(Thank Crom somewhere along the way, they decided to wear shorts.)
36 years ago: MMA’s version of Yoda, Greg Jackson, was born in Washington, DC.
34 years ago: UFC middleweight and former CagePotato TUF 11 guest blogger Rich Attonito was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
4 years ago: UFC 72: Victory took place in Ireland, marking the first time the Octagon made an appearance on the Emerald Isle.
Although the card was not a particularly great one, a few things of note happened:
• A number of notable fighters fought their last respective bouts in the Octagon that night, including Hector Ramirez, Scott Smith and Rory Singer.
• Yushin Okami lost his first UFC bout against Rich Franklin. Had he won, he would have fought Anderson Silva next.
Martin Kampmann was originally scheduled to fight Franklin, but withdrew from the bout due to injury.
Jake O’Brien was scheduled to fight Tom Murphy, but was also forced to withdraw due to injury. Since no replacement for O’Brien could be found, Murphy too was pulled from the card.
• Clay Guida lost by split decision to Tyson Griffin, which was his second loss in a row. He pulled out a close split decision in his next fight against Marcus Aurelio. Had he lost that one, he may have been cut from the UFC.
• Fight of the Night went to Clay Guida and Tyson Griffin.
• Submission of the Night went to Ed Herman for his second-round rear naked choke over Scott Smith.
• Knockout of the Night went to Marcus Davis for his 1:15 knockout of UFC newcomer Jason Tan.
• 7850 attended the event.
1 year ago: Strikeforce LA took place on a Wednesday night at at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The event, whose final line-up changed several times after Charles Bennett, Jason Miller, Bobby Lashley, and Ron Sparks all ended up being pulled from the card for various reasons.
Two of the card’s bouts had title implications.
Renato “Babalu” Sobral defeated Robbie Lawler by decision in a 195-pound catchweight bout and was awarded a number one light heavyweight contendership bout his next fight against Dan Henderson after declaring that he would not face his friend and sometimes training partner Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal.
Tim Kennedy defeated Trevor Prangley and got a shot at the Strikeforce middleweight strap (which was vacated by Jake Shields when he left for the UFC) against Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza. Had Lawler defeated Sobral, he would have faced Souza instead.
It’s estimated that 164,000 viewers tuned in for the event with a peak audience of 197,000 watching it on Showtime.
5259 attended the show.