UFC 86 - Jackson vs Griffin

Las Vegas, Nevada- 05/07/2008

With all but one of the main card fights seeing blood, Chris Lytle dying thecanvas, his face and Koscheck’s hair red, and Forrest needing stitches in his eyelid, a more fitting name would have been UFC 86 – Laceration. But the fight the event was named after delivered everything promised and more.

First of all Forrest looked incredible! His leg kicks were crisp, powerful and damaging. His movement was fluid and his aggression was awe inspiring. Forrest constantly pressed the action and where both fighters scored with good punches, Rampage was for the most part only throwing single shots. Forrest’s wrestling and Jui-Jitsu looked very impressive, and when he caught Rampage in the clinch early in the second, he punished him with knees and controlled him on the ground for the rest of the round. It was a close fight but Forrest was crowned the new LHW champ through unanimous decision.

Patrick Cote vs. Ricardo Almeida wasn’t what you’d call a slug fest. With the majority of the first round spent with Almeida controlling the clinch and controlling Cote on the floor, but unable to inflict any damage due to Cote’s tough guard and thrashy up-kicks. Quite an even fight however in the end Patrick Cote scored enough points to take the fight by split decision.

The Stevenson/Tibau fight was slow for the majority of the first round. Both fighters scoring with takedowns but for the most part Tibau controlled the action with a submission attempt that appeared to do nothing more than frustrate Stevenson. In the second Gleison seemed to be getting the better of the sparse stand up action, and controlled on the ground with Gleison mounting Stevenson delivering ground and pound and firing off submission attempts. Every time the angles allowed it Stevenson tried to slap on a guillotine, and eventually found it to win the fight 2 minutes from the end of the second.

We may have seen the best Josh Koscheck we have ever seen tonight. With strong, impressive stand up and truly dominant ground work, Koscheck turned this into a blood bath opening Chris Lytle up around half way through the second round, and kept the pressure on until the end of the fight. To his credit despite his punishment, Lytle never once looked like giving up or ever slowing down. But in the end Kos won by unanimous decision.

Tyson Griffin looked very impressive against his unanimous decision victory against Marcus Aurelio. His strong stand up, effective ground and pound and overall aggression in pushing the action made the judges decision an easy one.

 

Preliminary Fight Results

Gabriel Gonzaga defeated Justin McCully by Kimora at 1:57 of the 1st round
Cole Miller defeated Jorge Gurgel by triangle choke at 4:48 of the 3rd round
Melvin defeated Dennis Siver by TKO at 0:36 of the 1st round
Justin Buchholz defeated Corey Hill by rear naked choke at 3:57 of the 2nd round