Media This happened 17 years ago...what when through your mind after witnessing it?

[TommyBikes]

brother, I was still sitting in the booster seat then.

You young s.o.b. Lol

 

[TheBulge]

What went through my mind was that styles make fights in MMA. Chuck could have beaten some of the guys Rampage lost to.

 

[YSB]

It happened two years before I got into MMA. Disappointing because I liked and cared about Chuck; not so much Rampage. Definitely was the beginning of Chuck's downfall. He couldn't really take a punch from that fight on.

 

[blackheart]

What fucking happened? Is that Rampage knocking out Chuck? Are you too lazy to type anything?

...?? Are you too lazy to use your eyes to look at a picture? Isn't that a level of laziness even beyond being too lazy to type a description?

 

[filthybliss]

You young s.o.b. Lol

one more year and i'll be able to drink legally

 

[TR1]

I am not pleased that it has been 17 years since that happened.

 

[Goatenstein]

Pure joy.

 

[BROWNPRIDE]

Had the kids howling like a wolf for the walk-in of Rampage and the house went bananas after the ko! Good times.

 

[Goodfella86]

It was something like "YEAH, PRIDE!!!! RAMPAGE DID IT!!! PRIDE BEAT UFC! FUCK YOU, GONZAGA!! PRIDE!!!!!!!!!!"

 

[TITS]

...?? Are you too lazy to use your eyes to look at a picture? Isn't that a level of laziness even beyond being too lazy to type a description?

It's a blurry shit quality photo.

 

[SuperNerd]

One of the best moments in MMA history for me.

I was motivated to make an account on this site because I was extremely confident Rampage could beat Wanderlei, Chuck, Shogun, ect.

Especially in America. It was obvious this guy had mountains of star power.

But Sherdog was a blowjob machine for Chutebox back then. Discussions about Rampage were flooded with "Wanderlei washed up Rampage" "Rampage will never be the same" type comments. There was no serious discussion or expectations of Rampage.

I couldn't wait to log onto the site and start flipping the bird.

But in typical Sherdog fashion, it tooks 10 mins before people were telling me how Rampage is the perfect 205 fighter after winning the belt.

"He can't be submitted or wrestled, hardest hitter 205er, can box anyone!"

 

[moreorless87]

Yes, Dana was letting Chuck dictate his title opponents and have chances to take back his Ls. Dana signed Jeremy Horn after Horn hadn't been in the UFC for several years, just to let Chuck get his L back, and it happened. I suppose Dana had confidence that Chuck would get one back against Rampage, he was like a giddy schoolgirl when it came to Chuck, but it would have been necessary to adjust from the first fight. Rampage genuinely knocked out Chuck with the same right hook he threw repeatedly in their first fight, and Chuck again "didn't follow the gameplan" smh

To be honest Dana has always tended to drink his own kool aid with his "favourites", often when they loose its actually because he bought into his own hype and put them into dangerous fights he thought they'd win.

 

[Bullitt68]

View attachment 1045137

I remember watching the PPV live. Chuck didn't look the best in his rematch with Tito, which had me a little worried that he was coasting and sort of checking out, but I just chalked that up to him knowing that he had Tito's number. Rematching Rampage, I was expecting the lean and mean Chuck that iced Couture at UFC 52. But that wasn't the case. Added to which, this was the fight where I realized that Chuck's chin was gone, which meant that he was done, because so much of his style was about taking a shot to give a shot and being able to take his opponents' best shots while they couldn't take his. In their first fight, Rampage hit him with absolute sledgehammers and Chuck took every single one of them, yet here in the rematch, Rampage hit him with a lunging shot that just clipped him and he was out. Sad to see the end of the Iceman Era, but I consider myself lucky to have been there for the ride.

What fucking happened? Is that Rampage knocking out Chuck? Are you too lazy to type anything?

By calling out the TS and making clear that you couldn't recognize the fight and the fighters by just the image, you're making yourself look much worse than the TS.

Well, I'd seen the whooping Rampage had put on Chuck in PRIDE, so this was expected.

Nobody expected a first-round, one-shot KO. Chuck's chin was legendary. He only lost to Rampage the first time because he gassed, as his conditioning was sometimes a liability. Rampage straight up outworked him. I knew that Rampage had an iron chin, so I wasn't expecting Chuck to KO him, but I also knew that Chuck had an iron chin, so I wasn't expecting Rampage to KO him. Either one of them dropping from one shot in a couple of minutes wasn't even a consideration for me. To then see it happen was insane.

I was posting all the way leading up to the fight that if Chuck came into the fight in the shape that he was in for UFC 52, and if he didn't try to brawl with Rampage, he'd win by picking him apart on the outside. But to execute that game plan, he needed to have a chin, because Rampage was going to hit him, just like the first fight. Except by the second fight, Chuck's chin was gone

At the time though a lot of popular feeling was Rampage was not the same after his loses to Wand and Shogun, he'd looked quite passive in the run after that with many feeling Lindland actually beat him.

He also didn't look that great against Eastman. I definitely wasn't expecting him to turn that corner the way that he did and become champ. But he got up for that Chuck rematch just like he did for Wand III. He was laser focused for those fights and I think that those were his two best post-PRIDE performances.

I strongly guess Dana felt the same, he thought it was a chance to get Chuck his win back, indeed I think all Chucks loses in that run were in matches he was favourite in beforehand which I think Dana booked him to win, Rashad was on a rather unimpressive run almost losing to Bisping, Shogun looked less than great vs Coleman.

Well, once he became champ, Chuck's mission became to avenge his losses. He got to avenge his loss to Randy at UFC 43 and take the belt from him at UFC 52, then his first title defense was against Jeremy Horn so that he could avenge his early loss at UFC 19 to him, and that just left Rampage. It's a credit to Chuck that he wanted that rematch, because Rampage was physically and stylistically his kryptonite. But Chuck was such an intense competitor, he had to get that rematch. And then after losing to Rampage, Chuck still went out there against the young lions of his day and still took on people like Wand and Shogun, who in his chinny state were dreadful match-ups for him. He was able to get that long-sought-after win against Wand, but Jardine dropped him, Rashad iced him, Shogun iced him, hell even Franklin iced him. In his earlier days, Chuck would've eaten all of their best shots for lunch and barely even noticed them. "Favorite" doesn't really matter if you don't have a chin.

While people on here like to pretend at how stacked cards used to be, the UFC 71 card was objectively laughable in how shallow it was.

72 was somehow worse.

Back then, there weren't 9382746293 people on the roster to fill 8 cards a month with 17 fights between fighters nobody's heard of. Back then, you had 6-10 fights across the small handful of divisions between people everybody knew because the roster was very small. In fact, the cards around 2006-2008 were the first time that cards started to get a little weak because that was the mainstream boom time when Dana and Co. first started to try to stretch their booking legs and started having events once a month, sometimes even twice a month. Prior to that, events were insanely stacked because events would only happen every other month if that. Look at UFCs 31-39, those are unfairly amazing events full of champs, legends, and HOFers without a single bad fight in the bunch, because they happened so infrequently that every event felt like a best of. How I miss those days...

 

[Thesnake101]

I was 6yo at the time and watching Tom & Jerry reruns on TV, also Friends.

I actually found the little animated parody some dude made on youtube before I saw the actual fight, lol.

 

[Bobby Boulders]

To be honest Dana has always tended to drink his own kool aid with his "favourites", often when they loose its actually because he bought into his own hype and put them into dangerous fights he thought they'd win.

Dude's a gambler, and has definitely rolled a snake eyes or two in his day.

 

[Thesnake101]

Good shit, vintage.

 

[Bullitt68]

I literally said exactly who it was, you stupid fuck.

In question form. You shouldn't have had to ask. You definitely shouldn't have had to whine. But keep going like this and you'll be on a shiny new account by 2025

 

[moreorless87]

Well, once he became champ, Chuck's mission became to avenge his losses. He got to avenge his loss to Randy at UFC 43 and take the belt from him at UFC 52, then his first title defense was against Jeremy Horn so that he could avenge his early loss at UFC 19 to him, and that just left Rampage. It's a credit to Chuck that he wanted that rematch, because Rampage was physically and stylistically his kryptonite. But Chuck was such an intense competitor, he had to get that rematch. And then after losing to Rampage, Chuck still went out there against the young lions of his day and still took on people like Wand and Shogun, who in his chinny state were dreadful match-ups for him. He was able to get that long-sought-after win against Wand, but Jardine dropped him, Rashad iced him, Shogun iced him, hell even Franklin iced him. In his earlier days, Chuck would've eaten all of their best shots for lunch and barely even noticed them. "Favorite" doesn't really matter if you don't have a chin.

Again though you look back at those fights post Rampage loss and Chuck was I believe the favourite in all of them, Jardine had just been blasted by Huston, Wand was coming off of massive KO loses to Crocop and Hendo, Rashad had looked not very impressive and many felt had lost to Bisping, Shogun looked out og sorts vs Coleman and many felt he was crocked after the ACL injuries, Franklin was a stand in after another Tito fight fell though. Dana was repeatedly trying to set up matches against names in questionable forum for Chuck to win but besides Wand(and even he performed decently) it kept blowing up in his face as the opponent suddenly improved in form and iced the iceman.

Most of Chucks title run was actually spent rematching guys he'd already beaten in Randy, Babalu and Tito.

 

[SuperNerd]

I literally said exactly who it was, you stupid fuck.

 

[BJJ4Tone]

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As a PRIDE mark and a (at the time) Liddell hater, I jumped out of my chair at the bar and screamed in celebration.
Liddell seemed so unbeatable at the time.