MMA Underdogs - Biting Without Barking

by Jonathon Maness

Think of these examples: The 1968 New York Jets with Joe Namath at the helm upsetting the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. The 1980 United States hockey team winning the gold medals at the Olympics by beating the "scary" Soviet Union powerhouse. James "Buster" Douglas taking Mike Tyson's Heavyweight Title and undefeated record away in Tokyo, Japan in 1990. Barry Horowitz beating then "Bodydonna Skip", the late Chris Candido, in the World Wrestling Federation in 1995 (ok, I know this is a stretch...but please give me this one).

Mixed Martial Arts is no different. Many times major upsets are fairly few and far between on the major shows, with the most recent examples coming from "Irish" Jake O'Brien over excellent heavyweight Heath "Texas Crazy Horse" Herring at UFC Fight Night 8 and Joey Villasenor's surprise win over "the Crow" David Loiseau at EliteXC's debut event "Destiny." But no recent event produced as many feel-good moments as the February 24th PRIDE Pay-Per-View.

PRIDE 33: The Second Coming gave us a VERY strong card from top to bottom and promised exciting action. I'd like to take a close look at three of the match-ups from the night, to show just how note-worthy the fights (and shocking wins) were that a few of the "'Dogs" enjoyed. To be sure, Frank Trigg and the new double champ, Dan Henderson, defied the odds and the odds-makers with wins at the show. But there are three fighters who really went way above and beyond to deliver.

Travis Wiuff was being viewed as a future contender for the PRIDE Middleweight or Heavyweight titles. Why not? Previous to PRIDE 33, he held a record of 42-9-0. The rub on this record was that he really had not defeated any "big" names, except for a young Keith Jardine in 2002, which he was able to accomplish in six seconds. His only real prime-time exposure in the United States happened with UFCs 40 and 52, where he tapped out to Vladimir Matyushenko and Renato Sobral, respectively. But with his record, size and ability, there seemed to be nothing much standing in his way of a great PRIDE debut. Especially with the news that his slated opponent Kazuhiro Nakamura was to be replaced due to injury by...James Lee?

The King of the Cage veteran Lee was 9-3-0 with 1 No Contest to his credit, so he wasn't exactly a push-over. However, he was taking this fight on a short notice. Lee went from being featured on DVDs available at your local Wal-Mart for less than ten bucks, to finding himself on a major PPV. With this working against him, what did he do? He submitted Wiuff in 39 seconds of the first round and gave us our first real taste of the night to come.

The second real bombshell of the evening (and perhaps one of the biggest in PRIDE history at least) was dropped both literally and figuratively on the head of Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. "L'il Nog" was 12-2 going into last night's action. He, along with his big brother, are considered consummate fighters. He has wins over the afore-mentioned Dan Henderson and Kazushi Sakuraba (yes, THAT Sakuraba). There was every reason to believe, as I so dumbly stated, that putting any money or faith into Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou to win the fight was a "sucker bet."

Sokoudjou likes defying two things: odds and spell checkers. The Team Quest fighter was 2-1 going into the fight with Nogueira. Sure, he spars with Henderson (why does THAT name keep creeping up?), but that's it. Spars. On paper he had no chance, but as they say, "that's why we have the fights". He had to know that he was being brought in to "feed" Nogueira, perhaps prepping an American audience for Nog's "inevitable" showdown with fellow Brazilian Wanderlei Silva in the near future. So, armed with this information, knowing that his best chances lie in the lack of recognition that affords him the chance for surprise, and his over-abundance of power, RTS laid out the BJJ specialist with a jarring KO in 23 seconds. I watched the fight three times and I'm still not sure it happened...but I'm sure Mr. Sokoudjou is well aware that he has pulled off the biggest, unexpected win in PRIDE history.

Ok, so what? The first two fights together hardly lasted a minute. Flukes. Puncher's chance. But here is the one that is interesting.

In one corner you have PRIDE Lightweight champion Takanori Gomi, who entered with a 27-4 record. Glaring at him from the other side of the ring, was 15-6 Nick Diaz. Diaz has always maintained that he belonged with the best of the best. After losing to Sean Sherk, Diego Sanchez and Karo Parisyan, many felt that there was no validity to his claims. Nick Diaz had most recently won, however, at UFC 65, and had signed a deal with Showtime's EliteXC promotion...so things weren't all bad for the kid.

The fight had all the makings of the "show stealer". Gomi is seemingly invincible at times, and Diaz is the very definition of Heart in the MMA game. Still, Diaz may have shown that he was MMA's best kept secret by standing toe-to-toe with "the Fireball Kid".

Diaz wore Gomi out in the first round, after finding his rhythm, but suffered major setbacks in the next when the Lightweight champ was able to cut him on both eyes (one above and one below). The announcers noted that he would have to do something quickly, because if not, he would be blind and the fight would be stopped. Gomi even made motions during the last moments of the fight to the referee that Diaz was in no condition to fight.

This might be a stretch, but if Rocky II were a movie about an MMA athlete instead of a club fighter from Philly, it would have looked eerily like the closing moments of the bout. I will now force myself to watch the fight one more time in order to give the best description I possibly can.

Wow. That was a good fight. I cheated and watched it two more times...but I'm doing it for the integrity of this article and no other reason (or so I keep telling myself). Diaz had Gomi literally on the ropes at the end of the first round. "The Fireball Kid" looked eerily like myself after waking up at the crack of 6 PM...dead tired. But he is a champion and a world class athlete, and he pulled it together in the second round with the eye cuts. Then things got interesting.

While my Kia Rio's engine is fueled by the cheapest gasoline I can find, Diaz's MMA motor seems to run on pain and emotion. Usually he doesn't start to really get going until he's absorbed a bit of punishment. Diaz continued his onslaught in the second round, and since he knew that he HAD to finish the fight quickly, or the more-often-than-not over protective Nevada State Athletic Commission doctors would stop the fight, something had to give...and that something was the throat of Gomi. In a bizarre move, Gomi appeared to shoot for the takedown and fall directly into Diaz's deadly guard. Diaz, using quick but subtle positioning, slipped his left ankle, then leg under the neck of Gomi. Diaz was then able to pull down on the head of Gomi, choking him across the shin. The end came when Diaz secured his right knee and calf behind the head of his opponent for the extra "oomph" needed to secure the submission with an gogoplata. A gogo-fricking-plata. If you had asked almost anyone in the world who was familiar with this match-up, how it would end, a gogoplata would not have made anyone's top twenty list of finishes. It is one of the singular most useful, fluid and beautiful moves in BJJ, but (mostly) never used for a submission at this level of competition. So Diaz, with a combination of heart, aggressive striking and technique, was able to pull off the upset with the most obvious ramifications for the overall PRIDE landscape.

All in all, a great night of fighting. The first two upsets I detailed were great because they were sudden, violent and extremely unexpected. We will need to watch both James Lee and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou to see if these were "one-and-dones" or real fighters rising to the top. In Nick Diaz's case, he cemented his place on the big show. He will likely face Gomi again, this time for the title. Gomi will NOT take him lightly (if he even did this time...no one knows the answer to that except for Gomi himself). If Diaz can maintain this level of performance he will become the man to beat...at least until another "underdog" shocks the world by dispatching him.