Randy Couture (left) takes on Mark Coleman in the main event of UFC 109 on Saturday at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas
Photograph by: Josh Hedges, UFC
As Ultimate Fighting Championship legend Randy Couture walked to the Octagon on Saturday night at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas for his main event against Mark Coleman at UFC 109, the familiar melody of ‘Stranglehold’, by Ted Nugent, reverberated through the arena. It was perhaps prophetic.
Couture, a five-time UFC champion, used a rear naked choke at 1:09 of the second round to submit his fellow UFC Hall-of-Famer and move a step closer to one more title shot.
“Forty-six years young,” Couture (18-10) said with a smile in the ring following the match.
The combined age of the two UFC legends in Saturday’s main event: 91 (Coleman is 45 years old). Couture looked every bit a fighter 10 or 15 younger, though. He dominated Coleman in the stand-up game, tagging him repeatedly in the first round. In a battle of former world-class amateur wrestlers, Couture took a weary Coleman (16-10) down early in the second, nearly finishing him with a ground-and-pound attack before synching in a choke.
“I feel like I’m improving each and every time,” said Couture.
He was following his game planperfectly, eventually opening up the opportunity to lock in the finishing chokehold.
“I got a chance to get it. Sometimes it works out,” Couture said.
The showdown in the Octagon was a long time coming. The two had squared off once before at an Olympic wrestling festival in Oklahoma in 1989, with Coleman beating Couture by one point. They were scheduled to meet at UFC 17, but a Couture injury forced him to withdraw and the match was never made until now.
A visibly disappointed Coleman, who was in the midst of something of a comeback, struggled to put his thoughts into words.
“Wow. The guy’s tough. Really tough,” he said, before his interview was interrupted by flamboyant former UFC champ Tito Ortiz at ringside. Coleman and Ortiz were originally going to fight at UFC 106 in November, but Coleman had to withdraw after an injury during training.
Coleman briefly walked towards Ortiz, yelling at him through the cage and unleashing an R-rated verbal assault before finishing his post-match interview.
“I think I can do better. I won’t quit. I’ll be back,” Coleman added.
“He’s a great fighter. One of the best of all-time.”
In other main-card matches at UFC 109:
- Chael Sonnen (26-10-1) showed the world why he was an NCAA wrestling champion and U.S. Olympic team alternate, using that base to dominate Nate Marquardt (32-9-2) in the middleweight co-main event of UFC 109. Sonnen earned a title shot versus the winner of April’s match between Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort by beating Marquardt via unanimous decision.
All three judges scored the match 30-27.
“I don’t want to be an also-ran. I’m here to be king of the moutain or I’ll move on and do something else,” said Sonnen, who survived a choke attempt by Marquardt late in the third round that nearly pulled a victory out of nowhere.
- The last time Paulo Thiago took on a member of the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) team, he knocked out Josh Koscheck. The finish was different on Saturday when Thiago met fellow AKA member Mike Swick, but the end result was the same: a Thiago victory.
Thiago (13-1) landed a left hook that sent Swick to the mat. When he followed him to the ground, Thiago locked in a choke and turned the lights out on Swick at 1:54 of the second round.
- Demien Maia (12-1) rebounded from a vicious knockout loss to Marquardt his last time out, earning a unanimous decision win over Dan Miller (11-3, 1 NC) in a middleweight bout. Two judges scored the match 29-28, while the third had it 30-27.
- In a welterweight match that featured almost endless smacktalking in the weeks leading up to UFC 109, former champion Matt Serra (17-6) backed up his words with a knockout of Frank Trigg (19-8) at 2:23 of the first round.
Serra scored with an overhand right hand that dropped Trigg. He quickly pounced and landed three more shots to finish his veteran opponent, who may have entered the Octagon for the last time.
In preliminary bouts at UFC 109:
- In the most entertaining of the night’s early matches, Mac Danzig (20-7-1) was awarded a unanimous decision over Justin Buchholz (9-5) in a lightweight match. All three judges scored the match 29-28.
- Melvin Guillard (42-9-3, 1 NC) ruined the UFC debut of Ronnys Torres (18-2), earning a unanimous decision. All three judges scored the match 29-28;
- Rob Emerson (11-8-1) scored a unanimous decision over Phillipe Nover (6-3-1) in a lightweight match;
- Phil Davis (5-0), the highly-regarded 2008 NCAA wrestling champion, earned a unanimous decision over Brian Stann (8-3) in a light heavyweight match. Two judges scored it 30-26, while the third had it 30-27;
- Chris Tuchscherer (18-2, 1 NC) earned a majority decision over Canadian Tim Hague (10-3) in a heavyweight bout. Two judges scored the match 29-28 for Tuchscherer, while the third scored the match 28-28.
Hague, who won with a huge knockout over Pat Barry just 1:42 into his company debut at UFC 98 last May, has now lost two in a row. In his previous bout, he was knocked out in just seven seconds by Todd Duffee.
Hague dominated the third round, evidenced by one judge giving him a 10-8 score, but it wasn't enough in the other two judges' eyes to earn him at least a draw.
- Rolles Gracie (4-1), a member of the famed MMA family, came up short in his UFC debut, losing to Joey Beltran (11-4) via TKO at 1:31 of the second round.
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