Rashad Evans Knocks Out Chuck Liddell and earns title shot against Forrest Griffin
Rashad Evans culminated, and perhaps saved a night of less than stellar performances with one single punch. Evans survived the first round against “The Iceman” without much damage. But he really seemed to find his game plan a minute into the second round. Evans began landing left hooks and jabs against Liddell and soon found himself in the comfort zone. After a few exchanges, Chuck began to stalk his opponent, Rashad was backed up near the cage when he faked a jab and followed it with a beautiful over hand right that landed cleanly on Chuck’s chin, sending the former light heavyweight champion face first into the canvas. There was no doubt the fight was over with just one punch. The victory earned Rashad Evans KO of the night ($60k) and a shot against Forrest Griffin, perhaps as soon as December 27th.
None of the rest of the fights had the shocking value that the Evans vs. Liddell had. Nate Marquardt looked very impressive against a very well-rounded and exciting, but perhaps outclassed and outsized Martin Kampmann. Nate came out strong and soon had the Danish kickboxer in trouble after a left head kick landed and sent Kampmann stumbling against the cage. Marquardt peppered Kampmann with short elbows, hooks, knees and uppercuts until the referee stepped in to save Kampmann from any more damage.
Dan Henderson played it safe against a very underrated Rousimar Palhares. Henderson used his legendary right hand to send Palhares stumbling to the ground several times, but was cautious to not fall into Palhares’ expertise, jiu-jitsu. Despite the caution, Henderson found himself near trouble several times but managed to escape. Palhares proved a tough opponent, but Henderson proved to be the more experienced fighter and executed a good game plan that earned him the victory and spared him from losing three fights in a row. It is nice to see Dan back to his winning ways, Henderson is at the very top of the middleweight rankings and would make for some very entertaining matches in the future.
Rich Franklin also had a very cautious gameplan against Matt Hamill. It wasn’t much of a secret that Hamill would be the better wrestler, so Franklin kept the fight on the feet and scored enough points to win the first two rounds. Hamill did manage to open a big cut above Franklin’s eye that had the doctors thinking about stopping the fight, but it was Franklin that finished the fight with a kick to the liver that sent Hamill to the ground. Franklin landed another couple of punches from the top before the referee stepped in to end the fight. After the victory, Rich Franklin hinted at staying at 205 pounds for the foreseeable future, although he does realize that it will not be an easy task to become competitive in the new division.
Matt Brown fought a tough fight, and showed some improvement, but did not do enough damage to be awarded the victory against Dong Hyun Kim. Kim won via split decision.
Tim Boetsch proved to be the better striker against an unknown Michael Patt. Boetsch won via TKO in the first round.
Jason MacDonald earned submission of the night ($60k) against Jason Lambert by rear naked choke in the second round.
Nice review. After watching Evans’ replay, it’s evident that he practiced that punch a lot. His trainers told him, “This is the punch that will knock him out.” Sure enough!
The funny thing is that that punch is very similar to Chucks - Rashad got his timing down and gave him a dose of his own medicine.