Saturday night, pitted the highly anticipated rematch of the former champion Rich "Ace" Franklin against the man who dethroned him Anderson "The Spider" Silva for the UFC Middleweight crown. Since defeating Franklin, Silva has defeated Travis Lutter and Nate Marquardt. Both of those fights were against top level ground fighters, the supposed weakness of Brazilian. Yet he disposed of both fighters and was now slated the man who he defeated to win the belt, Rich Franklin.


Franklin was riding a two fight win streak heading into UFC 77, even claiming a win over Yushin Okami (a man whom defeated Silva). He also had a great training camp going into this fight by going into seclusion to train in Wyoming with his Jiu-Jitsu and best friend, Jorge Gurgel. He even hired famed submission trainer, Matt Hume to work his corner. All pieces were there for Franklin to win except that he was facing Anderson Silva. The same man whom a year ago forced Franklin to need surgery to fix his badly broken nose.











The fight began with some feeling out on the feet not before Silva started getting the better of the exchanges. Silva then seemed to be initiating the clinch trying to get a hold of the Thai clinch which allowed him to dismantled Franklin in their first meeting. Franklin avoided it, and even took Anderson down for a brief period before they stood up again. Anderson?s stand up was slowly hurting Franklin with every strike he landed, and he knew it. As he danced around the ring, doing his best Pernell Whitaker impression, dodging Rich?s punches with his hands down. That might have been the only part of the fight in which Silva was backing up from Franklin, the rest of the fight was attacked Rich hitting him with everything he had. And by the end of the first round he had Franklin out, landed a great right hand to the temple of Franklin that dropped him to his knees. Franklin weakly going for a leg of Silva, kept the fight going that extra ten seconds to end round one. But it was evident that this fight was close to reaching its conclusion. As the second round began all Silva needed to do was land a few strikes to Franklin`s dome to make Big John McCarthy step in and call a halt to the fight at 1:07 in the second round.











In the co feature bout of the evening, former two-time heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia defeated rising star Brandon Vera by Unanimous Decision. Sylvia`s size seemed to give Vera some problems throughout the course of the fight, as Vera did not display much offense besides a second round takedown. With this fight Sylvia, definitely showed that he is still one of the best fighters in the UFC heavyweight division.





Also on the Main Card: Stephan Bonnar knocked out his former training partner Eric Schafer. Schafer took Bonnar`s back late in the first round but was unable to capitize. And that hurt him, as Bonnar came back to finish Schafer with some brutal ground and pound in the second round. This fight makes Bonnar 2-0 since returning from suspension.





Alvin Robinson upset hometown hero Jorge Gurgel by unanimous decision. Robinson came back from a rough first round, to dominate the final two rounds and take a decision. In that he showed some slick Jiu-Jitsu, which included a nice Omoplata which helped turn the tide for "The Kid" in the second round. This fight gave Robinson his first win in the UFC.





Alan Belcher beat Kalib Starnes by the Doctor`s Stoppage in the second round because of a cut. In an entertaining fight Belcher and Starnes fought toe-toe most of the fight. Belcher showed off tremendous Muay Thai and incorporated elbows in the clinch which may have opened up the huge gash on Starnes` forehead. By the second round, the cut was just too much for Starnes to deal with as, the doctor stopped the fight. The win upped Belcher`s UFC record to 3-2, and brought Kalib to 2-2.



Preliminary Bouts:


In what may have been a battle for a title shot in the middleweight divion, Yushin Okami dominated Jason MacDonald to a rather lopsided Unanimous Decision.





World Class Grappler Demian Maia, made his UFC debut a success by submitting Ryan Jensen in the first round via Rear Naked Choke.





Josh Burkman held off, a game Forrest Petz to win a Split Decision.





And in the fight of the night, Matt Grice defeated journeyman Jason Black by Split Decision.

Article By: hwigget1968