By John McMullen
Philadelphia, PA - The fightin' city of Philadelphia is famous for its long and storied boxing history.
Names like Joe Frazier, Bernard Hopkins and the Blue Horizon are legendary in
the City of Brotherly Love. Heck, a fictional boxer, Rocky Balboa, may be
the city's most famous "resident."
These days, boxing's popularity seems to fade by the day while mixed martial
arts is all the rage.
Saturday night, Philly fans finally got a first hand look at the new
generation of fighters and I got to see what all the fuss is about, when the
Ultimate Fighting Championship brought the first major mixed martial arts card
in Pennsylvania to the Wachovia Center.
The company had a tough act to follow, considering it was coming off a highly
successful centennial show last month, headlined by heavyweights Brock Lesnar
and Frank Mir.
UFC 100 in Las Vegas ended up as the largest grossing MMA event in North
American history and one of the biggest pay-per-view events of all- time.
The controversial Lesnar, a former World Wrestling Entertainment champ and
NCAA national wrestling kingpin at Minnesota, was clearly the fighter fueling
the record sales at UFC 100.
As a follow-up, 15,000-plus sold-out the Center to see two of the world's best
pound-for-pound fighters, as B.J. Penn defended his UFC lightweight crown
against number one contender Kenny Florian, and UFC middleweight boss Anderson
Silva moved up to the 205-pound weight class and decimated former light
heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin.
Neither Penn nor Silva can match Lesnar's awesome charisma, but they both
bring far more technical skill to the Octagon. The pride of Hilo, Hawaii, Penn
(14-5-1) is on the short list of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the
world and was returning to the division he has dominated.
Unbeaten at 155 pounds since 2002, Penn bested Jens Pulver, Joe Stevenson, and
Sean Sherk in successive lightweight fights before suffering an ugly setback
in his challenge for Georges St-Pierre's welterweight crown in January,
St-Pierre battered Penn and forced him to retire on his stool at the end of
the fourth round in that one. Afterwards Penn filed a formal complaint with
the Nevada State Athletic Commission over Vaseline that was allegedly rubbed
on St-Pierre's back between rounds one and two.
Penn came off bad in the process and badly wanted to get back on track against
Florian (13-4), a 33-year-old Boston native that was taking his second shot at
lightweight hardware.
Penn was lackadaisical for the first three rounds but woke up in round 4,
dominating Florian with his dazzling wrestling skills. Florian finally wilted,
gave up his back and Penn put him away with a choke.
Silva was far more impressive. Currently sporting the longest consecutive win
streak in UFC history at 10, Silva (25-4) has also already tied the
organization record for most consecutive successful title defenses at five,
beating the likes of Dan Henderson, Rich Franklin, Patrick Cote, and Thales
Leites along the way.
But, the 34-year old native of Curitiba, Brazil tackled the light
heavyweight division for just the second time in Philly. In his first 205-
pound bout, Silva blitzed James Irvin in just 61 seconds last July. This time
he needed just over three minutes to embarrass Griffin but Silva was literally
playing cat-and-mouse with the bigger man and could have put Griffin away at
any time.
But, as good as they are, fighters like Penn, Silva and Lesnar aren't the
only reason for the UFC's ever-burgeoning success. They are superstars and
every sport has them. Boxing can even throw names like Manny Pacquiao, Floyd
Mayweather Jr. and Ricky Hatton at you.
What strikes you the most about the MMA world is that everything matters. In
boxing, the preliminaries, even on a big fight night, will be fought in front
of a few hundred fans. People trickle in and the masses only care about the
main event.
At the last major boxing match in Atlantic City, featuring up-and-coming
Puerto Rican star Juan Manuel Lopez, the promoters actually started the event
before opening up the doors to the general public.
UFC fans filled the building before bell time Saturday and were just as hot
for the curtain-jerker as the main event.
In fact, the opener highlighted the undercard as welterweights Jesse Lennox
and Danillo Villefort clashed in an entertaining, albeit controversial fight.
Lennox won by TKO at 3:37 of Round 3 after Villefort was cut about his eye
when their heads clashed on the ground grappling. Referee Keith Peterson ruled
the cut was caused by a punch, not a head-butt, therefore the fight wasn't
ruled a no contest.
Even Lennox seemed to know that the cut was from a head butt, however, and was
a little hot it was stopped.
"It's disappointing. I've been cut a lot worse than that and kept going,"
Lennox said. "I would have been upset if I were him."
The crowd erupted again when referee Dan Miragliotta called off a bout between
Johny Hendricks, a two-time former NCAA wresting champ at Oklahoma, and Amir
Sadollah. Hendricks rocked Sadollah with a flurry of five punches early and
Miragliotta waved things off in just 29 seconds.
Meanwhile, winning isn't the only thing in MMA. Middleweights Thales Leites
and Alessio Sakara stunk up the joint and Philly showed up, booing both
fighters out of the building. YAHOO!'s Dave Meltzer reported that al the
fighters were warned earlier in the week about the reputation of the Philly
faithful. Entertaining them was paramount.
Despite earning a split decision, Sakara was dejected.
"I like my job but I like to give a great show for my fans," Sakara said. "I'm
sorry to may fans that weren't happy but my opponent is very tough. I have a
lot of respect for Thales Leites."
Through it all, I must say I was shocked just how much everyone cared. For
more than four hours, fight fans in attendance were engaged and interested.
Boxing could learn a lot from that.
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