd like to see Kendall Grove vs. Jake Rosholt.
Enough UFC 106; let's get to some other news.
TV Bouts Confirmed for Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers
We're less than a month away from Strikeforce's debut on CBS. The card looks great, but the big question is will anyone watch?
Throughout the weekend CBS has been running short "Who is Fedor?" ads. Hopefully they are just getting the viewer's feet wet with the advertising and will ramp it up in the coming weeks. They are marketing Fedor as this mythical fighter that nobody knows, and that's pretty much what he is. In the next few weeks I'd like to see them talk about how Fedor is the greatest fighter of all time (which he is) and is universally ranked as the top heavyweight in the world. It would help a great deal if Strikeforce had the rights to any of "The Last Emperor's" fight footage, but that is something they will have to work around until after November 7.
It will be very interesting to see how much press coverage this event gets. EliteXC got a good amount of coverage leading into their first CBS event, mostly due to Kimbo and the fact that it was the first MMA event on network television. Strikeforce will be counting on the media to pick up the story of the greatest heavyweight in the world fighting on national television for the first time.
In the past, Fedor has received a great amount of media attention for a non-UFC fighter. On July 19, 2008, Fedor appeared as the top story on ESPN.com leading into his fight against Tim Sylvia later that night. For Strikeforce, good coverage on ESPN.com and any coverage on ESPN would be very helpful in getting the word out of their event.
During the event, Strikeforce needs to promote Brett Rogers heavily. Should he lose to Fedor it would be nice for him to have at least some credibility with the casual fan so Fedor gains something out of the win. In the (puncher's) chance that he upsets Fedor (which would have to be the greatest upset of all time, even though it could very well happen), then Strikeforce will need to build their future shows around Rogers.
WEC 43 Thoughts
In terms of fight quality, the WEC may just be the best promotion in the world. They did not disappoint on Saturday when the delivered yet another great night of fights. In the main event, Ben Henderson took home a unanimous decision over Donald Cerrone.
In my mind, Donald Cerrone won this fight. I gave him round one based on his two submissions attempts where he came very close to finishing Henderson (that was a theme throughout the fight). There is no doubt who won rounds 2, 3, 4, and 5, but I wouldn't be against scoring round 5 10-8 for Cerrone. He came very close to finishing Henderson at the end of the round, had him in other close submission attempts, was winning the striking, and he defended takedown attempts very well. It's just a matter of how you score submission attempts; are a few seemingly close submission attempts just as valuable as a knockdown?
The upset of the night came when Mackens Semerzier defeated Wagnney Fabiano. Not only did Mackens win, he beat Fabiano by triangle choke, and outcome which I don't think anybody would have even though about predicting. Even after defeating a top featherweight in Fabiano, we still don't know a lot about Semerzier. It will be very interesting to see how good he really is in his next fight.
In lightweight action, Dave Jenson won a decision over Richard Crunkilton. This was a very good back and forth fight that had both fighters absolutely exhausted by the end of the fight. My only complaint here would be about the referee: he was atrocious. It was an embarrassment to the Texas Combative Sports Department. Whoever that referee was should not be allowed to officiate a fight until he learns what he is doing. At the first instance of slowed action on the ground, regardless of if they had been in that position for less than ten second, the referee stood them up. It was ridiculous.
Despite losing a decision to Rafael Assuncao, I saw a lot of potential in Yves Jabouin. Though he is not a young fighter at the age of 30, his takedown defense stood out to me. He needs a little bit of work on his striking, but I think he's a fighter to watch.
That is it for this week. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave a comment, or email me here. Until next week…
