Fans Jeer Jackson After UFC 130 Win at LinesMaker

Fans Jeer Jackson After UFC 130 Win

LAS VEGAS — A poor main event capped a desul­tory Ulti­mate Fight­ing Cham­pi­onship pay-per-view Sat­ur­day, as boos, and a few tossed beers, rained down upon the cage after Quin­ton “Ram­page” Jack­son scored a unan­i­mous deci­sion vic­tory over Matt Hamill in the main event of UFC 130 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

The card was not very cap­ti­vat­ing, but the main event made it seem even worse. Hamill said he would break Jackson’s will, but all that was bro­ken was the will of the spec­ta­tors to watch more.

Jack­son said he had a bro­ken hand but fought any­way. It appeared that way, as he didn’t land a lot of punches, though he clearly won the fight.

The for­mer UFC heavy­weight cham­pion stalked and Hamill occa­sion­ally would try a half-hearted take­down. Jack­son stuffed each of them with no dif­fi­culty and landed sev­eral good strikes in a bid to dis­cour­age Hamill.

Though it was a win, it was hardly a great audi­tion for Jack­son for a title fight against light heavy­weight cham­pion Jon Jones. Jack­son blood­ied Hamill’s mouth but never landed the big shot he has been known for and did lit­tle to please the fans.

The crowd booed loudly through­out the third round and when the fight ended, the angry fans booed even more lustily. A cou­ple of thrown beers landed near the cage.

“I expected him to try to take me down,” Jack­son said. “I had him rocked there, but I couldn’t cap­i­tal­ize. I wanted to get a knock out for the fans, but I also wanted to make sure I got the win. I wanted to dom­i­nate him for say­ing he was going to break my will. I think I put on a good per­for­mance and was ready for him try­ing to take me down.”

“I was a lit­tle shocked by Rampage’s hips and his abil­ity to defend the take­down,” Hamill said. “I wanted to bait him in so that I could secure the dou­ble leg. He defended well and was strong just like we expected. Hats off to Ram­page. He fought a really smart fight.”

For­mer UFC heavy­weight cham­pion Frank Mir won the Bat­tle of Las Vegas in one-sided fash­ion, crack­ing Roy Nel­son repeat­edly with knees and tak­ing him down fre­quently in order to take a unan­i­mous deci­sion. Judges had it 30–27 twice and 30–26. Yahoo! Sports had it 30–27 for Mir, the for­mer UFC heavy­weight champion.

The two men were born and raised in Las Vegas and went to high school just a few miles apart. One of Nelson’s cor­ner­men was a grooms­man in Mir’s wedding.

But when the fight began, Mir showed no mercy for his friend. At one point, Mir landed five or six knees in a row to Nelson’s face, but Nel­son didn’t quit.

Nel­son was never able to do much seri­ous dam­age to Mir, though he landed a cou­ple of good shots in the first round. But Mir kept the fight at the per­fect dis­tance and when he felt there was trou­ble, he took Nelson down.

“Wrestling was my main focus in this camp and I think it worked out well for me tonight,” Mir said. “I’d rate my per­for­mance as a seven [out of 10]. I expected to win the grap­pling aspect. It went even bet­ter than I had a planned. I felt like I was able to win in every aspect of the fight. Roy is really tough and I’m glad to leave here with the win.” Travis Browne used a per­fectly placed right hand while throw­ing a Super­man punch to put an early end to Ste­fan Struve’s night in their heavy­weight match. Brown cracked Struve with a right on the chin as Struve was get­ting ready to throw a knee.

The punch landed right on Struve’s chin. It snapped his head back and he was out almost imme­di­ately. The time of the knock­out was 4:11 of the first round.

“He’s been hit hard before, but I believe I’m the only one to ever put him out like that,â Browne said. “I think I’m now in the mix in the heavy­weight divi­sion. A few more wins and I think I can find myself in the top five of this division.”

Rick Story scored an unpop­u­lar unan­i­mous deci­sion vic­tory over for­mer wel­ter­weight title chal­lenger Thi­ago Alves, win­ning the first two rounds with a con­ser­v­a­tive strat­egy to take the fight 29–28 on all three cards. Yahoo! Sports also had it 29–28 for Story.

Story didn’t allow Alves to get going, stay­ing on top of him and neu­tral­iz­ing much of the Brazilian’s offense. Alves ral­lied with a num­ber of good strikes, includ­ing a well-placed knee, in the third, but he was too far behind to pull it out.

“My goal was to be explo­sive because I think that’s his kryp­tonite,” Story said. “I wanted to stay on him and let him know that I wasn’t going any­where. I’ve had a lot of hard strikes landed on me and it goes back to my con­di­tion­ing. My coach, Pat White, puts me in sit­u­a­tions in train­ing where I have to deal with adver­sity and have to deal with hav­ing my con­di­tion­ing tested. I was pre­pared for every­thing Thi­ago brought tonight and the end result is a vic­tory for me.”

Brian Stann took another big leap for­ward in the UFC’s mid­dleweight divi­sion, fol­low­ing his impres­sive win over Chris Leben with an equally impres­sive stop­page of Jorge Santiago.

Stann landed a straight right that knocked San­ti­ago down late in the sec­ond round and then quickly went for the fin­ish. Stann fired sev­eral short, hard ham­mer fists until ref­eree Herb Dean stopped it at 4:29 of the second.

San­ti­ago was return­ing to the UFC after a five-year absence, dur­ing which he com­piled an 11–1 record. He was no match for Stann, though, gen­er­at­ing lit­tle offense and get­ting nailed by Stann’s punches.

“I thought the fight was going good and then I just got caught,” San­ti­ago said. “I need to go home and fix some of the holes in my game.”

Demetri­ous John­son and Miguel Angel Tor­res put on an out­stand­ing grap­pling match, with each scor­ing rever­sals and going repeat­edly for submissions.

Johnson’s wrestling was the dif­fer­ence in a unan­i­mous deci­sion vic­tory over the for­mer World Extreme Cage­fight­ing ban­tamweight cham­pion. All three judges scored it 29–28 for John­son. Yahoo! Sports had Tor­res ahead, 30–27, favor­ing his sub­mis­sion work from the bottom.

“I thought I had a great game plan,” John­son said. “My goal was to kick his front leg, but at one point, he checked my kick and hit a soft spot [on my right leg]. It really lim­ited my mobil­ity. My legs are my engine and he took that away from me. For­tu­nately, I was able to recover and secure good takedowns.

“I worked hard on sub­mis­sion defense for this camp, but I still made a lot of mis­takes. I left my hands under­neath and on the mat and gave him oppor­tu­ni­ties that I shouldn’t have. ”

Tor­res, who nearly had a tri­an­gle choke in the sec­ond round, clearly thought he won, but did not com­plain about the decision.

“It was a tough fight,” he said. “He took me down and he just held me. I had a cou­ple of sub­mis­sion attempts that gave me the chance to put him away. This was my fault tonight. He’s slip­pery and he was able to get the take­downs. I just did­nât take advan­tage when I should have.”

Tim Boetsch made the 20-pound drop from light heavy­weight to mid­dleweight very eas­ily, out­wrestling Kendall Grove en route to a one-sided unan­i­mous deci­sion. All three judges scored it 30–27 for Boetsch.

There was lit­tle nuance to Boetsch’s plan. He was look­ing for the take­down early and often. He repeat­edly put the 6-foot-6 Hawai­ian onto his back and, though he didn’t do a lot of dam­age on the ground, he clearly con­trolled the fight.

“I felt great at this weight,” Boetsch said. “I did the cut twice and really had the sys­tem down. I knew when and how to rehy­drate and I did the cut the right way. That’s why I felt so great in there tonight. I knew Kendall was going to come out hun­gry and try to set the tone. I took that away from him right from the start. I didn’t want him to dic­tate the fight with his range and with his jab. I took all of that away and used my take­downs to con­trol this fight.”

Grove, the win­ner of Sea­son Three of “The Ulti­mate Fighter,” now has lost four of his last six and is in dan­ger of los­ing his job.

Grove said that Boetsch’s strength and phys­i­cal­ity were an issue for him.

“I couldn’t get off tonight and he was def­i­nitely stronger than I thought,” Grove said. “I didn’t expect him to go for take­downs like that. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Tim. He con­trolled the fight and deserved the win.”

In a bat­tle of Brazil­ians, Glei­son Tibau cracked Rafaello Oliveira with a hard straight left that knocked him down, and then fin­ished him on the ground with a rear naked choke at 3:28 of the second round.

Tibau had taken a close first round but opened up in the sec­ond. He landed sev­eral shots that seemed to bother Oliveira before con­nect­ing on a pow­er­ful straight left that dumped him on his back.

“He has some great com­bos and I didn’t see his left hand com­ing,” Oliveira said.

Tibau landed some shots from the top before maneu­ver­ing to fin­ish with the rear naked choke.

“I think I proved tonight that I’m get­ting close to my peak,” Tibau said. “I showed every­one that I can strike, that I can fin­ish guys with jiu-jitsu and that my game is com­ing together. I’m becom­ing a more com­plete fighter every day and I know that I’m head­ing toward the top of this division.”

Michael McDon­ald, at 20 the youngest fighter in the UFC, pulled out a close split deci­sion vic­tory over Chris Cari­aso. Judge Tony Weeks had it 30–27 for Cari­aso, but he was over­ruled by judges Adalaide Byrd and Glenn Trow­bridge, who had it 29–28 in favor of McDonald.

McDon­ald landed a num­ber of good strikes, but he couldn’t force Cari­aso to back off. Cari­aso landed a num­ber of very hard kicks that clearly impacted McDon­ald, who likely won the fight by being busier and more accu­rate with his strikes.

“Chris kicks really hard and his chin is really solid,” McDon­ald said. “Usu­ally when I hit peo­ple that hard, they go to sleep. For­tu­nately, I felt like I exe­cuted very well and was able to han­dle him in all aspects of the fight.”

Cari­aso was clearly dis­ap­pointed when the scores were announced.

“It’s a bum­mer to lose this fight,” Cari­aso said. “I felt like I did enough to take this fight, but it didn’t go my way. He hit really hard and he showed why he’s a tough match up for any­one at 135. I think we will def­i­nitely see each other again in the future. We are two of the top young guys in the divi­sion and we def­i­nitely need to see a fourth round.”

In the open­ing bout, Renan Barao won his UFC debut and gar­nered his 26th con­sec­u­tive vic­tory with a work­man­like per­for­mance in a unan­i­mous deci­sion win over Cole Escovedo.

Barao fought con­ser­v­a­tively, but con­trolled the action in the first two rounds. In the third, he opened up, land­ing a spin­ning back fist and sev­eral good kicks. The judges scored it 30–27 twice and 29–28 for Barao, who lost his open­ing bout and hasn’t been beaten since.

“I’m very happy with this per­for­mance,” Barao said. “It’s been a dream come true to be here in the UFC and tonight, I accom­plished a huge goal of fight­ing in the Octa­gon. My goal and game plan was to keep this fight stand­ing and show my strik­ing. I love show­ing the fans dif­fer­ent kinds of strik­ing. The fly­ing knees, the back fists, it’s some­thing that I prac­tice with the guys in my camp.”

Related Posts:

• Jack­son No Longer Ram­pages Through Fights
• UFC 130 Main Event Results — Jack­son Roll; Ram­page Deci­sions Hamill
• Ram­page Jack­son Not Excited with Matt Hamill for UFC 130
• Hamill Sees ‘Ram­page’ As Key to His Future
• UFC 130 Musings

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