| UFC 70 RESULTS |
It's a shocker!
MANCHESTER, England (CP) - Brazilian Gabriel Gonzaga knocked out Mirko (Cro Cop) Filipovic with a devastating kick to the head Saturday, administering the Croatian heavyweight a shocking taste of his own medicine at UFC 70: Worlds Collide.
The 27-year-old Brazilian scored the mixed martial arts upset at 4:51 of the first round, after softening up and bloodying the heavily favoured Filipovic with some painful ground and pound before a soldout crowd of 14,921 at the MEN Arena.
Filipovic, known for his devastating kicks, found himself on his back 90 seconds into the round when he launched a kick and the Brazilian caught it, hurling him to the ground. Gonzaga hammered the 32-year-old Filipovic with elbows from above near the cage fence for some three minutes until referee Herb Dean surprisingly stood the fighters up.
The Brazilian (8-1) then laid out Filipovic (22-5) with the devastating right kick. Filipovic went done like a sack of bricks and took his time getting up. He eventually wobbled out of the arena having hardly thrown a punch on the night.
"Everybody has a plan - until they get hit," Filipovic said in a pre-fight promo.
He proved his own point.
"Top of the world," the burly Gonzaga managed in English after the fight. Filipovic, who expressed his disappointment in the ring afterwards, did not attend the post-fight news conference.
It was the third straight upset for the UFC, following Matt Serra’s dethroning of welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre of Montreal at UFC 69 and Randy Couture’s victory over heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia at UFC 68.
"Everybody loses in this sport . . . on any given night, anybody can get beat," UFC president Dana White said. "You judge them by how they come back."
The win earns Gonzaga, who trains in Massachusetts, an August heavyweight title shot against Couture.
Couture was in the arena to see the upset. He had picked Gonzaga to win, although not the way it ended.
"Nobody expected it to come by head kick," said White, adding Filipovic was "fine."
Denied a marquee title showdown between Couture and Filipovic, White must now sell a Couture-Gonzaga fight.
"Obviously Randy Couture and Mirko Cro Cop was a monster fight," White said. "And Gonzaga finished that one."
Despite the upset in the main event, a candid White was not enthralled with some of the performances.
"I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed with our showing tonight," he said. "Usually from top to bottom, all of our fights are exciting. Some guys didn’t pull the trigger tonight, a lot of stalling, a lot of staring - very unusual for a UFC event."
Earlier, Italian light-heavyweight Alessio Sakara stopped Canadian Victor (The Matrix) Valimaki via TKO at 1:44 of the first round. The former pro boxer ended it when he caught the 25-year-old from Edmonton with a big right and swinging left, prompting the referee to step in as a crouched Valimaki was left covering up at the fence.
Saturday’s card was the first in England for the UFC since UFC 38: Brawl at the Hall in 2002 at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The 10-bout Manchester card featured fighters from 10 different countries.
And the crowd was rocking as local favourite Michael Bisping, winner of Season 3 of "The Ultimate Fighter" reality TV show, made his way to the ring to the sounds of Blur.
Bisping (14-0) had his way with 36-year-old Elvis Sinosic (8-10-2) in the first round and then survived a short rocky patch in the second before dispatching the gutsy Australian by TKO. After Sinosic ended on his back early on, Bisping carved open his face with elbows and punches for the rest of the round, Sinosic’s beach blond hair stubble was mostly red as the round ended and his face was a mess.
Amazingly Sinosic came out for the second round and, even more surprisingly, stunned Bisping with a knee to the face. He was soon bending the Brit’s arm into a submission hold, but Bisping escaped and started pummelling Sinosic again, forcing the stoppage at 1:40 of the second round.
"When he nearly bent my arm clean off and it popped about three times, I felt I was in danger then of being submitted," Bisping said with a giggle.
The fight won bout of the night honours.
Former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski (13-5) posted an unimpressive decision over Fabricio Werdum (9-3-1), a former Pride fighter from Brazil. Arlovski, a native of Belarus who now fights out of Chicago, apologized in the ring after the bout for the cautious contest.
Both fighters showed their opponents a lot of respect, which made for little action and the bout drew boos. Werdum may have lost but he got Arlovski’s attention several times with his striking and drew blood. The Brazilian may go home wondering how he didn’t win.
Elsewhere on the main card, French heavyweight Cheick Kongo (20-3-1) used a strong finish to win a majority decision over Assuerio Silva (32-5) despite being slammed four times by the beast-like Brazilian, Silva, who has now lost three straight in the UFC to tough opposition in Kongo, Brandon Vera and Tim Sylvia, probably has a right to feel hard done by.
Brazil’s Lyoto Machida took a unanimous decision over American David Heath in a battle of 9-0 light-heavyweights. It was a dull affair that drew boos until the third round when Machida dropped Heath with at least seven knees to the head and then proceeded to punish the American on the ground until the fight ended.
Heath beat Valimaki by split decision in December.
Sakara had thought he had disposed of Valimaki even earlier in the first round when he wobbled the Canadian. The Italian jumped atop the cage fence to celebrate, but referee Mario Yamasaki had merely called a halt to allow Valimaki - who still seemed in dreamland - to put his mouthpiece back in.
An annoyed Sakara (15-5-1) went back to work and quickly finished off Valimaki.
White said later he though the referee should have stopped the fight the first time.
The Canadian dropped to 9-4 and 0-2 in the UFC. He lost a split decision to American David Heath in his UFC debut in December.
"My ego’s hurt more than anything," Valimaki told The Canadian Press. "Yeah I got caught. No excuse.
"I thought the fight was going OK. I got caught early, which kind of put me on roller-skates right off the bat. To be honest, I don’t really remember how he caught me."
Notes: The UFC announced Saturday that welterweight champion Serra and Matt Hughes will be coaches of Season 6 of "The Ultimate Fighter" and will meet for the 170-pound title. With the series slated to debut in the fall. that means the Serra-Hughes title fight won’t be for a while. In turn, that delays any possible Serra rematch with St. Pierre. White said the Canadian could meet someone like Josh Koscheck in the interim … Arlovski said arena security took away the U.S. flag he wanted to walk into the arena with. Arlovski wanted to come in with both the American and Belarus flag. "I was very disappointed," Arlovski said. … White confirmed the UFC is coming to Canada, but did not offer a date.
| " | It was truely devasting and I was saddened by this massive facial Cro Cop takes. Also it was announced that Matt Hughes and Matt Serra will be the next TUF coaches! |
