UFC 103: BELFORT BLASTS FRANKLIN

Vitor Belfort made his first appearance in the UFC’s iconic octagon in five years, headlining the main event of UFC 103 in Dallas, Texas.  Just over three minutes later, he had already become a top contender in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions.  Belfort dominated veteran Rich Franklin en route to a devastating knockout victory, and following the bout talk quickly shifted to ‘The Phenom’ as a potential future opponent for both Anderson Silva at 185 and Lyoto Machida at 205.

The fight against Franklin was contested at a catchweight of 195 pounds, and Belfort took several tries to finally make weight on Friday afternoon.  If he had been weakened by a difficult weight cut, he sure didn’t show it as he entered the cage on Saturday looking noticeably larger than his opponent.  The pace of the bout was tactical and deliberate until the very end—Belfort landed a few leg kicks, but for the most part it was several minutes of the fighters circling each other.  Belfort was clearly ‘measuring’ Franklin for a big power shot, and he found it after a brief flurry in which neither man gained an advantage.  Out of nowhere, Belfort floored Franklin with a nasty uppercut and quickly mounted a ‘ground and pound’ assault on his fallen adversary.  It only took three or four big shots to Franklin’s head before the referee jumped in to call a halt to the proceedings.  

At the post fight press conference, Dana White quickly endorsed the prospect of a matchup between Belfort and UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva—either for the title or at a 195 catchweight.  Silva has only three fights remaining on his UFC contract, after which he’s insisted that he’ll retire (although he continues to toy with the idea of boxing against Roy Jones, Jr.).  Obviously nothing has been signed, but White clearly wants to get his ‘money’s worth’ out of the fights remaining on Silva’s deal and from that standpoint alone a matchup against Belfort makes perfect sense.

A changing of the guard was in evidence in the co-main event, as Junior Dos Santos defeated former PRIDE Open Weight GP champion and MMA legend Mirko Cro Cop by verbal submission.  Cro Cop appeared to be moving much better on his surgically repaired knee than in recent fights, though he still demonstrated an overreliance on his counterpunching.  Still, through the early part of the fight he was doing well with his straight left hand counter.  As the fight wore on, however, Dos Santos began to pick Cro Cop apart and in the third round began to use his Muay Thai knee strikes to good effect.  It was a knee strike to Cro Cop’s head followed by an uppercut that ended the fight—Cro Cop suddenly indicated to the referee that he couldn’t see and was unable to continue.  Ironically, he may have suffered a broken eye socket similar to the one he famously inflicted on Bob Sapp in a 2003 K-1 bout.