Ultimate Fight Night Live April 6, 2006 went off without a hitch.
The best way that I can describe this Ultimate Fight Night Live is “workman-like”. It was entertaining to watch but not stellar. Most of the people who fought were people from TUF1 and TUF2 against a lot of no-names. Seems they are using these live TV fights as proving grounds for the up and comers in UFC. It’s understandable since the purses probably aren’t as big as the PPV fights.
Bonnar vs. Jardine was interesting and probably the most entertaining of the night (it should be since it was the headliner). This is the second fight I have seen with Bonnar that his conditioning hasn’t been as high as it was when he fought Forrest Griffin. He seemed way too gassed in the third round. You can always tell when he is tired because he puts his hands on his hips and his chest heaves like nobody’s business. Drives me batty because I keep screaming in my head to his opponent, “Lunge and HIT THE FOOL”. Jardine did a lot better than I thought. He really came on hard in the third round but it really wasn’t enough to overcome the two knock-downs Bonnar laid on him earlier on.
The Stevenson (TUF2 winner) vs. Josh Neer (TUF2 participant) was the most suprising to watch. Joe Summed it up best. ?Sometimes you eat the bear,? said Stevenson, ?and sometimes the bear eats you.?
It was also the most painful to watch. Joe Stevenson secured a leg-lock in the first and hyper-extended Josh’s knee backwards to a point way past anatomically correct. I have been in a leg lock like that and it’s painful as all get out. After the match Josh said something to the effect that he heard something snap but kept on fighting even though he wasn’t mobile.
He finally won the decision by taking the even less mobile Stevenson and applying some good old GNP (Ground-n-Pound) and well placed strikes to the head, despite his bum knee.
The Leben fight was extremely boring. He kept swinging and missing but his opponent, Luigi Fioravanti, was so overclassed that he couldn’t make him pay for it. So there was a lot of leaning on each other and ineffective takedowns.
The Evans vs. Hoger fight was interesting but I wouldn’t call it artwork. Evan’s definitely won the match because he was always on the offensive but it wasn’t by much (as shown by the split decision in his favor). I can’t stand the over-exaggerated level changes that Rashad does with his head and I have no love for Hoger who comes off an arrogant S.O.B. on TV (I don’t know him personally). So I wasn’t really interested in this fight anyways.
They didn’t show the preliminaries on TV and I am sure they are saving them for “Unleashed” so here’s hoping we will see them soon.
