Chi, from GamesCritic, wrote this nice editorial about the upsets of this year. He has named it “The Year of the Upsets”, which rings a little better than “The Year of the Puncher’s Chance” (which I created).
Great article although I don’t necessarily agree with him all the way. I think the puncher’s chance that currently dominates the landscape is a refreshing change and points towards the progression of the field where parity is becoming more of a factor. You decide.Its only April and it’s already safe to dub 2007 as the “Year of the Upsets” in the sport of mixed martial arts. Here’s a rundown of just some of the stunners over the last couple of months:
* 185 lb Dan Henderson KOed the once fearsome 205 lb Wanderlei Silva and unified the Pride middleweight and light heavyweight championship titles
* Nick Diaz embarrassed one of the highly touted Pride lightweight champion Takanori Gomi via a gogoplata submission
* An unknown Team Quest fighter, Sokoudjou KOed veteran Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and then proved it wasn’t a fluke by doing the exact same thing to his stablemate Ricardo Arona
* A 44 year old Randy Couture comes out of retirement and dominates then UFC heavyweight champion Tim Silvia for five rounds
* The greatest underdog in MMA history and TUF season 4 winner, Matt Serra KOs the “future of MMA” Georges St-Pierre and does so in 3 minutes and 25 seconds
* And just this past weekend, Gabriel Gonzaga accomplishes the unthinkable by KOing Mirko Crocop with his own trademark high kickFans of the sport like to brag that what makes MMA so exciting is that “anything can happen,” but even in the wildest dreams of hardcore MMA fans could not imagined have these radical outcomes. I consider myself to be a big Crocop fan and to see him crumpled over like a rag doll after a devastating kick to the head was tough to digest. I hadn’t felt this deflated over a fight since Wanderlei Silva destroyed Kazushi Sakuraba in their first legendary match-up.