ufc 47 ultimate fighting championship: SFUK's mixed martial arts reports

Day 1 - Wednesday For our first day in Vegas we thought we'd do something exciting, and hired a Dodge Viper, and took it for a spin (almost literally a few times) around Red Rock Canyon. Having ended up watching some kinda weird Desert Donkeys shagging we thought everything was going well (although now we know where the phrase "hung like a donkey" comes from... DAMN!!!!!!). Unfortunately somewhere along the journey, I lost my nice new shiney camera.. although we did have a couple backups, it did hinder our picture taking for the rest of the holiday.

Day 2 - The Weighins Went for breakfast in the Luxor (which is a feast by anyones standards... believe!! We didn't eat for the rest of the day), and bumped into Wes Simms who was tucking into a healthy plateful. Didn't blag him because a) he was eating and b) we didn't even know he was supposed to be fighting at this point. Went over for the weighins which were situated at the back of the main arena in the Mandalay Bay, which worked much better than being at the Ra nightclub, cos everyone got a seat. Waited the customery hour or so for the weighins to get going, before they proceeeded so quick that it was impossible to take photos and write notes before the next guy was on the scales. Got a press announcement handed round that Tim Sylvia was out for still testing positive for roids (wasn't that particular roid supposed to be out of his system within 3 months? Ah well... I guess physically you could never really call him a "normal" human being). To their credit Zuffa had swapped round the lineup, so Andre Arlovski was still fighting (which was good news, because he was one of the fighters we really wanted to see). So the new lineup was Arlovski v Cabbage, and Mike Kyle v Wes Simms. Bad news for Cabbage, good news for Mike Kyle some might say.

Weighins shot through all too quickly, with notable being: - Tim Sylvia and Wes Simms having a "heated debate" in the fighters enclosure bit.. couldn't see what they were saying, but they definitely weren't wishing each other all the best - Cabbage weighing in at 265 on the button.... and Arlovskis face when he did.

- Tito weighing in at 202 which is the lightest I can remember him in a long time, and looking absolutely shredded, especially around the stomach area.

- Chuck looking in the best shape I've seen him since UFC 40, if not ever.

- Matt Hughes looking in amazing shape, better than UFC 46... shame he wasn't fighting at this one!!

After the weighins we went to the autograph session which only had Randy Couture and Ken Shamrock at this time (no disrespect to either of them, but there was 5 or 6 people doing autographs at the last one). Met Ken outside and managed to get a brief interview with him, and then met Randy and got an interview with him as well. It was interesting to see the contrast in the way that they answered the questions.. hopefully you'll see what I mean when I post the interviews up later this week.

Then we went for a beer in the Mandalay Bay to calm our nerves after having seen/met/spoken to so many fighters, and on the way bumped into Andre Arlovski.. got an interview with him as well through his interpreter, but left the pause button on my dictaphone.. durrrrrr!!! Wasn't a particularly eventful interview anyway; even if he was quite friendly; basically he wasn't taking Cabbage lightly, he didn't want to give too much of his strategy away, and he wants the title belt!!

Saw Quinton Jackson whilst having a beer, but he disappeared to quickly for us to get an interview. He looks a lot wider in the flesh though. Thought we would be professional and go and type up our weighin report straight away, so headed up to the room, which was equipped with a cat 5 high speed internet cable.. professionals.. or so we though. Technology wasn't on our side because:

a) Many of the photos on the digital camera we had left didn't come out, and the ones on our 35 mil camera obviously weren't developed.
b) My web space wouldn't let me upload anything, so we couldn't upload what photos we did have, nor the videos.
c) Handily, the day that I left the UK, btinternet decided to upgrade to yahoo btinternet or some rubbish, the upshot of which being I couldn't access my email without calling their 0906 number first, and yes.. you guessed it... I couldn't get the 0906 number to work from the US.
d) As if we needed any more problems.. we dropped the network adapter that the cat 5 cable went into, of the ironing board, and it stopped working. Doh.

Eventually, we gave up and went back to the bar.

Day 3 - UFC 47 Event Day

Headed over to the event centre at about 4:15ish and wondered about the media bit. Ended up walking out the bit that all the fighters do to the Octagon haha. Shame we didn't video it. Went upstairs to get some merchandise, but the queues were phenominal.. last time I queued for about 45 minutes to get stuff, and this time the queues were double the length. Eventually gave up and went and found my seat.

Fight 1 - Genki Sudo v Mike Brown

I can't question enough the logic behind not only not necessarily having Genki on the pay per view, but also have one of the most original entertainers in mma fight first, and to a three quarter empty arena. But he did and there it was.

Going into the fight rumours were flying around that Genki was hand picking opponents, and wouldn't fight people like Bang (again), Franca, Yves Edwards etc. Immediately it was obvious who had been here before, and who hadn't. Genki came in to a big crowd reaction (well.. big for the number of people that were there) looking full of beans with some kind of golden cloke on and a mask. Mike Brown came in looking pretty damn nervous.

The round started with Mike pushing Genki up against the fence and trying for the takedown. They exchanged knees and strikes for a while before Genki managed to trip Mike and get him to the floor. Mike tried to get up, and Genki countered with a choke.. which Mike countered with a big slam.. which is always a dangerous thing to do with someone like Genki, and he slapped a triangle on. Mike managed to pop out of it, but not before he sweated a bit.

Mike tried some lay and prey, which, lets be fare, was probably his best chance of beating a decision out of Genki, but again Genki slapped on a triangle. Mike tried to strike his way out of it, but in a moment which I'm sure had Team Elite and Jorge Riviera in particular say "Oh no!! Not again!!", Genki converted to an armbar, and Mike tapped in the first round.

Fight 2 - Jonathan Wiezorek v Wade Shipp

Going into the fight Jonathan came in with an impressive 5 - 0 record... until you looked at the people he fought, who had all with the exception of Dan Severn had loosing or iffy records. But then 4 - 1 for Wade Shipp against similar opponents probably stood him in fairly good sted.

Both came in looking pretty confident, although Jonathan just didn't look like a fighter, more like the boy next door who went to the gym on the odd occasion, but just couldn't get rid of that spare middle tyre. Round one started, and Jonathan charged at Shipp. Unfortunately he was that slow that Shipp had time to take a good few seconds to consider his options, before deciding to reply with a nice knee to the chin on Wiezorek. For a few seconds it looked like we were going to have a new quickest knockout in UFC history, as Wiezorek staggered backwards, but he managed to stay on his feet. Before Wiezorek could say "bad strategy", Shipp battered him around the Octagon for a good few seconds throwing good strikes, knees, and half of the kitchen sink.

Unfortunately for Shipp, Wiezorek stayed up and just kept working on closing the distance, until he managed to get hold of him and eventually get the take down. Shipp then managed to get the mount it looked like (although I was being heavily hindered by some fat security guard who decided to stand right in front of us at this point), but Wiezorek managed to get back up to his feet and they ended up in the clinch against the cage.

At this point, it looked like the match would be stopped, and had Big John been reffing, I'm pretty sure it would have been. Wiezoreks nose was busted up pretty good, blood all over his face, but more importantly it had either gone up to his eyes from his nose, or his eyes were streaming with blood. But the match was allowed to continue, much to the surprise of many people in the crowd.

So as Shipp tried to get his breath back, having completely punched himself out, and Wiezorek tried to remember what day it was, why his face was hurting, and probably why he couldn't see, they stayed clinched up for a while. Eventually Wiezorek pulled guard, looking pretty much like a man defeated. Shipp backed out, and they both rose up back to the clinch against the cage, and the rest looked like it had helped Wiezorek, as he started to work again with a guillotine. In pulling out of that, Shipp managed to end on the bottom, with Wiezorek in side mount. Here he quickly moved to north/south, and moved round and slipped both hooks in, and looked like he was going for the rear naked. Shipp defended, and Wiezorek opted to just go for strikes. Shipp was that exhausted that didn't defend, and with Wiezorek and his spare tyre on top of him, stood little chance of getting out, and the fight was stopped just before the end of the first round.

How Wade Shipp never finished him, I'll never know, but I'm sure he'll be kicking himself for the rest of his life for it.. and 10 out of 10 for Jonathan for hanging in there and eventually coming through with the win. Even if he does remind me of a poor mans Ricco Rodriguez.

Report Part 2 - all the action & of course, Chuck v Tito