Joe ‘Daddy’ Stevenson vs. George Sotiropoulos
The hometown Aussie hero Sotiropoulos was stepping up big time against Stevenson. The UFC sure didn’t give the Australian fighters any easy ride in their hometown! Cro Cop and Stevenson? However there just aren’t all that many easy fights in the UFC because as soon as you’re an ‘easy fight’ your already out of the UFC. Stevenson came into the arena laughing and dancing his way to the Octagon, clearly not very worried about any Australian. George was much more focused and beefy looking than usual.
The first round quickly saw Sotiropoulos take Stevenson down and demonstrate an excellent ground attack. Stevenson scrambled well however he spent most of the round on his back after being mounted several times and fighting off a Kimura arm bar. It was pretty clear who was serious about this fight after Sotiropoulos dominated the first round. The fans' wild cheering made it hard for the trainers to talk to the fighters between rounds, easily winning the most rabid crowd award to date for a UFC fight.
Joe ‘Daddy’ came out boxing in round two but Sotiropoulos staggered him with a flash left hand to the chin. Nothing was going Daddy’s way so after some more boxing without any effect, he stepped in and took George down with a nice power slam. Stevenson was methodically searching through his tool box for anything that would work to pull out a win Down Under. However Sotiropoulos showed his excellent Jiu-Jitsu in threatening Joe ‘Daddy’ even from the bottom and ended the round after slapping on an Anaconda choke but not having enough time to do any damage.
Stevenson pressed the action in the final round but just couldn’t seem to be effective against the Aussie. Punching was exchanged evenly and on the mat they rolled and flipped with no winner. In a closer battle than the unanimous 30-27 decision sounds George Sotiropoulos pulled off the biggest MMA upset to date so far in 2010.
Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping
The co-main event in this young dog / old dog fight night saw the ‘Axe Murderer’ Wanderlei Silva drop down in weight to face Britain’s MMA hero Michael ‘the Count’ Bisping, who actually asked for this fight against the MMA legend. Bisping, who doesn’t want to fight any lower level competition anymore, clearly has an ego bigger than his ability. The question was did he have enough ability to match his words on this night?
Article comments
1 - mick
cro cop is not looking good he did not finish this nobody in the first round and i think and many think if Ben would have fought cro cop, cro cop would have been knocked out
2 - jack
Anthony Perosh only had 2 days to get ready and he is a light heavyweight that jumped to heavyweight to fight cro cop and cro cop never finished him in the first it shows that cr cop is not a great fighter anymore just like his other 2 country men that got beat up but anyway cro cop did not look that good against a nobody.
3 - UFC
cro cop looked terrible!