With just one round, the “face of MMA” changed.

I joked before the fight with the crew of fighters and friends that I sat at a sports bar with that Chuck was going to lose because he had been on the cover of ESPN the Magazine.  Everyone else at the table agreed that Rampage was going to win it, people more  knowledgeable than I. The only Liddell stalwart, besides the rest of the crowd at the bar that had never heard of Quinton Jackson, was a college wrestler who had just lost $20 betting against Karo Parisyan and was now lamenting that Chuck was going to lose because he had bet on him.

Of course, your average MMA fan doesn’t train in any combat sport, but just likes action, and Liddell usually obliges. The crowd at the bar booed Rampage during his introduction and even during the staredown, when one of my eagle-eyed friends crowed “Chuck looked away!”

I doubt Chuck was intimidated, but he is probably one of the few men on the planet who wouldn’t have been scared of Rampage, a man known for intimidating slams and insane pacing. He’s also a marketable face, a big, good-looking guy who talks a good game and has the stuff to back it up. If the rest of America is less racist than the South Carolina fight fans we encountered this weekend, they should eat Rampage up. I’d love to see Randy Couture fight him, but apparently PRIDE Welterweight and new Middleweight Champion Dan Henderson gets to do so first.

Dan Henderson is a tough man. This all could be great fun. The only downside to the apparent unification of the PRIDE and UFC belts is that the UFC is known for being stingier with its paydays to fighters than PRIDE was–will the UFC pay scale result in pay cuts for PRIDE champs?

The headlining fight for me was almost anticlimactic after the most shocking bout of the night, newcomer Houston Alexander, whose muscles have muscles, against Keith “the Dean of Mean” Jardine, fresh off knocking out Ultimate Fighter star Forrest Griffin. Jardine dropped Alexander early, but Alexander showed impressive recovery time and came back hard, slamming Jardine with several uppercuts and hooks that would have knocked out almost anyone else alive. Jardine would go down, then pop back up and take more punishment. It took almost five incredibly punishing blows to finish him off.

Karo Parisyan and Din Thomas, two personal favorites for me, finished in the W column as well, Parisyan with a three-round decision over wrestler Josh Burkman, proving at least for that night whether judo is cooler than wrestling, and Thomas with an armbar after showing off all his long-limbed jiu-jitsu skills and a bit of his boxing as well.

But really, who am I to deny Rampage any of his moment in the spotlight? Fans will be calling for a rematch with Chuck, but he’s beaten him twice and we shouldn’t doubt that he can do it again. Plus, it’s hard not to like a guy with a giant chain around his neck and a habit of howling, yet a charismatic air and a friendly-bear demeanor outside of the ring. And I love to see the underdogs win, even when it’s guys I like going down (St. Pierre, as well as Liddell, comes to mind).

Dana White may be bummed that his golden boy lost, but if this is marketed right, it could be great for the sport. Who cares about De La Hoya and Mayweather, anyway?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Mixed Martial Arts, Sarah Jaffe. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.