The UFC considers Tim Boetsch’s win over much-hyped middleweight Hector Lombard at UFC 149 as its biggest upset of the year.
In its “unofficial” awards list, the promotion has Boetsch listed twice among 10 of the biggest upsets of 2012.
The UFC’s Thomas Gerbasi, says: “You might think it’s an indictment of Tim Boetsch to include him, not once, but twice on this list, but it’s not. It’s just that with only two UFC middleweight wins under his belt, beating one of the division’s longest standing contenders (Yushin Okami) and an international star with a 24-0-1 unbeaten streak heading into their bout (Hector Lombard) seemed to be a bit much for ‘The Barbarian’ to chew.”
Boetsch dropped down to 185 pounds in May 2011 following a second-round submission loss at the hands of light heavyweight Phil Davis.
Seemingly the two wins against Kendall Grove and Nick Ring at middleweight weren’t enough to convince UFC matchmakers that he would be the favourite going into his fights against Okami back in February and Lombard in July.
Lombard in particular was the reigning Bellator middleweight champion who was signed by the UFC last year as a potential opponent for Anderson Silva. All those plans came crashing down, however, after the two men fought an uneventful three-round split decision which went in Boetsch’s favour.
Together with his come-from-behind third-round KO of Okami, the win gave Boetsch three in a row, but unfortunately, last week, that streak was put to an end by Constantinos Philippou with a third-round TKO at UFC 155.
The biggest upset of the year is an accolade that puts Boetsch alongside the likes of Tito Ortiz, who won the honour last year for beating Ryan Bader, and Matt Serra who TKO’d Georges St. Pierre all the way back in 2007.
Elsewhere on the list, the UFC considers CB Dollaway’s win over Jason Miller, which saw the latter cut from the promotion, as the No. 6 upset of the year; Jamie Varner’s first-round TKO of Edson Barboza at UFC 146 as the third biggest upset of the year; and Ryan Bader’s defeat of Quinton Jackson at UFC 144 as the second biggest.
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