Pedro Rizzo Rises to Occasion

In what looked, on paper, to be a classic battle between grappler and striker, Pedro Rizzo emerged from relative obscurity to stop Jeff Monson at 2:40 of the 3rd round at Art of War 3: USA vs Brazil over the weekend.

Rizzo, a former UFC contender who had been effectively eliminated from the mix in back to back losses to Randy Couture way back at UFC 31: Fully Loaded and UFC 34: High Voltage and followed by suffering a couple of losses in Pride, to Sergei Kharitonov and Roman Zentsov, struggled with Monson throughout the first 2 rounds before knocking him down with a right hand that led the referee to call a halt to the bout.

Monson, a world class grappler who is also a veteran of both UFC and Pride, came into the bout and pretty much shocked the world by preferring to stand and strike with Rizzo, instead of using the takedown and submission skills that almost took him to the UFC heavyweight championship title (Monson lost his title challenge to then Heavyweight Champion Tim Sylvia). More than that Monson did not look out of place using his hands and took the fight to Rizzo, even cutting him early in on. It wasn’t enough, however, to stop the resurgent Rizzo, who is now on the back of 2 straight wins, who stepped up the gears in the final round surprising Monson with a couple of flurries before knocking him down.

Rizzo, who holds victories over Ricco Rodriguez and current UFC contender Andrei Arlovski, must surely be catching the attention of Dana White who is faltering in his quest to bring Fedor Emilianenko to the heavyweight division of the UFC.

After the event Rizzo complemented Monson on his striking saying, “It’s pretty good. It surprised me. After the first round, I said I had to take care of his hands. His hands are getting faster.” Despite improved striking the loss is another blow to Monson’s career as he has lost 3 of his last 4 bouts, the lone win coming against Kazuyuki Fujita at Pride 34: Kamikaze in April of this year.

The event also saw victories for Ron Waterman, who escaped a first round ground and pound from Mario Rinaldi to stop him later in the first (and prompted Frank Trigg to say this was the best the 41 year old Waterman had ever been) and Jorge Santiago who stopped Jeremy Horn surprisingly by submission. “Surprisingly” because Horn has not lost via a submission since 2001 when he was arm-barred by Elvis Sinosic, and is recognised as a master of the ground game.

In the only womens bout on the card Lana Stefanac scored a TKO of Franita Gathings in the first round, after using knees to hurt her opponent the referee stepped in when Stefanac, (who, at 244.5lbs, was a staggering 39.5lbs heavier than her opponent) starting punching without any return from Gathings.

Alex Andrade, Carlo Prater, Jason Maxwell, Luis Cane, Cristiano Marcello, and Anthony Njokuani all also won their respective bouts.