UFC Ultimate 100 Greatest Fights Review - Disc 1, Part 1

My lack of posting this week has been due in part to the arrival of my UFC Ultimate 100 Greatest Fights DVD box set - 8 discs and about 26 hours of MMA goodness.

I'm almost done with Disc 1, so here's a quick review of those fights after the jump. Keep in mind, I'm not taking notes during these fights, and am doing the reviews entirely from memory:

100. UFC 80: Paul Kelly vs. Paul Taylor: It took me, like, half the fight to figure out which Paul was which. Paul won. Still not sure which one. Good scrappy match.

99. UFC 31: Carlos Newton vs. Pat Miletich: Our first old school UFC match, and it's a doozy. I don't think I've ever seen a Miletich fight before, come to think of it. Miletich is the UFC welterweight champion. Newton wins the title in what I think was considered a pretty big upset by choking out Miletich - and I mean, choking him out. This were no style points awarded on that choke - Newton just grabbed Pat in a glorified side headlock and squeezed his neck until Miletich's eyeballs nearly popped out. Miletich struggles and struggles and then taps to save his windpipe from being crushed, walks away, throws his mouthpiece to the ground and screams a profanity, while Newton collapses to the mat and weeps. The post-fight is notable for the rare appearance of one of the JMAR UFC title belts before production of those titles was quickly switched to Dave Millican and Reggie Parks.

98. Ultimate Fight Night 13: Kenny Florian vs. Joe Lauzon: Pretty much a one-sided beating by Florian, who just schooled Lauzon. Florian has got to ditch the Ken-Flo nickname.

97. Ultimate Fight Night 8: Rashad Evans vs. Sean Salmon: If you've never seen this fight before, be warned it does not make the list for being a technical masterpiece. Instead, it makes the list entirely for the finish, in which Rashad hits a high kick that has Salmon instantly unconscious and hitting the mat like a felled tree. Tremendous finish to a pretty mediocre fight.

96. UFC 60: Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie: Speaking of schooling people ... UFC smartly leaves the pre-match video package in, as it did a tremendous job to build-up the fight, which made fans believe that the nearly 40-year-old Gracie (admittedly, the most important man in the early history of UFC) could beat Hughes. And in reality, Gracie was entirely competitive with Hughes ... until the match started, at which point it became a Matt Hughes MMA clinic. Gracie didn't even last the first round. Kind of sad in a way, but Hughes' pre-match promos about how the sport had evolved and Gracie had not evolved along with it were absolutely bang-on.

95. UFC 90: Sean Sherk vs. Tyson Griffin:  I only remember two things from this match. First, it was very fun to watch - one of those great 155 lbs. division slug-fests. Secondly, I'd like to have a talk with the judge who gave Sherk all three rounds when Griffin so obviously won round 3. Otherwise, Sherk with a unanimous decision.

94. UFC 32: B.J. Penn vs. Din Thomas: Another old-school UFC fight featuring one of the early BJ Penn battles. One of the announcers said something fairly prophetic about how both of these men were competing to be the future of the 155 lbs. division and who won and lost this match would go far in determining their respective destinies. Indeed, as Penn is the 155 lbs. champion, and Thomas is long gone from UFC. The fight is most notable for how skinny Penn was at the time.

93. UFC 78: Thiago Alves vs. Chris Lytle: I confess I remember almost nothing about this match. I think Lytle lost on a head cut, and that it was a bad stoppage, but I could be entirely wrong. It was late and I was falling asleep.

EDIT:  Disc 1, Part 2.