Former UFC 185lb champion Rich Franklin scored arguably the biggest win of his career over former PRIDE 205lb champion Wanderlei Silva in Germany at UFC 99 on the weekend. Franklin scored a three round unanimous decision over ‘The Axe Murderer’ after three rounds of hard fighting. Using good footwork and a patient stand-up game, Franklin got off first in the opening round scoring with lead right hands and the odd left kick. Silva was also patient as he tried to find an opening for his right hand. Midway through the round, Silva caught a body kick and took the fight to the mat where he landed with a handful of solid punches from in Franklins guard. Franklin worked his way back up where Silva attempted and missed a guillotine choke attempt, ending up on his back. Franklin landed several hard punches as he attempted to move to mount, which allowed Silva to escape back to his feet to end the round.
Round two saw Franklin controlling the tempo of the round early before Silva started finding his range standing up. After scoring with a few kicks, Silva rocked Franklin briefly with a right hand, only to eat a jab that briefly dropped him in return. Later in the round Silva again scored with a right hand that shook Franklin up. Silva smelled blood and landed several hard shots that had Franklin in trouble. Franklin survived as Silva looked exhausted at the end of the second round. With Franklin having a clear edge in the first and Silva the edge in the second, both men looked to gain the early advantage in the third.
Franklin scored with a heavy body kick early in the round, but Silva retaliated with two hard right hands. Despite his physical exhaustion, Silva continued to look for the knockout with every strike as he attempted a few wild head kicks. Franklin however was racking up the points with his jab and making Wanderlei miss his counters. In the final minute of the fight, Silva raises his arms to the crowd and then attacks Franklin with a flurry of hard punches. Franklin survived and scored a takedown before Silva escaped but gave up his back in the process. With both men standing agfainst the fence, Silva threw some nasty elbows at Franklin (who was behind him) while Franklin threw hard punches for the final seconds of the fight.
With the decision appearing to possibly go either way, it was a shock when no scores were read out and a unanimous decision announced for Franklin. On first viewing I thought Rich deserved the fight and it was possible to score all three rounds to him. On second viewing I thought Wanderlei won 29-28 and thought he was winning the first round until he ended up on the bottom from the attempted guillotine. I trust my second viewing better as the first viewing was at 7am after an hour of interrupted sleep. The biggest thing I noticed in the fight was the weight cut really affected Wanderlei. I think if these two fought at 205lbs that Wanderlei would have taken him apart and I really can’t see Wanderlei being a huge force at 185lbs unless he gets a specialist trainer in to help him cut weight. Sure it was a first time thing so the effects might be different next time, but next time if he plans on fighting at 185lbs he’ll have to lose an extra 10lbs which could be hard for someone who has never cut weight during his career and has been in as many wars as Wanderlei has had. At 205 certain guys are too big for him (I still think Wanderlei was beating Rampage until he got caught, just for the record), but I think he has a lot more chance of being a force at 205 without cutting weight then he does of even making 185lbs.
On the undercard, Cain Velasquez showed the lack of basic jiu jitsu positions as he survived three knockdowns en route to a dominating decision win over Cheick Kongo. Velasquez was dropped twice in the opening moments of the fight before he scored a takedown and mounted Kongo easily where he delivered punishment for the full five minutes. The second round was more of the same except that Velasquez was only dropped once at the start of the round. The third round was more of the same again, except that Kongo didn’t drop Velasquez. If Velasquez knew how to put the hooks in from back mount and went for a choke, I think he could have ended this in the first round. It seems to be a trend from the bigger wrestlers to not use the hooks from back but instead just ride them like side mount which is effective but not so much in terms of ending the fight.
In other action, Mirko Cro Cop scored a controversial first round stoppage over Mustapha Al-Turk in his return to the UFC. After battering Turk for most of the round, Cro Cop accidently poked Mustapha in the eye before bludgening him while he was in pain forcing the referee to stop the fight and award Cro Cop the victory as he didn’t see the eye poke. Mike Swick moved further towards the Welterweight elite scoring a 2nd round knockout over undefeated Ben Saunders. Caol Uno’s return to the UFC was a bitter one as he was (in my opinion anyway) robbed of a decision over Spencer Fisher. The fight was very tactical, but Uno appeared to do enough to win the 2nd round and easily won the third round. In the other fight of the evening (morning), Dan Hardy won a split decision over Marcus Davis in a highly anticipated grudge fight. The fight was close with Davis having the better control and Hardy doing more damage which included dropping Davis with a knee in the 2nd round. I scored the fight for Hardy 29-28.
