By Sheldan Keay
Just over 4 years ago, Urijah Faber earned a submission victory over Dominick Cruz to retain the WEC Featherweight Championship. The two met again in the main event at UFC 132 as bantamweights, and despite this time fighting for over 23 minutes more than their last encounter, it was a much more exciting affair which saw Cruz earn his revenge and come out the victor. After 5 rounds of fast paced exciting action, Cruz got the decision victory with scores of 50-45, 49-46 and 48-47, and proved that the bantamweights have well and truely arrived on the world stage.
Despite the score of 50-45, the fight was a lot closer, and Faber was able to knock Cruz down on several occasions, but the champion was never in any trouble, and he was able to compose himself and cause Faber some problems too. While Faber may have landed the eye catching shots, Cruz landed a lot more strikes on his opponent, and these shots added with his speed and movement were far too much for a much more stationary Faber to deal with. A couple of the rounds could have arguably gone either way, and Faber believes he did enough to get the win. "Congratulations to Dominick, he won. It wasn't enough of an output on my side to make it a decision. I didn't finish him. So, I felt like it could have gone either way. I thought I won the fight. But again, you can't really judge when it comes to that." After each man now holding one victory each, a triology fight may be possible, and there shouldn't be many who would disagree following the exciting battle the two men fought in on Saturday.
Despite the 25 minutes that the two main eventers fought for, the co-main event was much nearer to 25 seconds, as it took Chris Leben just 27 seconds to knock out MMA legend Wanderlei Silva in Silva's first UFC bout in 17 months. Nobody expected this fight to go the distance, and this was proven when the two started swinging wildly after only a few seconds of the bout, but Leben landed flush several times on the chin of the Axe Murderer, and Silva dropped to the mat to then be hit by some of Leben's ground and pound which saw the contest come to a close. Leben weighed in on the situation, stating that "Wanderlei is my hero, he's always been my favorite fighter. I only visualized a three-round war. I never envisioned a knockout. It's unbelievable." It was a sad sight for Silva, who if Dana White gets his wish, may well have had his last bout in the Octagon.
Another man who was expected to be having his last bout in the Octagon, will be back again, after Tito Ortiz ended his 5 year wait without a victory to submit Ryan Bader in the first round. Bader went into the bout as the heavy favourite, and was regareded as being the much better striker out of the two. However, it was Ortiz who dropped Bader with a right hand, and he was able to pounce on Bader and secure the guillotine choke after 1:56 of the first round. Speaking after the fight, Ortiz said "The key tonight was the guys that I've been training with, it's such a positive group of guys, and anytime I thought I wanted to let up in training, they kept pushing me. I put my private life on the backburner for this training camp so that I could focus on performing like I'm capable of performing. It's such a great feeling to get this win. I'm reinventing myself." Where this lives Ortiz is anybodys guess, but Bader was also looking to revive his career following his loss to Jon Jones in February. Bader explained "I just woke up in a guillotine, I got rocked with a big punch and next thing you know, I was in a guillotine. I thought I was doing well with my footwork, but I talked to my coaches and realized I made some mistakes." This bout proved that you can't count anybody out in MMA.
Carlos Condit continued to impress, as he knocked out the undefeated Dong Hyun Kim in the first round of their fight. Kim would have been expected to come into this fight looking to take Condit down, and he was able to do so early on in the round, but Condit showed that he has vastly improved his wrestling, and was able to get back up, before nailing Kim with a flying knee that left him slouched against the cage. Condit then followed this up with some punches which resulted in the referee waving off the contest. Condit is doing nothing but good things in his quest to get a title shot, and he made this clear after the fight, asking Joe Silva if he was ready for a title shot. Also reflecting on his win, Condit explained "I had an excellent game plan and I trusted in it, every time I go out there, I just fight to the best of my ability and tonight I couldn't be more pleased with how it worked out."
In the final main card bout, Dennis Siver won a close decision against Matt Wiman which the crowd certainly didn't agree with. This bout turned out to be a typical striker vs wrestler bout, Siver used his striking ability to trouble Wiman in the first, Wiman then used his wrestling in the second to keep Siver down for the majority of the round and open up a cut on the head of Siver following some vicious elbows. But despite many then scoring the third round for Wiman, Siver was given the decision with each judge scoring the bout 29-28 in the German's favour. Wiman disagreed with the judges decision and referring to the fight, stated that "maybe Siver got the decision because he threw more punches, but they weren't effective. Effective striking and grappling is what they say, and he didn't have that at all."
Notable bouts on the preliminary card saw Melvin Guillard continue to work his way to a lightweight title shot, with a first round stoppage of WEC veteran Shane Roller. Another lightweight bout that featured on the prelims, saw George Sotiropoulos suffer his second straight loss, as he was also knocked out in the first round to Rafael dos Anjos. Brian Bowles has been mentioned as a possible next opponent for Dominick Cruz, and he won a decision over Takeya Mizugaki in his quest to reclaim his belt. Overall, UFC 132 was a great event, and helped to give the lower weight divisions such as the bantamweights the exposure they needed in order to help them become known on the world stage.
Follow Sheldan on Twitter: @SheldanKeay
