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Eddie Bravo's POST UFC 47 Thoughts & Analysis!
Reported By: Boxing Insider - 02/01/2005 06:14 PM
BoxingInsider.com: Eddie, what did you think? Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell -- it finally happened. What are your thoughts following that fight?
Eddie Bravo: Well, I wasn't surprised that Chuck won but I was surprised at the fashion in which he won. In the second round he unloaded on Tito in a Vitor-like fashion. He looked to be screaming as he was throwing that last combo. It was just shocking seeing Tito drop. We've never seen Tito get beat down like that before. It was insane.
BoxingInsider.com: Can you describe the electricity in that room that night? -- someone actually threw Tito's hat back in the ring.
Eddie Bravo: It was crazy. That place was sold out -- there was not an empty seat in the house. Looking up to the top of the arena -- every seat was filled and everybody was screaming. It was ilike a KISS concert. You couldn't hear the guy talking next to you. And it was star-studded. George Clooney was there, Michael Clark Duncan was there.
BoxingInsider.com: If you watch the replay closely enough, Tito seemed to get poked in the eye by Chuck Liddell with the setup to the flurry of punches. Do you think that might take away from Chuck Liddell's victory?
Eddie Bravo: No, not at all. You know, in this sport you've got open gloves and that's going to happen sometimes. That, to me, doesn't take anything away from his victory. Chuck clearly won -- he dominated. Unless someone can prove without a shadow of a doubt that Chuck did it on purpose, and I don’t see that happening.
BoxingInsider.com: But you don't think those gloves might not be safe?
Eddie Bravo: No, that's just part of the game. I mean, punching someone in the head isn't safe -- that's legal in the sport. How about kneeing someone in the teeth? That's not safe, that's just part of the game. Like I said, unless we can prove that Chuck thumbed him intentionally, it’s not going to matter in the long run.
BoxingInsider.com: Do you think it was a mistake for Tito Ortiz to stand there and trade punches with Chuck Liddell?
Eddie Bravo: Was that a big mistake? Yes, absolutely. But it wasn't as if he didn’t try to take the fight down. He did try to shoot on Chuck. He just couldn't take him down. I think he should have kept trying though. I think there were two or three shots but I think he should have stuck with it because it was obvious that he was outclassed standing.
BoxingInsider.com: Given that Chuck Liddell has already beaten Vitor Belfort and Tito Ortiz has lost heavily to Randy Couture and Rampage, where does this put Chuck Liddell in the light-heavyweight division?
Eddie Bravo: I'd say it puts him right back up to #2 or 3 in the light-heavyweight division. And everybody loses; just because he lost to Randy doesn't really mean too much. Can he beat Randy if they fought again? I don't know; I'd put my money on Randy, but in this sport anything can happen.
BoxingInsider.com: Does this mean Chuck Liddell is back, or Tito Ortiz is finished, or neither?
Eddie Bravo: I think it means Chuck is back on the right track. He got dominated by Randy; then he got dominated by Quentin. If you want to make a comeback, knocking out Tito Ortiz is the way to do it. I think Chuck is definitely back and Tito's not finished. This is just part of the game. You can get knocked the f*** out in one fight and then come back and knock someone else out. You could have said the same thing about Chuck after the Quentin-Rampage fight. Quentin dominated Chuck and look, Chuck's back. A fight later, he's back. And all Tito needs to do is go back to the drawing board, keep training hard and come back, and beat the hell out of somebody -- he'll be back. You can come back really easy in this sport. You've just got to keep your head up.
BoxingInsider.com: What did you think of the Hermes Franca-Yves Edwards decision -- who did you have winning that match?
Eddie Bravo: I thought it was a bad decision. I thought Hermes Franca won quite clearly. He was the aggressor, he was trying to finish the fight. Yves was just counter-attacking. He was punching Hermes -- like off leglocks, and all that, but he wasn’t pushing the fight enough. I love Yves to death and I even picked him to win, but Hermes was even throwing more head kicks than Yves Edwards and Hermes isn’t even a striker.
BoxingInsider.com: Considering Hermes lost his last two decisions so closely, what advice would you give Hermes as a fighter? He seems to be pretty frustrated right now.
Eddie Bravo: I don't blame him for being frustrated. I thought his previous fight with Thomson was a draw. If you score that fight it was easy. I don't know how anybody could make a mistake about Josh Thomson's fight. Josh won the first two rounds 10-9 and Hermes Franca won the third round big, 10-8. He almost put Josh away; the ref. almost stepped in and stopped it. He knocked him down with punches -- it looked as if he was almost finished. You've got to score that a 10-8. So 10-8, 10-9, 10-9 -- that's a draw. And then to lose this decision with such an effort he put into that fight. He was trying to finish the fight the whole time and Yves was just counter-attacking. I just can't see how the judges gave it to Yves.
BoxingInsider.com: Wes Simms took a fight against Mike Kyle on one day's notice. It appears at the end of the fight he was bit on the chest. Did you hear anything about that -- do you know what's going on there?
Eddie Bravo: Well, Wes is claiming that he bit him in the chest but Mike Kyle is saying, how could he bite him in the chest when he had his mouthpiece in? He did get him a choke where the choke was shoving Mike Kyle's face into the chest of Wes Simms. So maybe that was a mouthpiece imprint on his chest. I'm not sure; it's hard to tell. Wes Simms doesn't always go by the rules himself, so maybe he's getting a taste of his own medicine.
BoxingInsider.com: Now Wes Simms took this fight on one day's notice and got knocked out handily. Does he deserve credit for taking this fight on one day's notice? Can he be a top UFC superstar still following these three losses in a row?
Eddie Bravo: You can't really judge him by his last performance against Mike Kyle, like you said, it was taken on one day's notice. Who knows what kind of shape he was in? In a high-pressure situation, going head to head against a top conditioned athlete like Mike Kyle -- you really can't judge him on that fight. What he really needs to do, I would suggest, is to take a year, train really hard in jiu-jitsu, really hard in striking, really hard in wrestling -- for a year straight. He already has the mental attitude -- he's not afraid to fight. He loves to perform in front of a crowd so it's not as if he's going to get rattled. He's got that, and that's really important. Some fighters never get that. And he's got the mental part of the game down -- he just needs technique now. That's going to take a while.
BoxingInsider.com: Andre Arlovsky knocked out Cabbage Correira. Is Andrei Arlovsky the top heavyweight in the UFC?
Eddie Bravo: I would say so. I actually picked Cabbage in this fight. Based on his chin, I thought he could take Arlovsky's shots. But Arlovsky kicks a lot harder than I thought. He looks as if he's ready for K-1. It's going to be hard for anybody in the heavyweight division to stand with Andre Arlovsky now. He looks like a machine standing. And his grappling's not too bad either, so he's got to be number one in the heavyweight division right now.
BoxingInsider.com: To the best of your understanding, what happened with Tim Silvia? Do you think we was still taking steroids or were these really just trace amounts still left in his system? And to follow up, do you think he was getting bad medical advice since after all this time he still failed the drug test?
Eddie Bravo: I think it was just traces left in his system and that's it. That stuff stays in your system for a while, I guess. He's not stupid enough to keep taking steroids after he got caught. Who's that dumb?
BoxingInsider.com: UFC 47 was sold out at the Mandalay Bay. The fans were hyped up for this fight like I've never seen them before. Did Mixed Martial Arts seem to be on a whole different plateau? Where do you think the sport's going now? It seems as if it is getting more mainstream.
Eddie Bravo: I think we're definitely getting closer. How close, I'm not sure. I know for sure one day the UFC will be a household name. That's going to happen -- you can't stop it. When, I'm not sure. It might be a lot sooner than people think. That was definitely the loudest, noisiest, craziest crowd so far. It was insane. I loved it; it's what I live for. You need that energy from the crowd -- that was there. So I guess it didn't matter that Tito and Chuck weren't fighting for the title and they were both coming off losses. I guess it didn't matter. People want to see personalities and Chuck and Tito -- that's what they have. They have the complete package. They've got the skills to bang in the cage and the personalities. And they proved it -- sold out the Mandalay Bay and the place was electric.
BoxingInsider.com: Eddie, thanks as always for doing this UFC post-fight preview and we hope at UFC's 48th that UFC lets you score more than one fight.
Eddie Bravo: I hope so, too. I love scoring the fights. I actually like that better than the post-fight interview although I don't get any camera time so the ladies could check my pretty mug out. But actually I like it because I get to express my opinions more. I would like to score every fight. I don't see why not -- it takes 10 seconds in between every round. But that's not up to me -- that's up to the big boys at Zuffa. Who knows -- I'm just happy to be in there so it really doesn't matter.
Eddie Bravo is a regular contributor to boxinginsider and can be reached at twisterbravo@sbcglobal.net. Eddie is also authoring the first Jiu Jitsu books ever put out by a major book label, which should be released later this year.
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