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

[Eater of Souls]

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

I was in high school when they raised the drinking age to 21. Fuck, the next year I shipped out for basic.
God damn kid.

 

[dog y]

These were the times where manlets weren't really in the UFC and/or didn't get any respect (rightfully) from Non-manlets

Manlets bother you? We have a lot of wmma around, bud. Get your complaints in order.
I'll take one flyweight fight over 100 wmma stuff.
Mighty Mouse >>>>> wmma.

 

[Bullitt68]

I admire that you're willing to go to bat over your opinions, it's just that they're usually wrong. As in this case, where I expected Chuck to go night night.

You didn't answer my question. Were you actually following the sport in 2007? Because I was, and I was on here in 2007, and I can tell you that nobody, not the fans and not the journalists, expected Chuck to go night night in two minutes from the first shot that touched him. Literally no one. Not even Rampage. I'm not wrong here. Neither is Rampage. You're doing this hindsight thing where after we saw Chuck lose, we should've known that eventually the punishment that he was able to withstand would catch up and his chin would crack. But nobody thought that it was cracked going into UFC 71. Predicting a Chuck one-punch first-round KO loss going into UFC 71 would've been like predicting Cro Cop would get mauled and knocked out in the first round by the grappler Gonzaga, or that the WW champ GSP would get his clock cleaned by the one-time LW grappler Matt Serra, or that Shogun would get blitzkrieged on the feet and on the ground by some 23-year-old kid. In hindsight, we can see that Gonzaga was training specifically for Cro Cop and was upping his striking game, we can see that Serra's striking had improved leaps and bounds even from the Karo fight under the tutelage of Ray Longo, we can see that Jones was putting his skills together and gaining valuable experience and confidence in the cage...but at the time, nobody was predicting these things.

Here's the original Beatdown after the Bell where they discussed UFC 71 the next day: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/vault-beatdown-after-the-bell-ufc-71-liddell-v-jackson--24397376

They even acknowledge immediately after the event how there'd be plenty of people coming out of the woodwork in hindsight talking about how it was an obvious and inevitable ending, which clearly they were right about 24 hours later in 2007 and which still holds true 17 years later in 2024. In fact, let me provide a quote from 12:31: "Going into it, I said that if Quinton was going to win, he was going to win late ... I don't think anybody really saw this fight ending that quick ... If a fortune teller came up to me yesterday and said, 'The fight is going to end in a knockout in the first round, go make a bet on that basis," I would be making it on Chuck. I think that that was a little shocking the way that it ended."

Seriously, you can Google it. If my opinions are always and obviously wrong, it should be very easy to prove me wrong. Find the links, list all the people from 2007 who were talking about how Chuck's chin was gone and Rampage was going to knock him out with one punch in a minute or two. If you can't admit that this is a silly - and historically inaccurate - position, then I'm not the one who's (in the) wrong.

But I won't bother you any further. I know that to save face you'll keep quoting me and making lame cracks in the absence of substantive argumentation, so I'll disengage first and save you the trouble. You no longer have to suffer arguing with me.

 

[TankAbbott4Eva]

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I still hadn't discovered MMA at this point, ended up buying this event on DVD though.

 

[BabyBlue_Bomber]

I thought “I’m 130 dollars richer” because I made a bet with 3 of my coworkers that Liddell would lose…

 

[Khaosan]

Wall of text from Bullitt, incoming. I, for one, believe you, though.

I watched Chuck destroy people for years but I knew Rampage had his number. Rampage’s boxing only got sharper and he also had an iron chin (Wand would have KO’d an elephant with those knees).

Better boxing, equal chin and already a finish over Chuck had me feeling pretty confident.

 

[Bullitt68]

I thought “I’m 130 dollars richer” because I made a bet with 3 of my coworkers that Liddell would lose…

Haha, I love these old time stories. I always tell this one because it's one of my proudest moments as an MMA fan.

One of my favorite stories is from UFC 54. I was 15 at the time, but man, if I'd been playing Vegas, I would've cleaned up, because I was never wrong with fight predictions. Because of that, two of my jackass friends (and I call them jackasses with all the love in the world for both idiots ) who would watch the PPVs more to hang out with us than because they were hardcore fans would always ask me who I thought was going to win the next fight, and then when I'd tell them, they'd root so hard for the other guy and spend the fight talking ridiculous shit to me about how terrible my pick was. (They were trolls before trolling was a thing.) Well, at UFC 54, when I told them that Tim Sylvia was going to annihilate Tra Telligman, they picked Tra. I went so far as to guarantee that Tra wouldn't make it out of the first round. They proceeded to talk insane shit, and as the round wound down, they were mercilessly mocking my prediction skills. Then the 10-second clacker sounded to signal the approaching end of the round, at which point another friend said: "Wouldn't it be funny if he knocked him out with one second left?" And sure enough, Big Tim picked up his tree trunk lead leg and kicked Tra into outer space at 4:59 of the first round.



The only celebration bigger than Tim's in the cage that night was mine in that room as everyone lost their minds and I got to rub it in my friends' faces.

If you and I would've made a bet for that fight, you would've been even richer. I was wrong on Chuck/Rampage II, but I wasn't as surprised that Rampage won - obviously it was in the realm of possibility as he'd beaten Chuck before and was a stylistic nightmare for him - as at how he won, and how quickly. I was a lot wronger on Hughes/GSP II. I'll never forget one of the friends of mine who I did BJJ with talking so much shit while we were warming up one class, saying that Hughes' time was done, he has nothing for GSP, and, in his exact words, that GSP was "going to kick Hughes' head into the stands." I laughed it off, fully expecting Hughes to maul GSP and either tap him again like the first time or pound him out...and then my friend got to have the last laugh when we ordered UFC 65.

 

[Bullitt68]

I watched Chuck destroy people for years but I knew Rampage had his number. Rampage’s boxing only got sharper and he also had an iron chin (Wand would have KO’d an elephant with those knees).

Better boxing, equal chin and already a finish over Chuck had me feeling pretty confident.

For the record, as I've said many times, it wasn't surprising that Rampage won. What was surprising was that he knocked him out with the first punch he landed inside of two minutes. He won't even give me that. Will you?

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

 

[Aegon Spengler]

I had been saying to anyone who would listen that Chuck was getting KO’d in round 1. Was still kind of sad when it happened.

I can’t remember why I was so sure it was gonna go down that way, but I think the stories about him doing coke were creeping out at that time and for whatever reason I believed them

 

[AmonTobin]

I think I let out a howl.

 

[Chubz]

I still remember watching this one live on PPV over at my dad's house. We were all pretty excited, thinking the main event was going to be an absolute war... only for Chuck to come out and get put to sleep in no time flat. It was stunning, and strangely anticlimactic. I can remember us just sitting around the TV going "... that was IT!?" After that, Chuck's aura was pretty much gone IMO. I also remember being disappointed with how Rampage went from putting Chuck to sleep to losing his belt to Forrest fucking Griffin of all people just a couple fights later. For whatever reason, I thought for sure Rampage would go on to become a legendary champ in the division just like Chuck had been with numerous title defenses. But nope, couldn't have been more wrong!

 

[Bullitt68]

I still remember watching this one live on PPV over at my dad's house. We were all pretty excited, thinking the main event was going to be an absolute war... only for Chuck to come out and get put to sleep in no time flat. It was stunning, and strangely anticlimactic. I can remember us just sitting around the TV going "... that was IT!?" After that, Chuck's aura was pretty much gone IMO. I also remember being disappointed with how Rampage went from putting Chuck to sleep to losing his belt to Forrest fucking Griffin of all people just a couple fights later. For whatever reason, I thought for sure Rampage would go on to become a legendary champ in the division just like Chuck had been with numerous title defenses. But nope, couldn't have been more wrong!

Yeah, Rampage seemed to have turned a corner technically and become the best version of himself, which got him the belt, but he didn't seem to have the head for being champ. He could psyche himself up to take out this or that opponent, but the grind and the discipline was never for him. He constantly (and hilariously) talked about how much he hated training, and his lack of discipline would often come out in the way that he'd eat and slack on his training. Just a little too much of a headcase to stay on top of the mountain, which was a real shame, because he should've been able to beat both Forrest and Rashad and keep the belt at least until he rematched Shogun or ran into Jones.

 

[BEATDOWNS]

Not shocked it was the expected ending but it was still pretty brutal KO! so just the whole atmosphere of it was kinda nuts.

 

[Portland8242]

rampage's chin was honestly something else in his prime.

 

[StonedLemur]

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One of my favorite Rampage moments tbh.

 

[UkraineFreightTrain]

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.

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.

Chuck/Rampage was UFC 71, Rashad/Bisping was UFC 78 and neither of them were in the title mix at that point. Shogun didn't come over until UFC 76 but he left PRIDE on a 4-fight win streak after the Coleman loss. Your timeline is all over the place

 

[mkt]

Rampage was in his prime. Chuck was 37 and visibly slowing down in his prior fight with Tito, though he still won. This was quite predictable, similar to Tony Ferguson vs. Gaethje. And of course Rampage had beaten him earlier, though not nearly as easily.

 

[Bowel-forged Stool]

I turn-coated on chuck and started cheering for page as all my buds were shocked.

Truth is, I like the violence more than any one fighter

 

[Bullitt68]

Rampage was in his prime. Chuck was 37 and visibly slowing down in his prior fight with Tito, though he still won. This was quite predictable, similar to Tony Ferguson vs. Gaethje. And of course Rampage had beaten him earlier, though not nearly as easily.

Tony lasted 23.5 of the 25 minutes versus Gaethje. Chuck was unconscious against Rampage in less than 2. And Tony fought well thereafter, making fights competitive and winning plenty of rounds against elite competitors. Chuck got dropped in literally every single fight thereafter, lost every fight save for one, and was knocked unconscious in every loss save for one. Tony went from being top 2 or 3 to being top 10-15. Chuck went from being able to compete to being unable to compete. If all you mean is both had their time in the sun, fair enough, but beyond that, Chuck and Tony aren't really comparable.