UFC 68: A Night of Second Chances

I had the notion in my head before this event that it would be a lose-lose situation for Randy Couture to come out of retirement, especially with his first fight being for the Heavyweight title. If he lost, he would tarnish his legacy to a certain extent. If he won, great... but then who does he have to defend the title against? The name CroCop comes to mind. But after The Natural's performance Saturday night against Tim Sylvia, I'm pretty well certain anything is possible.

I also had to seriously consider whether I even wanted to watch this event, let alone cover it. I will admit, some of the fighters featured are not exactly my favorite, but more importantly the majority of the fighters on the card were coming off of losses.

Randy Couture lost to Chuck Liddell
Rich Franklin lost his title to Anderson Silva
Matt Hughes lost his title to Georges St. Pierre
Chris Lytle lost the TUF 4 Finale to Matt Serra
Jason Lambert lost to Rashad Evans
Renato Sobral lost to Chuck Liddell, ending his 10 fight win streak

And that was just the televised fights. But then it came to me, as well as being proven by the end of the night... when you're not far from the bottom, about the only way to go is up.

Just as I was about to pray to the MMA Gods for Randy not to get hurt, he drops Sylvia with the first punch. I'm still finding nacho chips in my sofa from when I knocked the damn bowl over when I jumped up. I was betting Couture to win, but no one except Captain America himself could have predicted pure ownage for 5 straight rounds to walk away with the decision victory.

Oh, and a word to the not so wise. No matter what, and I mean... no matter WHAT... do not mention you came into a fight with an injury after just getting your ass handed to you. Whether you really had one or not, it does not look good on you at all. And when you mention it, you get booed even more... Tim Sylvia.