(Clements v. Travis Briere, end comes at the 2:44 mark.)
Aside from The Ultimate Fighter 14 Finale, December 3rd also features an interesting welterweight battle between UFC veteran Rich Clementi and up and coming KO artist Chris Clements under the Score Fighting Series promotion. And after doing a quick check-up on Clements, we thought he was a guy that was worth talking about, so let’s, shall we?
“The Menace” is a 9-4 product fighting out of Ontario, Canada who has collected all 9 of those wins by way of KO or TKO inside the first two rounds. He often trains with the likes of Mark Hominick and Sam Stout, because there can only be so many MMA gyms in that tundra known as Canada, am I right or am I right? *High fives self*
A little known fact about Clements: he is the man responsible for retiring UFC vet Jonathan Goulet back at Rinside MMA-Payback in November of 2010, the video of which is below.
First off, was anyone even aware that Goulet was retired? We can’t say we blame him; his fighting style, though exciting, has earned him 9 losses via KO or TKO, including the true record for fastest knockout in the UFC. I’ll raise a glass for you tonight, “Road Warrior,” in the hopes that you one day find the tanker truck full of gasoline that you rightfully deserve.
Anyway, back to Clements. Three of his four losses have come against notable opponents like John Alessio, Jesse Bongfeldt, and Rory Markham, so he will definitely be out to prove something against Clementi, who has been struggling a bit as of late. Despite holding 25 of his 42 wins by submission, we last saw “No Love” get absolutely dominated on the ground by Shinya Aoki at Dream 17 “Fight for Japan” and somehow manage to talk shit to Aoki whilst doing so.
That being said, three of Clements’ aforementioned losses have come via submission to opponents with arguably lower level grappling credentials than Clementi (not sure about Alessio), so it will be intriguing to see if Clements is able to keep the fight standing, where, as far as we can tell, he holds a combination of technique and power that would give Clementi all kinds of trouble. Just check out that spinning back kick in the top video, fricken’ beautiful.
So what do you guys think, could a win over Clementi potentially earn Clements a call from the UFC? Are these guy’s last names making it way too difficult to understand who I’m talking about? Will Clementi go all “Degeneration X” on Clements like he did against Melvin Guillard at UFC 79?
All these questions and more will be answered come Saturday night.
-Danga