If you missed former King of The Cage Bantamweight Champion Jared “The Jackhammer” Papazian’s UFC debut against highly-regarded 12-1 Alliance MMA prospect Mike “The Hulk” Easton in the second bout of the UFC on FX 1 card live from Nashville, Tennessee, you might have missed what many would consider the true “Fight of The Night” for the UFC’s debut on FX.
Call it three solid rounds of action or whatever else you want to call it, but both men put on a fight that probably just made the UFC Bantamweight division the must-see division of 2012.
Some might ask: How good could it have been if Pat Barry’s one-rounder with Christian Morecraft got Fight of The Night over it?
Well let’s put it like this: Remember how Don Frye’s bout with Yoshihiro Takayama went?
That’s how this fight started, as both engaged in some insane dirty Boxing, and from there they mostly just kept right on striking with sporadic moments in the clinch against the cage, but by round two, they only clinched in order to regain their energy, and realistically speaking, Papazian was clinching.
However, while the majority of the fight stayed vertical and both men refused to show any sign of quit, the second round is when Easton really got himself going, as it was expected that one of the two would have to go for the takedown.
Easton not only secured a takedown, but one could argue that a backfired takedown attempt on Papazian’s part landed the opening for the takedown that eventually earned Easton a majority decision, with one judge scoring the first round as a 10-10 with a 10-9 for Easton in Round 2 and a 10-9 for Papazian in Round 3.
The other two judges saw it differently, with one judge seeing it 2-1 for Easton and the other seeing it as a sweep for Easton, likely due to the takedown and the reasonably-added logic that Papazian was working his footwork on the outside with his back to the cage, which some judges perceive as a lack of aggression.
Truth be told though, both men fought in arguably one of the best Bantamweight bouts in a long time, and proved why they’re in the UFC at this time. So in retrospect, nobody really lost this one, but with UFC on FX 1 in the books, both casual and hardcore fans will now be looking ahead to what lies in store for both “The Hulk” and “The Jackhammer” on their respective horizons.
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