UFC 41: Onslaught
2/28/03
Welcome back to Throwback Thursday, where we relive the history of MMA in chronological order.
We have made it into the year 2003. Since no major MMA events took place for the first month of the year, we’re kicking off our watch of the year by late February, when UFC held their first event. By this point, both UFC and Pride FC (the two top dogs at the time) were riding a strong wave of momentum. Pride had been on fire for months on end, with heavyweight champ Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira leading the charge. UFC was just now receiving a significant increase in popularity following the mainstream grudge match between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock.
MMA was by no means an accepted sport by this time. We have a long way to go before anything even calls into question if that acceptance is happening. But, popular culture was starting to pay attention. ESPN ran a documentary on the UFC prior to this event, and HBO premiered a feature-length documentary on heavyweight Mark Kerr, “The Smashing Machine.” The attention wasn’t positive. A lot of the coverage had the culture shock of “What is this?!” But, people were paying attention.
I’ve heard that 2003 is a pretty big year for MMA, as Pride FC really kicks it up a notch and UFC keeps its current momentum alive. So, without further delay, let’s begin.
Sylvia Ends Wild 12 Months For Heavyweight Title
There was a fair amount of skepticism surrounding Tim Sylvia as MMA turned the page to 2003. He was riding the momentum of a highly discussed win, but it didn’t do enough to make people think he could get past newly-crowned heavyweight champ Ricco Rodriguez.
Sylvia was coming off a stellar 2002, winning a Superbrawl one-night, 16-man tournament (yes he actually fought four times in one evening), and then joining the UFC roster. He became the talk of the town at UFC 39, putting on a “Fight of the Night”-worthy performance against Wesley Correira. While his opponent, nicknamed “Cabbage,” wasn’t incredibly competitive, he was tough and stayed in the fight enough for it to be a show-stealing brawl. By the time the co-main event was stopped in the second round, it was the most talked about fight of the evening. It wouldn’t surprise me if the way in which Sylvia won was a huge factor as to why he got a title shot next.
But critics weren’t convinced that Sylvia’s work outside of the UFC and his sole performance in the promotion was enough to get him a Rodriguez fight.
“Though Sylvia is a tremendous puncher with an excellent record, does he truly deserve a shot at Ricco’s title?” the publication Maxfighting questioned. “He’s only had one fight in the UFC and even though it was a seesaw slugfest of epic proportions, that one fight alone shouldn’t warrant his shot at the title so quickly.”
Sherdog’s staff predictions wrote him off, with a whopping 10 of the 11 pickers going for Rodriguez. Honestly, I can’t blame them. Rodriguez was on an unreal run, with three Pride FC wins and five UFC victories over a few years. He beat Randy Couture to grab the title, stopped Andrei Arlovski and Tsuyoshi Kosaka as well. He was on fire, and his resume of high-profile fights was much stronger than Sylvia’s at the time.
Sylvia proved everybody wrong and didn’t take long to do it either. After some early wrestling in the fight, with Rodriguez seemingly trying to avoid any stand-up exchanges with the hard-hitting Sylvia, the champ got dropped hard by a clean right cross. Sylvia went in for follow-up shots, but the fight was pretty much over by that point. In just over three minutes, Sylvia became the new UFC Heavyweight Champion.
The result in the main event was just another twist and turn in the heavyweight title’s lineage. Here’s an oral history of what happened in a short window of time: Josh Barnett grabbed the UFC title in March 2002 with a win against Randy Couture. After Barnett’s run came to an end without a title defense due to a failed drug test, Rodriguez won the vacant belt. And now, Sylvia had the belt. In a year’s time, the belt had been around four waists. UFC was keeping the heavyweight division active, but there was no consistency at the top.
The dramatic changes at heavyweight will only continue from here, and arguably have basically lasted nearly the division’s entire existence? I mean, it’s not until (spoilers) Sylvia’s second reign in 2006 that we see someone defend the belt more than once. Only three more guys (Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez, and Stipe Miocic) have done so in the rest of the belt’s modern history thus far. The wild ride of heavyweight never really ends, but the result from UFC 41 caps off an especially wild 12 months for the title.
Sylvia was certainly underestimated in this fight, and I wonder if part of that is due to the high visibility of Rodriguez’s bouts. Sure, those in the know were aware of Sylvia’s other MMA triumphs, but Rodriguez had been on the top MMA shows for a long time with impressive pefrormances. He was the more highly documented fighter, and Sylvia was the one just emerging in the UFC. I doubt people will be counting Sylvia out after this point.
‘Tank is BACK!’… For A Few Seconds
In a special attraction bout, Tank Abbott made his return to the UFC in the co-main event.
Tank came up in the early UFC days, fighting more than once in a night frequently. He appeared in the UFC 6 tournament, including a 17-minute one-round bout against Oleg Taktarov in the main event. He competed throughout the 90s, challenging for the heavyweight title at one point along the way.
However, by early 2003, it had been more than four years since Tank last stepped into the cage. In the rapidly evolving sport of MMA, you could already consider him a relic of the past.
The generational gap between Tank and other fighters – which feels hilarious to say because 1998 and 2003 aren’t that far apart – was the main promotional push for this bout. Similar to what happened at UFC 40 with Ortiz and Shamrock, Tank was coming back to show a new wave of fighters what fighting was really like. He admitted in an interview that fighters in 2003 days were better and more well-rounded, but said they are weaker.
Tank, since he had a weaker record than someone like Shamrock, didn’t get his return against a current champ. Instead, he got Frank Mir, who was coming off a 2002 first-round finish loss to Ian Freeman. The defeat really slowed the momentum of Mir, who had a pair of finish wins in the promotion that lasted roughly a minute each. He was really looking to get things going again after losing to Freeman, who had proven at UFC 40 that he wasn’t a top heavyweight.
I’m not sure what kind of statement you could truly make by beating Tank, a guy who had a 50-50 record from the 90s and was coming back after a near half-decade layoff, but Mir was destined to do so.
The brawling Abbott stormed forward against Mir, looking to swing away and clip the jacked heavyweight. His wailing shots did him no good. In fact, they sort of roped him into Mir’s grappling wheelhouse instead.
Mir pulled guard when in close range with Abbott, grabbing a leg while on his back. From this position he tried for a leg submission, either going for a heel hook or toe hold. Tank had no answer for this initially, until his answer was to tap out.
In just 46 seconds, Tank’s return was spoiled by Mir. Likely not the type of fight that fans and promoters alike wanted from this clash.
Mir tried to assure fans afterwards that he was still a heavyweight on the rise. “My loss was a fluke, bottom line,” he said. “I was 23 years old, I was a kid in a sport learning how to be a man.”
Tank had already moved onto promoting his next fight, saying what he would do to when he is in the cage once again. He then had an eye-rolling line about seeing Mir in the bar later, as if he didn’t just lose the fight decisively.
We’re gonna see Tank again, and not to spoil anything but it won’t be pretty. And we’re going to see lots more of Mir, as there ended up being some truth to his promises that he was still growing in MMA.
Lightweight Moves On Without Champion
A champion was supposed to be crowned at UFC 41. Emphasis: “Was.” Following the end of Jens Pulver’s reign as the first-ever UFC Lightweight Champion, the promotion sought after a new king at 155 pounds.
A four-man tournament was created in late 2002, beginning the search for who would hold the title next. The finalists, maybe unsurprisingly, ended up being the two people who had earned title shots before: Caol Uno got past Din Thomas, and BJ Penn beat Matt Serra.
The finals set up a rematch between Penn and Uno. However, there wasn’t much to take from their first fight. The UFC 34 meeting between them lasted about 11 seconds, with Penn stopping Uno using punches.
While the first fight was certainly a one-sided win for Penn, how much could you really take it into account when they met again? I didn’t think much about it. Uno said he didn’t remember it. Penn pretended as if it never happened. This was a rematch, but both guys seemed willing to act as if they had never met before. I believe this was a testament to Penn respect for Uno and his accomplishments.
Their second fight was a total 180 compared to their first meeting. The fight was very close, and one where it was important to score while watching along to keep track of how it was going.
Penn had a good opening round, using his wrestling to take Uno down numerous times and staying active when on the ground. Uno rallied back with his own wrestling for a solid second and third rounds, putting him ahead briefly on my scorecard.
Penn rallied back in the championship rounds, upping his output with takedown attempts and strikes, which guest commentator Ken Shamrock liked to see. I saw him tie the fight up by the end of the fourth, and put together hard shots against a tiring Uno in the final five minutes to give him a three-rounds-to-one victory.
But not all judges saw it the same as me: 48-47 Uno, 48-46 Penn, and 48-48, the fight was declared a draw.
There’s something hilarious about the fact that UFC spent months doing a tournament just to not even crown a new champ. But for Uno and Penn, who were in their second title fight, it’s understandably frustrating. I felt for both of them here. It has to be painful to go 25 minutes at a grueling pace to not even get the satisfaction of hearing whether you passed or failed. The draw result didn’t annoy me, as it was a close fight. This was not a “robbery.” But I am confident in the idea that Penn snuck by Uno for the win.
This is, surprisingly, the last we’ll see of the lightweight title until 2006. Yes, three years from now. Luckily for Penn, this was far from his last title fight. Sadly for Uno, this will be just the second-last UFC appearance before he spends the remainder of his career in Japan.
Team Quest’s Lindland Scores Win, McGhee Earns Another Win
Here’s a quick rundown for the rest of UFC 41.
In a rematch from UFC 34, Team Quest fighter Matt Lindland took on Phil Baroni. After a strong 2002 that saw him score a pair of finish wins, Baroni was gaining momentum. Quick finishes and an outspoken personality made him a name to watch. This matchup gave him a chance to avenge his sole pro loss, which he took via majority decision in 2001.
That did not happen. Lindland’s relentless wrestling kept Baroni on the mat for large portions of the fight, getting him up by two rounds to start. The crowd seemingly was rallying behind Baroni, who was able to survive and show some resistance to Lindland. He gained momentum late and even took the final round on my scorecard, but didn’t do enough to win. Due to how wrestling-heavy this fight was, I was shocked by how much the crowd loved it.
This was a notable loss for Baroni, as it really marked the beginning of the end for his UFC run. He’s going to take three more losses over the next few years, including a pair of finish defeats. Being a brash personality works best when you can back it up with your fighting, and that’s what Baroni had going for him in 2002. However, it looks like that will soon stop being the case.
Vladimir Matyushenko had a not-so-gripping performance against Pedro Rizzo to win via decision. The mostly wrestling-based gameplan from Matyushenko wore Rizzo down and allowed the Belarusian to cruise to a decision win. This continued a rough stretch for Rizzo, who had lost four of his last five by this point. The commentary saw this as a “must-win” for him, however it’s worth noting he will make two more UFC appearances later in 2003.
Gan McGee beat grappler Alexandre Dantas on the prelims, using ground and pound to escape a leg submission position in the first round. This fight, which must be noted was absolutely a huge mismatch, would line McGee up for a heavyweight title fight later this year against Tim Sylvia. I saw him as one of the title-shot frontrunners even before this fight and certainly put him next in line after the win.
Din Thomas and Matt Serra, who are co-hosts nowadays on the “Dana White’s Lookin’ For A Fight” web series, fought in the prelims. They were paired up after both losing in the semi-finals of the lightweight title tournament. This was marketed as a “loser leaves town” fight, but ironically Thomas was the one who went on to other opportunities after winning this close three-round scrap.
Yves Edwards had an impressive win in the opening bout of the evening, submitting Rich Clementi late with a rear naked choke to end a one-sided performance. While Edwards had tons of non-UFC experience, I felt this was a big performance from him since his previous outings in the promotion were not so great: Two losses an a win via injury in 79 seconds.
Talk of the Town
I read through a few months of news headlines from early 2003, and here is what else was being discussed.
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira won MaxFighting’s Fighter of the Year award for the second time in a row, a decision that should be very clear to anyone who was following Pride at the time. He went 4-0 in 2002, including wins over Bob Sapp, Semmy Schilt and Dan Henderson. He was Pride’s heavyweight champ and a dominant one at that, putting together consistency that was unmatched.
The President of Pride FC’s parent company, Naoto Morishita, died in early 2003 due to an apparent suicide. There was tons of concern in the media about Pride FC’s future after his death, with many wondering if this would cause the promotion to even close outright.
And “The Fireball Kid” Takanori Gomi continued to make waves in Shooto, extending his undefeated record of 13 wins in February with a victory over Nick Erti. We’re about a year out from his arrival in Pride, which is really going to be something to witness.
Next Week: Pride FC: Body Blow
For the first time in 2003, we’re going to head over to Japan to watch Pride FC for next week’s column. The card features an incredibly pivotal clash between heavyweight champ Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and rising Russian legend Fedor Emelianenko in the main event, and that’s going to be a huge deal. We’ll also see Rampage Jackson vs. Kevin Randleman, Anderson Silva vs. Carlos Newton, an appearance from Kazushi Sakuraba, and more. It’s a really jam-packed card, and we’ll have tons to discuss.
In two weeks, we’ll take an offroad from our usual event coverage to review “The Smashing Machine,” an HBO documentary on Mark Kerr which came out in early 2003. It’s a super important piece of early MMA media, so much that we’re going to dedicate a week of Throwback Thursday to it. See you soon!
Knockdown News 