Awesome.

That's about all i can say this time around. There were few surprises except for the Jardine win; which - i must add - i was happy to see. It's not that i'm a big Jardine fan, or that i hate on Forrest, but the fact of the matter is Forrest is more tough than he is skilled. If anything ever UNimpressed me about Ortiz, it was how BADLY he fought Forrest. Anyway...



The Bisping victory was expected and welcomed. Glad to see that. No surprises there; pretty uneventful fight as far as expectations were concerned.



Now as for the Liddell-Ortiz fight, i have a few things to say:

Until two nights ago i didn't know who i really "wanted" to win this. However, the most often heard comment on Chuck was the cause for the balance tipping in his favor (both in my mind and in the reality of how the fight played out). Everyone always says "Chuck doesn't look that strong, but he can hit harder than anyone in the game." Very true.

So THIS is a lot of why i wanted Chuck to win. Tito is a strong dude and he's matured a lot over the years. But he seems to look at fighting as a combination of Kickboxing and Greco-Roman wrestling. To him that's about it. Add bodybuilding to the mix, and you have about as complete a picture of his game plan as there is.

Tito said it all when Chuck previously mentioned he'd fight him right then and there after his fight with Babalu: "i think we'll wait till December so you can lose that gut."

First of all, Chuck doesn't have a gut. Chuck employs abdominal breathing; refusing to restrict air to his upper chest. This is part of the key to Chuck's hard hitting. As such, Chuck has defined abdominal muscles, but his stomach pooches out, unabashedly.

Now Chuck ain't in the shape Tito is, but Tito seems to think fighting has something serious to do with how big your muscles are. Chuck has proven time and time again that this is not the case; since he consistently generates MORE power whilst having smaller muscles than many of his opponents.

i've said it before, and i'll say it again, Martial Arts is not about weightlifting.

This leads me to my next point in Chuck's favor; which won me over on the Friday night "All Access" program. Chuck is formally trained in Kempo. i respect formal training. There's not much more i can say about that.

To this day, Chuck's instructor is his trainer, and he embodies "Wu Te" in promoting both his school and his teacher so publically. Because of his background in Kempo, he has properly learned how to use his whole body to strike, and to allow his waist to drive the strikes; rather than the arm-bound punches that Ortiz tends to throw like an sub par Western boxer.



Anyway, that's that. Tito did better, but as he said, he fought about as good as he could fight this time around. In short, Chuck's just a better fighter. End of story.