UFC 109: Saving Grace
Published by Jim Genia on February 8th, 2010 in Current Events

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It was a pitiful main event, a train-wreck of a match-up that saw two Hall of Famers clash in what would’ve been blasted as laughable had it occurred in another promotion, but because it was in the Octagon it was hailed as legitimate. UFC 109 saw Randy Couture, still moderately competitive at 46-years old, trounce 45-year-old UFC 10 tournament winner Mark Coleman in a predictably one-sided and ugly affair. If not for Chael Sonnen’s spirited three round war with Nate Marquardt – a virtuoso performance that cemented the former NCAA All-American wrestler’s status as top middleweight contender – the night’s marquee bout would’ve left fans with a bad taste in their mouths. Sonnen was UFC 109’s saving grace.

Who is this version of Sonnen and where did he come from? When he first ventured into the Octagon at UFC 55, he was just a wrestler who couldn’t stop himself from getting caught in submissions, and when he was cut from the organization he wandered, competing in BodogFight, Northwest regional promotion Sportfight, and then losing to Paulo Filho in the WEC. But somewhere between tapping out to Demian Maia at UFC 95 and now, Sonnen sewed up that hole in his game, polished his boxing, and turned into a righteous dispenser of beatings. Post-transformation, Sonnen dominated Dan Miller and top-ranked Yushin Okami, the latter earning him a duel with Marquardt for the right to face whomever holds the belt after the future Anderson Silva/Vitor Belfort dustup. Such was the stage when UFC 109’s co-main event kicked off.

For three rounds Sonnen put the former King of Pancrase on his back, dodging a couple dangerously close guillotine attempts and peppering the Greg Jackson-trained fighter with fists from above. No slouch himself, Marquardt fired back from the bottom, opening up a nasty gash on Sonnen’s forehead that painted the violence crimson and made both men slick with blood. But that – and a reversal and brief stint on top in the final seconds of the bout – was all Marquardt had, and when the ultimate tally was read, the scorecards accurately reflected reality: the dominant Sonnen had won.

Next for Sonnen is a crack at the belt. Miraculously, this Sonnen may even have a chance.

Unlike the young wrestler, the aging Coleman did not stand a chance. But what did everyone expect? After a meager performance against an under-prepared Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and a narrow decision against Stephan Bonnar, it was clear the best days of the once-feared “Godfather of Ground and Pound” were behind him. Conversely, though on the far side of his 40s, Couture has remained in the mix with the upper echelons of the light-heavyweight and heavyweight divisions, and if Coleman pioneered the art of getting on top and raining down strikes, “The Natural” has refined the method into a science. So it was that the two met in UFC 109’s main event (instead of UFC 17, when they were originally scheduled to meet), and so it was that Couture bullied Coleman against the cage, dirty boxed him for the first round, and tossed him the canvas and went to work in the second. The end came when Coleman rolled to his stomach and Couture mercifully sank the choke – a sad finish to a sad and unnecessary bit of matchmaking.

Matt Serra proved he’s still got those heavy hands, which he used to send Frank Trigg into dreamland half way into Round 1 in their bout. Neither the jiu-jitsu master nor the ex-wrestler bothered with grappling, choosing instead to duke it out, and after a few select punches to the body Serra fired off a stunning overhand right. The trio of follow-up blows on the ground was just the icing on the cake, as Trigg was out. Also out was Mike Swick, who engaged in a stand-up battle with the big punching Paulo Thiago and paid for his folly with a right hook to the chops, a punch that sent him confused to the canvas. The Brazilian wasted no time applying a D’Arce choke, and Swick was asleep just shy of the two-minute mark of the second round. Coming off a crushing loss to Marquardt at UFC 102, Maia turned in a tame performance against fellow jiu-jitsu black belt Dan Miller, edging ahead with slightly more effective striking and a few takedowns to snag the decision.

In undercard action, both Mac Danzig and Melvin Guillard squeaked by Justin Buchholz and Ronnys Torres, with the TUF refugees’ victories more a matter of securing a dominant position here or landing one or two more strikes there than anything else. UFC rookie Phil Davis, however, left no doubt who was the better fighter in his bout with former WEC champ Brian Stann, with the highly-decorated wrestler getting the Marine Corps officer down repeatedly and beating on him for the decision. And if Rolles Gracie had wanted to make an impression in his first UFC outing, he certainly did – although probably not how he’d hoped. Controlling late-replacement Joey Beltran early with his groundfighting, Gracie seemed to live up to the hype his last name carries. That is, until he gassed. A minute and a half into Round 2 and he was done, exhausted and turtled as Beltran pounded out the TKO win.