Cantwell is only 21 years old! He's already purple belt in jiu-jitsu (we saw almost no ground work in this fight) and should have a very bright future.
I got to wonder after this fight if Stann would ever move down to 185 at the point he was developed enough to fight with UFC caliber fighters. He weighed in at only 201.5 and that's such a low weight that I doubt he cut to get there; although I am only speculating.
Next we have a Featherweight (145 lb) bout between Micah Miller and Josh Grispi.
Both fighters came into the bout with a 11-1 record, and both fighters are very tall for their weight class. Miller is 6' and Grispi is 5' 11''. Well, I'd imagine being that thin in order to make your weight class doesn't help your chin any. They kept it standing and then Grispi caught Miller with a right hand that sent Miller spinning. He pounced and threw a couple more punches that knocked Miller out. Herb Dean jumped in and stopped the fight at the just the right time -- :50 seconds into the first round. There was some conversation after the bout concerning an early stoppage by Mir, but I can assure you, the fact that Miller didn't understand the fight was over is not a sign that the fight should have continued. Grispi's only 19 years old and he's already very dangerous.
In our last fight of the night, we have the Welterweight (170 lb) title fight between Carlos Condit and Hiromitsu Miura.
WHOOAAA!!! This fight was one of the best I have ever seen. Compared to other WEC classics, I prefer it over Faber vs Pulver, and maybe Torres vs Maeda as well (both epic title fights from WEC's last show on Versus back in June). This fight will not be done justice by me giving you a simple round by round telling of the exchanges, so I'll approach it from a different manner.
What are the criterion for a great fight?
For me a major one is skill. I want to know that both of these fighters are world class and that there aren't a bunch of other guys out there that could make these guys look silly and sloppy. And I'd like to see some skills that make me say wow: like Penn's take down defense in Penn vs Hughes II, or Shinya Aoki's ground game vs JZ Calvancante. There was indeed great skill in this fight. Condit has some of the best stand up in the entire welterweight division. He also has some of the best jiu-jitsu in the entire division, holding submission victories over multiple respected submission fighters. As for Muira, his Judo is extremely impressive. Karo Parisyan eat your heart out. The sweeps and throws he pulled off on the highly talented Condit were incredibly impressive and its very rare that you see a Judo guy actually pull off so many Judo moves in a fight. Muira showed the fans some things they've never seen before against Condit.
Another major factor is the pace and excitement the fight. The guys need to exchange consistently. The only breathers taken should be the ones where each guy leans on the other against the cage or on the ground, while there is still buzz being carried over from the exchange they just had. This fight had that pace. They pushed each other to the point of complete exhaustion by the end of this thing.
The last major factor is the competitiveness of the fight. If you can point to multiple points in the fight where it looks like either guy is in complete control, or where either guy is close to finishing the fight with a TKO, then you have yourself the makings of a good fight. This fight was back and forth throughout. Everytime it looked like Miura might pound out an exhausted Condit from his guard, Condit would get up. Everytime that Condit had Muira mounted (it happened a lot) and it seemed there was no way that Muira would be able to get out of his awful position, he bucked Condit off of him or at the least found a way to get the end of the round. Both fighters got rocked on the feet, and both prevailed with a great chin. One of the most impressive things was each fighter's heart and conditioning to keep pushing through the hard spots: specifically Muira's. His conditioning was extremely impressive as the fight went deep into the fourth round. Condit was pushed to his limits in this fight, and I can't wait for a rematch.
After a seemingly weak, but on the button knee, Condit knocked Muira to the ground late in the fourth. He followed it up with some weak but consistent hammer fists from an odd position until the ref eventually had to stop it because Muira was no longer defending himself. Condit won by TKO 4:43 into the fourth round.
Condit probably won each of the first three rounds in this fight, but there's a lot more to what makes a close fight than a ten point must system can show. This fight had heart.
Muira laid on his back and didn't get up for a while after it was all said and done. Condit looked exhausted as his hand was raised and struggled to conduct a brief interview after the fight. It was a great fight to finish a great card. The term “war” is too often used when referring to MMA fights, but it is appropriate here. Condit vs Muira was a true MMA war.
WEC 35 was filled with exciting knockouts and finishes. I can't wait for WEC 36 with Faber vs Brown and Filho vs Sonnen II. World Extreme Cagefighting is without a doubt one of the very best MMA organizations in the world.
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