A steady opening round lead into a competitive middle round. With two minutes remaining in the round Marquardt executed a beautiful sweep that saw him go from butterfly guard to standing to the half-guard in a matter of seconds.
The middleweight couldn’t hold position and was hurt when Doerksen, a multiple-time UFC veteran, countered a low kick with a well placed left hook.
However Marquardt, a former King of Pancrase, left little to chance as action moved to the third. Connecting with a series of heavy right hands, the Colorado-based, New Mexico-trained fighter all but sealed the fight. Marquardt, whose steady performance was better than his first showing against Salaverry but not yet up to the standards he often displayed in Japan, called out UFC champion Franklin afterwards.
Returning to the UFC as part of its refurbishing of the lightweight division, Yves Edwards (Pictures) performed poorly against traditional 145-pounder Mark Hominick (Pictures). The speedy Canadian frustrated Edwards in the opening period, and took control in the second.
So outgunned was Edwards that he purposefully shot in for a double-leg takedown, which he scored. However the veteran inexplicably left himself open for a slow-developing triangle choke. As Hominick worked from the bottom, he saw Edwards open for the submission and went for it, forcing a tapout 1:53 of the second round.
Should the UFC ever decide to promote bantamweight bouts, the young Canadian is a perfect candidate to headline the division. But the potential for an organization, which at certain points seemed unwilling to showcase lightweight fighters, to suddenly feature men 10 pounds lighter seems remote.
Dark Bouts
Stepping into the cage on several days’ notice is no easy task, even for a fighter some have tabbed as the next great American lightweight. Early in his fight with Canadian Sam Stout (Pictures), Spencer Fisher (Pictures) appeared up to the task. But as his energy waned and the rounds wore long, Stout’s skill and training shone through.
Originally slated to fight Kenny Florian (Pictures), the 21-year-old Stout went to war with Fisher for 15 minutes to win a tight split decision.
Fisher didn’t mess around in the first four minutes, dropping power shot after power shot on the game Stout, who remained in the pocket and threw as many as he ate.
After dropping the opening round, Stout came back nicely in round two. Combinations were finished with kicks and he adeptly defended Fisher’s attempts at leg submissions.
By the start of the third, Fisher was clearly fatigued and Stout began to take it to him. So tired was the North Carolinian that three times in the span of a minute his mouthpiece hit the floor. But the short respites were hardly sufficient to allow him to recover the sort of energy he needed to unleash the dangerous strikes that won him the opening stanza.
Light heavyweight Jason Lambert (Pictures) impressed in his UFC debut against Rob McDonald. The wrestler aggressively moved forward until he could lift his Canadian counterpart high in the air and pick the spot to dump him. Following that, Lambert locked in a tight Kimura from side-control to end the fight by tapout at 1:54 of round one.
The night’s opening bout saw Tom Murphy stop late replacement Icho Larenas (Pictures) 1:59 of round three. Murphy used takedowns to control the bout, and after an unintentional clash of heads that opened a bad cut on the Canadian’s forehead, the TUF participant took control.