I had to go back in time to watch this one but it was worth it just to see Randy Couture defeat Maurice Smith and put a stop to Jeff Blatnik's incessant slobbering all over Smith. Couture absolutely DOMINATED the match by taking Smith to the mat almost immediately and staying on top of him for the next 21 minutes…in spite of John McCarthy standing them up once to give Smith at least a chance to defend his title. Add to that two more stand-ups at the end of regulation and the end of the first overtime, and STILL Couture is smothering Maurice Smith…and STILL Jeff Blatnik is slobbering all over Maurice Smith and trying to find ways to somehow make this “an impossibly difficult match to score”. Yeah, Smith's laying on his back trying to fend off punches and defend against elbow locks was certainly equal in aggression to Couture’s bodyslam takedowns, Jeff. Undoubtedly. In addition to see Couture strip that fake paper champion of a “title” he never even earned a shot at, it was also nice to see David "Fat" Abbott run out of steam and have to withdraw (”I hurt my hand. Wahhhhhhhh… I wasn’t supposed to get hurt. Wahhhhhhhhhh…” ) from the championship tournament. No loss there, and no worries, Fat Abbott: You would’ve run out of steam again anyway, you bearded blob.
While I continue to (for the most part) enjoy watching these very old UFC cards in an attempt to retrace the evolution of the UFC, once again they show their desperate need for some audio engineers who know how to run the audio for a premiere sporting event. Most of the matches were interesting enough but the incessant background droning - just loud enough to be very annoying and distract from most of the matches yet never loud enough to actually serve as a competent “play-by-play” analysis - of Blatnik and Mike Goldberg was EXTREMELY annoying. It was like they were sitting there having a discussion of the match rather than providing commentary.
Review by ShubesBlockedParent2022-12-21T23:49:05Z
I had to go back in time to watch this one but it was worth it just to see Randy Couture defeat Maurice Smith and put a stop to Jeff Blatnik's incessant slobbering all over Smith. Couture absolutely DOMINATED the match by taking Smith to the mat almost immediately and staying on top of him for the next 21 minutes…in spite of John McCarthy standing them up once to give Smith at least a chance to defend his title. Add to that two more stand-ups at the end of regulation and the end of the first overtime, and STILL Couture is smothering Maurice Smith…and STILL Jeff Blatnik is slobbering all over Maurice Smith and trying to find ways to somehow make this “an impossibly difficult match to score”. Yeah, Smith's laying on his back trying to fend off punches and defend against elbow locks was certainly equal in aggression to Couture’s bodyslam takedowns, Jeff. Undoubtedly. In addition to see Couture strip that fake paper champion of a “title” he never even earned a shot at, it was also nice to see David "Fat" Abbott run out of steam and have to withdraw (”I hurt my hand. Wahhhhhhhh… I wasn’t supposed to get hurt. Wahhhhhhhhhh…” ) from the championship tournament. No loss there, and no worries, Fat Abbott: You would’ve run out of steam again anyway, you bearded blob.
While I continue to (for the most part) enjoy watching these very old UFC cards in an attempt to retrace the evolution of the UFC, once again they show their desperate need for some audio engineers who know how to run the audio for a premiere sporting event. Most of the matches were interesting enough but the incessant background droning - just loud enough to be very annoying and distract from most of the matches yet never loud enough to actually serve as a competent “play-by-play” analysis - of Blatnik and Mike Goldberg was EXTREMELY annoying. It was like they were sitting there having a discussion of the match rather than providing commentary.
Here’s hoping it continues to get better…