So now that I've explain to you the bad blood between Rashad and Rampage lets discuss the skill between the two. Both of these fighters are well known in the UFC.
Rampage didn't start in the UFC but in a league called PRIDE that was held in Japan. There his skills were put to the test against well rounded fighters such as the "Iceman" himself Chuck Liddell and "The Ax Murderer" Wanderlei Silva. In Pride he was know for the knockout power in both hands and his infamous power bomb slam which he used to beat mma fighter Ricardo Aron when he put Rampage in a Triangle choke.
Rampage has also been know to have a good ground game when he faced Olympic wrestler Dan Henderson the PRIDE Light Heavy weight champion in a unified title fight. The winner of the fight would have both the UFC and PRIDE light heavy weight championship. A lot of spectators saw that Rampage was the underdog of the fight due to the fact that he was mainly known for his stand up game (Boxing and any other techniques that are used to knockout the opponent while standing for the newbies). Dan Henderson was an Olympic Greco-wrestler for the 1992 and 1996 summer games. Everybody saw that Henderson's wrestling as the Achilles heel of Rampage in the upcoming fight, but Rampage quieted all of the of speculation of defeat that would be handed to him by Henderson by defeating him at UFC 75 and unifying the titles. In the bout he used very impressive wrestling skills to take Henderson down on multiple occasions during the fight which helped Rampage win the five round bout with a unanimous decision with the judges scoring the fight as 48–47, 49–46, 49–46.
Even though Rampage has impressive victories under his belt, including being the UFC light heavy weight champion, Rashad Evans has an impressive track record as well leading up to this fight. Rashad, like Rampage, has held the light heavy weight championship title. He has also holds a knock out victory over the legend Chuck Liddell. Rashad got his big break when he competed on the second season of The Ultimate Fighter (T.U.F), the UFC's prime time reality T.V. program that grants the opportunity to young fighters such as Rashad at the time to go achieve their dream of winning a contract with the UFC. Rashad did that by beating all of the odds and overcoming the fact that he was the shortest (At 5 feet 11 inches) and the second lightest heavyweight of the nine competitors on the show.
He won all three elimination matches by decision, and in every fight he was seen as the underdog. After defeating Brad Imes who stood 6ft 7 in tall he went on an undefeated streak where he defeated the likes of Michael "The Count" Bisping , Stephan Bonar, and of course Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell all these fights led up to Evans main event fight with the current UFC light heavy weight champion at the time, Forrest Griffin. Evans defeated Griffin in the third round after getting Griffin on his back and using vicious ground and pound and became the new light heavy weight champion of the UFC.
1 comment:
Post a Comment