WEC 35: Review

The WEC may not be the UFC or even EliteXC in terms of the caliber of fighters but last night the fights were as good as any I’ve seen in quite some time. The televised portion of the night started out with Brian Bowles taking on Damacio Page. Bowles stand up looked crisp, as he seemed to be winning the early exchanges. At one point, Page stuck out his tongue taunting Bowles (generally when fighters do that it’s because their hurt or they know their losing). Then as Page attempted a slam, Bowles alertly sunk in a guillotine while trapping Page’s arms with his (Bowles) legs. At that point it was just a matter of time before Page tapped. Bowles wins via guillotine.
Next up was a battle for the lightweight title, pitting champion Jamie Varner against Marcus “The Wrecking Ball” Hicks. Early on Hicks was relentless on his takedowns and at one point even sunk in his patented guillotine, which Varner was able to get out of fairly easily. From there on in it was all Varner. I remember thinking, how is Hicks taking this amount of punishment and staying on his feet? I’ll give this to “The Wrecking Ball” he has tremendous heart. But in the end, the onslaught Varner unleashed was just too much. Varner wins and retains his belt with a TKO victory.
With most of these fights not making it out of the 1st round, we were fortunate enough to see some preliminary fights mixed in.
This next fight had the makings of a great battle between Brock Larson and Carlo Prater. It was not to be. After several seconds of feeling each other out, Larson moved in and connected with a devastating left, sending Prater down. Larson then pounced on the fallen Prater finishing him off with a couple more punches. Larson wins by KO in 37 seconds of the first round. I’m sure Larson will get another shot at champ Urijah Faber but I’m not sure it matters.
Set to defend his light-heavyweight title for the first time, Brian Stann enters to the sounds of Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain Song”, very cool entrance song. As he enters the cage there’s a very intense Steve Cantwell waiting for him. I’m glad I don’t gamble because I would have lost my shirt on this one. I predicted a 1st round KO for Stann, Cantwell predicted he “was just going to punish Stann” and that was pretty much what he did. Cantwell’s stand up looked much improved and he was winning all the exchanges. I know this is an exaggeration but all I could think of was the Silva-Franklin fight. Stann was being dominated and even when he was landing shots Cantwell stayed composed. At roughly the four-minute mark of the second round Cantwell finished Stann off with a barrage of punches. Steve Cantwell is the New WEC light-heavyweight champion. Brian Stann was very gracious in defeat and will most certainly be back.
Another under card fight we got to see was Josh Grispi vs. Micah Miller. I must admit I was pulling for Grispi in this one (having both grown up in the same town). Let me tell you this kid walked through everybody on the local scene. Micah Miller was a big step-up in competition for Grispi. Would that matter? The answer is NO! Grispi landed some hard leg kicks but it was a big right hand that floored Miller. He then moved in for the kill and got the TKO at just 50 seconds of the first round. This kid is someone to keep an eye on; he’s now 12-1 (2-0 in the WEC) at just 19 years old.
On to the Main Event;
In what may very well be a contender for fight of the year, WEC welterweight champ Carlos Condit faced relatively unknown Hiromitsu Miura. Miura may not have won this fight but he absolutely gained a lot of respect and more than likely quite a few fans. This was a great back and forth battle, I haven’t seen Condit tested like this since he became champ. By the way, the judo throws from Miura were as good as any I’ve seen in MMA (yes, including Karo Parisyan). Condit showed why he is the champ, you could see the frustration and exhaustion in his face but he continued to take the fight to Miura. At the 4:43 mark of the 4th round referee Josh Rosenthal was forced to step in as Condit was able to pound away and Miura was to tired to defend himself. So Carlos Condit is still the welterweight champ and Hiromitsu Miura showed he can stand in there with the best of them.
In a fight that was not televised, Shane Roller took on Todd Moore. I mention this fight because Shane is a guy that will in no doubt be a top 155er in the near future. He won his fight against a very tough Todd Moore (9-1) by guillotine choke at 3:00 of the 1st round. Roller took this fight on only two and a half weeks notice. On top of that had to train to fight a southpaw, which made things a little more difficult. It was Roller’s WEC debut, his record now is 4-1.