The new HIT (Hughes Intensive Training) Gym near St. Louis is a few weeks from opening its doors, but it already boasts the latest MMA double champion.
Robbie Lawler, a one-time UFC prodigy whose stock dropped with a series of losses that sent him out of the company, added the Elite XC middleweight championship to his Icon middleweight title Saturday night in Honolulu. With Matt Hughes in his corner, Lawler stopped Brazilian Murilo "Ninja" Rua at 2:04 of the third round with powerful punches.
As so many matches this year have done, this went exactly the opposite of reputations. Rua had the Energizer Bunny reputation of being able to fight a fast-paced fight and never get tired, while Lawler had the hard punching power early and suspect cardio, which was a key factor in a championship fight that could go five rounds. But after Rua was throwing punches and low kicks for the first two rounds, there was a turning point late in the second where Rua lost all the sting in his hands and while he kept throwing, they were weak arm punches that weren't doing any damage. Lawler got a big smile on his face at that moment. He seemed content to let Rua burn himself out the rest of the round and defend. It was an interesting round to score because Lawler did almost nothing on offense, yet when the round was over, it looked like Rua was the one that was done.
When round three started, it was clear Rua had little time left in his title reign. Lawler caught him with a series of punches, including two hard lefts and a right uppercut that put the former Pride star on the canvas. Rua was almost out of it on the ground, and Lawler started throwing punches that seemed to start on the big island with Rua feebly attempting to cover up before ref Mario Yamasaki stopped it.
"I've been working hard, just pushing myself to the limit," said Lawler, after scoring the biggest win of his career in the main event of a show aired live on Showtime. "At the end of the second (round), I knew I was knocking him out. He wasn't hitting me with any good hands and I was blocking most of them."
Lawler had captured the Icon belt earlier this year at the same Neal Blaisdale Arena in Honolulu, beating Frank Trigg. Elite XC on Friday had officially announced the completion of its long-rumored deal to purchase Icon Sports, the second oldest MMA company in the United States that had been running shows for more than a decade on the island, originally under the name SuperBrawl.
If this past week wasn't controversial enough for MMA judges, the show's undercard featured two decisions heavily booed by the local crowd.
Nick Diaz, the Stockton, Calif. bad boy, in his first match since the end of his six month suspension for testing positive for marijuana, scored a split decision over unknown local fighter Mike Aina of BJ Penn's gym in Hilo. Diaz came off a submission win over the consensus top fighter in the world at 161 pounds on February 24th in Las Vegas, Takanori Gomi, in what is a top favorite for the 2007 match of the year.
But the non-title win saw the decision later changed to a no contest due to the positive drug test. In this fight, most fans felt he needed a submission or knockout in the third round or one of the year's biggest upsets was about to happen. And then, time expired just as he seemed on the verge of a submission.
Diaz, connected more frequently with his reach, but Aina's punches were stronger in a mostly stand-up fight. Aina won the first round and scored a knockdown in the second round, bloodying Diaz up.
Diaz came back at the end of the round and was working for a submission. Ultimately, since Diaz won the third round, the decision was based on whether the knockdown and cut meant more than Diaz landing more and scoring a takedown and getting Aina's back late in the second round.
The third round was a pressure cooker since fans were heavily cheering Aina to simply survive, thinking he'd won the first two rounds. Diaz used his longer reach to connect with repeated jabs and finally had Aina on the ground with 1:34 left and began working for a choke. Aina defended against the submission specialist, the entire time, escaped attempts at a choke, although Diaz had just about completed an armbar at the buzzer. However, the scores were 30-27, 28-29 and 29-28 in favor of Diaz. The fight could have gone either way. It what most would consider the fight of the night on an entertaining show, Fox Sports.com had it as a 28-28 draw giving Diaz a 10-8 third for coming seconds from an apparent submission.
"I don't want to make excuses," said the Cesar Gracie-trained Diaz, whose brother Nate fights on Wednesday for UFC. "Everyone here on the island is really tough. This guy was so tough. That's what happens when you don't know your opponent. I should have tried to get the clinch and takedown. I knew I could probably pick him apart with strikes."
Another close call was Joey Villasenor, squeaking by Japan's Riki Fukuda, by a split decision. In this fight, all three rounds were close. Fukuda scored with a lot of body kicks, but Villasenor had strong punches and head kicks. The crowd booed the scores of 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28 for Villasenor. FOXSports.com had it 29-28 for Fukuda.
Gina Carano, survived nearly passing out at the Friday weigh-ins to score the first submission win of her career over world class female wrestler Tonya Evinger. With her father, former Dallas Cowboys backup quarterback Glenn Carano at ringside, the most well known woman MMA fighter in the U.S. survived being taken down early, and scored a reversal when Evinger went for a guillotine. From there, she got Evinger's back and finished her at 2:53 of the first round with a choke.
There was some question as to what Carano's condition would be when she appeared to be lightheaded in weighing in at 141.1 pounds in a 140-pound weight class fight (a fighter would be allowed to come up at 141.0). It was the second fight in a row that Carano came in a shade over the limit. Evinger accepted given that had Carano, who weighed in with shorts and a bikini top, stripped down farther she would have made the cutoff. But there were questions as to how much she would have when she appeared in such an apparently weakened state.
When Evinger immediately took her down and got side control, Elite XC's potential first mainstream star looked to be in trouble. But Evinger didn't do any serious damage other than keep Carano down, and in going for a submission, got reversed, and lost the fight on the ground.
In the television opener, Jake Shields, a former college wrestling star who has transitioned well into the submission game under Cesar Gracie, ran through local favorite Renato "Charuto" Verissimo, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu expert and ended up being mounted and pounded out at 4:00. Shields, considered one of the world's best welterweights, was part of a sweep in a mini-rivalry promoted between the Cesar Gracie camp and BJ Penn's team.
