Dan Hardy Scores KO Win at UFC 95

Dan Hardy knocked out Rory Markham 69 seconds into their bout at UFC 95 to send a strong warning to the UFC Welterweight division.

Before the fight, Markham had publically questioned Hardy’s punching power. “The Outlaw” was happy to remind the 02 of these taunts in his post fight interview.

“No punching power,” said Hardy to the ecstatic crowd. “What do you have to say about that?”

There’s not much to say, considering that Hardy’s handiwork spoke volumes.

Markham stalked to open the fight, with Hardy choosing to counter from a distance while using lateral movement around the Octagon. But when Hardy decided to attack, he left nothing up to chance, responding to a missed right hand by drilling Markham with a flush left hook to the head that crumbled the Chicago native. A follow-up shot on the mat brought in Kevin Mulhall to stop the fight.

Middleweight contender Nate Marquardt continued to state his case for a rematch with 185-pound champion Anderson Silva as he impressively halted Wilson Gouveia in the third round.

“The Nate you saw tonight was not the one you saw the last time,” said Marquardt, who was stopped in the first round by Silva in July of 2007.

The two middleweight contenders pecked at each other conservatively in the early going, both looking for the opening to finish the fight. Gouveia landed the first telling blows of the fight with 2:45 left, getting Marquardt’s attention with a couple of punches to the head. Marquardt cleared his head quickly and used movement around the Octagon real estate to keep his foe from getting set. With just over a minute left, Marquardt shot in for the takedown, and Gouveia sunk in a guillotine that Marquardt was able to break free of before finishing the round with some ground strikes.

Marquardt began to land his strikes with more accuracy in the second round, and he was controlling the pace of the fight. Gouveia appeared to rock his foe with a counter at one point in the first half, but as he rushed in, Marquardt responded with a counter of his own followed by a visit to the canvas. Marquardt again worked his ground and pound effectively on the mat, and Gouveia looked winded as the two stood with a little over a minute to go in the round. Now Marquardt started to unload on his fatigued foe, jarring him with hard shots before the bell sounded.

Looking to turn things around, Gouveia took back the role of aggressor to begin the final round, and though he landed a couple of good punches, Marquardt was unaffected by the blows, and after a brief spell locked up against the fence, he went on the attack full-blast again. This time, there would be no respite for Gouveia, and after a series of strikes with the fists and feet from all angles, Gouveia fell to the mat, where referee Leon Roberts rescued him at 3:10 of the round.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu phenom Demian Maia further moved up the middleweight ladder with a first round submission win over Chael Sonnen, his fifth tap out victory in five tries in the UFC.

The fight began with some crisp standup, as Maia led and Sonnen countered effectively. 45 seconds into the bout, the two hit the mat, with Sonnen using a disciplined strategy as to not get caught by one of Maia’s submissions. In the third minute, the two stood, and after some exchanges, Maia got the takedown and went to work, sinking in a beautiful triangle choke that produced a tap out at the 2:37 mark.

“I’m very well prepared,” said Maia. “I have the title on my mind and now I think I deserve a title shot.”

UFC debutant Paulo Thiago scored the first major upset of 2009, knocking out welterweight contender Josh Koscheck in the first round of their main card opener.

There was little action in the first minute and a half of the bout, with Koscheck getting things going with his trademark right hand 90 seconds in. Less than a minute later, Koscheck rocked Thiago a second time with the right, but the Brazilian was able to shake the cobwebs loose pretty quickly, and he responded with a vicious right uppercut followed by a clean-up left hand that dropped Koscheck and left him defenseless on the canvas.