Canadian Patrick Cote (Pictures) finally eradicated the haunting demons form his body and scored his first win inside the Octagon in five fights. Cote won his fight with Scott Smith handily, scoring a unanimous nod with tallies of 30-27 on all three cards. The crowd hated the bout and booed it mercilessly, but it didn’t affect Cote on bit.
In the other televised fight, Roger Huerta (Pictures) destroyed the over-matched John Halverson (Pictures) in just 19 seconds. The knockout appeared to be quite bizarre as the knee that floored Halverson appeared at first to be illegal, but replays showed it hit his shoulder.
Huerta wasted no time at all and swarmed over his adversary to quickly stop him.
“I hit him right in the shoulder,” Huerta said of the fight-changing knee. “I knew it was a body shot. If he wants to pretend like he’s playing possum, then, I mean that’s not my fault. Other than that, everybody that’s ever seen me fight knows that I come in here and I bring everything I got. I fight with a lot of heart.”
In the other ridiculously short knockout of the night, Chicago boy Terry Martin (Pictures) dispatched veteran Jorge Rivera (Pictures) in just 14 seconds. Rivera tried to throw a high kick but Martin caught it and in turn landed a chopping right hand that dropped “El Conquistador” on the spot. Martin immediately landed two more powerful right hands and Rivera’s body went limp. The referee quickly jumped in and rescued Rivera.
Ryoto Machida (Pictures) was impressive in his UFC debut, convincingly defeating TUF 1 veteran Sam Hoger (Pictures) en route to a unanimous decision victory. Machida dropped Hoger several times but was never able to take his opponent out. Hoger hung tough throughout and kept the fight relatively lively, but in the end Machida was too much for Hoger to handle. The light heavyweight Machida won via tallies of 30-27 thrice.
Frank Edgar (Pictures) scored the night’s lone upset as he out-hustled and out-fought heavy favorite Tyson Griffin (Pictures) on his way to a unanimous decision win. Edgar was awarded the victory after receiving official scores of 29-28 (twice) and 30-27.
The fight was arguably the most entertaining of the evening, as the lightweights let everything go in spurts. Griffin seemed one step behind Edgar for the majority of the contest and with that said Edgar deserved the hard-fought victory.
In the card’s opening bout, Dustin Hazelett (Pictures) scored a unanimous three round decision over Diego Saraiva (Pictures) by a margin of 30-27 on all three scorecards. The fight itself was nothing to write home about in terms of excitement other than the fact that Hazelett out-worked his opponent and was the better man inside the cage.