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Mar 4, 2010 - 12:34:18 PM

By Steve Sutcliffe, MMATorch columnist

That headline isn't meant to be a joke and wasn't written with a shred of sarcasm or irony. Gabriel Gonzaga is indeed the greatest MMA fighter who ever lived. Or at least he'll always be to me, no matter what.

Flashback to April 21, 2007. My third year of law school was coming to an end. And if you've ever talked to anyone whose gone through the experience, they'll tell you that the third and final year is indeed academic purgatory. There really is no point to the entire year.

You see, the summer spent between your second and third years is usually the time when you get an internship with a law firm or some other job that winds up hiring you to start full-time after you take the bar the following year. So if everything goes swimmingly, you start your third year with your post-graduation job already locked down and hence the incentive to go to class, takes notes and study, you know - things law students usually do, is minimal.

I'm giving you all this needless background information just to put you in my mindset at the time. If this all sounds like a year-long vacation that I'm somewhat complaining about, perhaps that's fair enough. But when your girlfriend is living a hundred miles away and all your buddies who actually have jobs are making money, sleeping in all the time, and playing beer pong financed through student loan money that won't be repaid until the release of Duke Nukem Forever, it gets old pretty fast.

So when my friend suggested we watch UFC 70, I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Why the hell not?" A night in sounded like the perfect change of pace from the usual routine of sauntering around Allston, Massachusetts dropping money at bars like some modern version of Johnny Appleseed whose duty was to keep the local liquor establishments in business.

As a lifelong professional wrestling fan, I'd always been somewhat intrigued by the UFC and "real" combat sports in general. I actually had borrowed tapes of UFC 1 and 2 from my local library, but when I realized that they were then up to something like UFC 7, I thought that the ship had sailed and it would take too long to catch up. I knew guys like Ken Shamrock and Dan Severen just from their appearances in the WWF, but anything beyond pure surface level knowledge was beyond me at the time.

Cut straight to the main event. My friend tells me that the Croatian dude is a big deal and was a top fighter in some organization called Pride, utilizing sickening head kicks to destroy his opponents. The other guy is an up and comer that trains nearby in Ludlow so he's got that going for him. Said other guy proceeds to dominate the round and with seconds to go, takes a page out of the Croatian guy's playbook and proceeds to kick his opponent's head completely off, who may or may not of suffered a severe injury upon falling limp to the mat. The other guy proceeds to punch Croatian dude in the face a couple of times for good measure.

To say it is all over would be a gross understatement. Put a fork in him and send him to the carving station at the Mandalay Bay buffet. The finish was so highlight-worthy, so memorable, that even then, I knew that if you asked a fan about "The Headkick," that they'd more than likely know that you are referring to Gonzaga-Cro Cop. And indeed it has.

That one moment made me a fan of this sport for life, epitomizing everything that makes MMA so damn exciting: expectations were turned on its head, the unthinkable was thinkable, take whatever cliche comes to your mind.

I was used to professional sports playing out according to a script, or least a vague notion of a plan - the Mets would always suck no matter how many times their upcoming core of David Wright and Jose Reyes were put on magazine covers and touted as the second-coming (of what, that remained, and still remains, to be seen) and the Jets would always be the second-rate team of New York, especially when the play in a stadium named for that other team.

But MMA was different, a complete 180 if you will. And I had a guy whose nickname literally meant "Big Nose" to thank for that realization.

I don't care even if the knock on Gonzaga, that he basically destroys low- to mid-level competition but falters against the true stars of the division, may be true. I don't care if he won his last fight quite possibly because of an earlier inadvertent strike to his opponent's groin at UFC 102. I don't care if his training camp based out of Ludlow isn't exactly world renowned. I don't care if the Cro Cop he beat was actually a mere shadow of his former self.

I don't even care if he may not be exactly the toughest fighter mentally - see the Couture fight where he almost wined that he couldn't see because of the bleeding (perhaps unaware that that would have stopped the fight) or against Fabricio Werdum at UFC 80 where it almost seems like he basically gave up after getting gassed, despite looking dominant in the early goings. Gabriel Gonzaga is "my" fighter.

And I wholeheartedly realize my fighter has flaws, but there's always the lingering hope that Gonzaga will recapture the greatness and the glory that was on display at UFC 70. On March 21, Gonzaga will get that opportunity. He'll be facing up-and-comer Junior Dos Santos on the premiere UFC event on Versus. This is a chance for Gonzaga to prove that he is more than the thirteenth best heavyweight in the world or that he is more than just a gate keeper. One part of me knows that Gonzaga can do it, that for one night he can pull out another upset and play the part of spoiler. But another part of me realizes that that's a long-shot and Gonzaga's career peak will always be The Headkick.

But that's what makes this sport so damn exciting; you really never know what's going to happen. Which is largely why I became a fan of this sport. Which is quite likely why you are all fans of this sport. Which is why there remains a possibility, however slight, that Gonzaga's name can be mentioned in the same vein as the top contenders in the heavyweight division.

Whatever the case may be, I'll always fondly remember that night back in April of 2007 for opening my eyes to MMA when Gabriel Gonzaga was the greatest MMA fighter who ever lived.

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Steve Sutcliffe thinks Big Nose got robbed by having Vera-Jones headline over Gonzaga-Dos Santos. Contact steve.w.sutcliffe@gmail.com to raise your voice in protest.

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