*** SPOILER ALERT **** </font>
First victim of the night (televised, that is):
Keith Jardine.
He rocked Alexander but Alexander fought back and blistered Jaridine with hard over hand rights, knees, and uppercuts. Jardine was ko'd it looked like 2-3 times but regained some composure before being brutally knocked out. And in typical TNB fashion, Alexander then stood over the prostrate Jardine, arms akimbo and talking trash to his downed opponent (who in all likelihood couldn't hear a word he was saying anyway.) He shook off the handlers who came to walk him away and continued to mouth obscenities for a few more moments before strutting around the octagon.
The NBA and NFL are already infected with this sort of nonsense. I hope that the UFC doesn't condone this kind of behavior by hyping this idiot and others like him.
Second victim of the night:
Ivan Salaverry.
Salaverry didn't look like he wanted to fight Martin from the beginning. He threw a couple of high kicks, went for some kind of weird, stoopping, walking-in take down attempt, and Martin finally clinched and pinned him up against the fence. It took Martin several tries but he finally dumped Salaverry on his head, whereupon Salaverry turtled up and Martin rained down hammer fists to the sides of his head. The ref immediately jumped in and stopped the fight. Honestly, Salaverry looked none the worse for wear and stood up immediately.
If the trend continues tonight, I expect we might have a few trolls show up to let us know it was only a matter of time before all the 'white boys' got beat anyway.
Karo v Burkman
This was a great fight. Both guys had great cardio and fought all the way through all three rounds. Karo landed more punches and scored a takedown with a beautiful judo throw in the second round. Burkman was game throughout but the decision, rightly so, was unanimous for Karo. No TNB or trash talk on display by either guy, but nor was any expected, either.
I didn't mention the Starnes v Leben fight before, but it was the first fight on the card. Starnes was owning Leben in the first and throughout most of the second, but hit the wall. His cardio was poor when he was on the TUF show and he hasn't seemed to improve in that area at all. At one point, Leben scored a kick to the ribs and it looked like Starnes was going to go down again, but he managed to pull guard and make it to the 3rd round. For those who don't watch TUF, Starnes quit in a bout on the show because he was kicked in the ribs. Anyway, it was a unanimous decision for Starnes, which I thought was fair enough, considering how little success Leben had in doing any damage despite pursuing Starnes around the cage throughout the fight.
Third victim of the night:
Jeremy Stephens.
Din Thomas got Stephen's back about 3 minutes into the first round and was unable to secure a choke. With about 20 seconds left, Stephen rolled out and landed a few punches but the round ended without him doing any significant damage to Thomas. The second round found Stephens' speed the superior factor for most of the round. He deftly blocked or dodged Thomas' blows, despite the fact that Thomas had a huge reach advantage. Stephens was adept at countering those strikes and sliding in to land his own shots. He took Thomas to the ground but Thomas secured an arm bar. Stephens power slammed Thomas in an attempt to free his arm, but the arm bar held. Thomas rolled to his back with the arm in tight and the ref stopped the fight. Stephens appeared to slap the leg of Thomas but it did not appear to be a tap. Stephens insisted that he did not tap. Watching the replay, it looked like Stephens had his arm turned outward in such a way that the arm bar would have been insufficient to cause a submission.
Fourth victim:
Chuck Liddell.
Rampage knocked out Chuck within the first two minutes of the first round. Landed a punch that put Chuck on the ground, hit him two or three more times and McCarthy stopped the fight.
Edited by: White Shogun