UFC 115 , Watch - KO highlight video ( Chuck Liddell vs Rich Franklin )

But Liddell, who went from fighting for purses of less than $1,000 to earning paydays in excess of $1 million, couldn’t bring himself to retire so easily.
“I just love to fight,” Liddell said, repeatedly, before the bout.
So, he struck a deal with White: He’d clean up the lifestyle issues that concerned his friend and one-time manager and get himself into the kind of shape he’d been in when he was in his heyday. In return, White agreed to give him another chance.
And, indeed, Liddell’s body looked fit and trim, much more like that of a 25-year-old than a 40-year-old.
He also went out with his style of fight, stalking Franklin and gunning for the knockout with every shot he threw.
“He follows big when he thinks he has you hurt,” Franklin said. “But I was never as badly hurt as he thought I was.”
Liddell was doing well in the bout and likely would have won the first round on the scorecards if it was completed. Not only did he land several good punches, but he was throwing high kicks, which he hadn’t in years, and he mixed in some wrestling.
But his lust for the knockout, in a way, cost him the fight on Saturday.
He missed a big right hand and he swung so hard that his momentum carried him forward into Franklin. Franklin fired a right hook that had everything he could muster on it. The blow landed on Liddell’s mouth and badly split his lip, almost down to the chin.
Liddell was out instantly, but Franklin landed a shot before referee Herb Dean could get in to stop it.
“Chuck Liddell came in fantastic shape; he worked hard for this thing and I think him and Rich Franklin tonight fought the type of fights that made them both famous and made them both world champions,” White said in tribute to his friend, who was taken to a local hospital to be examined. “Those two went at it, nonstop, toe-to-toe. It was a fun fight.”
The fight had major stakes for both men. Franklin was coming off a knockout loss to Vitor Belfort at UFC 103 in September and was a loser in two of his last three.
While most of the pre-fight attention was focused on Liddell and whether he could get it back together to, as he said, make a final run at the UFC light heavyweight title, the bout had significant implications for Franklin as well.
The light heavyweight division is one of the UFC’s deepest. If Franklin had lost to Liddell, it would have been his third defeat in four outings and retirement might have been in the offing.
Franklin didn’t want to acknowledge it, but he conceded after the bout that he understood he was walking a high-wire as well.
“It maybe was somewhere in the back of my mind, but I really try to push that stuff out,” Franklin said. “What happened to me in my last fight will not predict what will happen to me in my next fight. I really believe that. On any given night, Chuck and I could do this 100 times and there would be several different outcomes.
“This happened to be my night, and last fight it wasn’t. But you can’t help but think that, ‘Well, if I drop three of four, where would that leave me?’ Any time you put your back against the wall in a no-win situation, where ‘if I don’t win this, it’s over,’ you take your mind off the important thing and that’s focusing on my performance.”
Franklin fought more than half of the fight with a broken left arm, suffered when he successfully blocked a high kick from Liddell about two minutes into the match.
He wasn’t planning to quit, he said, but he knew it would help his cause if he could do something to end the fight quickly. When the bout ended, he beamed devilishly, because he knew he didn’t have to figure a way to win the bout without his left arm.
“I was just happy the fight was over because I knew my arm was broken,” Franklin said, explaining his grin. “I definitely wasn’t going to quit. I’ve broken bones before and continued fighting, but there was part of me that was trying to figure what kind of strategy I was going to use to win a fight with a broken left arm.”
Franklin pulled it out and so his career will continue forward, but Liddell will be left to move on to other things. White, who said, “I love Chuck Liddell,” said his friend would have a job for life with the UFC.
But the man who was one of the most significant fighters in UFC history and who helped the company achieve the soaring popularity it now enjoys wanted that job to be swapping punches, at least a bit longer.
He goes out, though, on his own terms, having fought the best of his era and beaten nearly all of them. He finishes with a 21-8 record and a spot in the UFC Hall of Fame.
Six of Liddell’s eight losses came against men who held a UFC title at one point in their careers (Jackson, twice; Couture, Evans, Rua and Franklin) and who themselves are among the best fighters in the sport’s brief history.
Franklin called the victory “bittersweet” because he didn’t want to become known as the man who retired Liddell.
The former middleweight champion scored the knockout, but it wasn’t really Franklin who retired Chuck Liddell.
It was the calendar. Liddell got old and his chin betrayed him.
He went down, though, the way he fought his entire career, firing big punches and bringing the fans from their seats.
Few have ever done it better.
Franklin’s left arm was grotesquely swollen and appeared it may be broken after he blocked a kick from Liddell.
But Franklin, the former middleweight champ, didn’t seem to mind, beaming after knocking out one of the UFC’s legendary stars.
Liddell hadn’t fought since being knocked out by Mauricio “Shogun” Rua 14 months ago in Montreal at UFC 97. It was the third time he had been knocked out, and Liddell took the time off to allow himself to recuperate.
He was scoring well on Saturday and dictating the pace of the fight. He likely would have won the first round on the judges’ cards if the round finished, and he looked to apply some late damage when he was caught.
On the undercard, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic won his heavyweight battle with Pat Barry, who made no secret of his admiration for the PRIDE veteran. Filipovic forced a submission with a rear naked choke with 30 seconds left in the fight.
Barry made many fans before the fight by admitting his admiration for Filipovic, but in the first round he went after his idol and knocked him down twice and was in control of the fight.
But Barry’s conditioning seemed to fail him and Filipovic picked up the pace in the second, stopping Barry’s onslaught and forcing him into a defensive mode.
In the third, Filipovic took over and was catching Barry with fast combinations, forcing Barry to retreat. With about a minute left, a combination from Filipovic knocked Barry down. Filipovic landed a series of hard punches on the ground and referee Yves Lavigne seemed on the verge of stopping it.
But Barry turned away from Filipovic, who took advantage and slapped the fight-ending choke on Barry.
Canadian Rory MacDonald, at 20 years old the UFC’s youngest fighter, got a hero’s welcome from the raucous GM Place crowd and then performed brilliantly through the first two rounds against former World Extreme Cagefighting welterweight champion Carlos Condit.
But Condit took over in the third round and began to rock MacDonald with hard punches. In the final seconds of the fight, MacDonald was on his back and Condit was pounding him with blows. With just 10 seconds left in the fight, referee Kevin Dornan jumped in to stop it.
Two of the judges had MacDonald up 20-18 at the time of the stop. The third had it a draw, 19-19. If the judges would have scored the fight 10-8 for Condit, as it appeared they might, the fight would have wound up a majority draw.
MacDonald didn’t complain about the stoppage.
“I was confused,” he said. “I was taking some good shots. I was lost. I just couldn’t find my rhythm.”
Ben Rothwell managed to control Gilbert Yvel in most of all three rounds and won a unanimous decision over the Dutchman in an entertaining heavyweight bout.
Martin Kampmann moved closer to a bout for the No. 1 contender position in the UFC’s welterweight division with a solid victory over Paulo Thiago. Kampmann was brilliant in neutralizing Thiago’s punching power and controlling him on the ground.
Mirko "Cro Cop" Filopovic took an early beating to come back and choke out Pat Barry in the third round at UFC 115.
Pat Barry came out against his hero, the legendary Mirko "Cro Cop" Filopovic looking to land hard shots. He did about 30 seconds in, dropped Cro Cop with a right hand. Barry then went to the leg kick. And back for more. Cro Cop came in swinging and missing and Barry landed to the inside of the same leg. Cro Cop attempted a hook kick. Barry landed another hard right and again dropped Mirko.
Cro Cop's face began to swell horribly. The announcers speculated that his jaw was broken. Cro Cop threw Pat Barry and got a take down. Then he landed a combination of punches that set the crowd on fire. Then they traded hugs! Then back to exchanging blows. Barry ended with a high kick that just missed.
Mirko looked really bad going into round two. He threw two big left high kicks to open. Then he landed with a kick to the body. And he surged forward behind a punching combination. This is a proud man! Barry with more leg kicks. They tied up and Mirko attacked Barry's thighs with hammer fists then threw Barry down briefly. More knees to the bodies preceded a ref restart. Cro Cop advanced behind double jabs. Then a side kick landed for the Croation. Barry slipped on a high kick and Mirko locked on a front choke. Then he put Barry down on his back. Barry managed to hold Mirko close, but Filopovic worked for better position and attained mount. Then he got Barry's back and worked for a rear naked choke! Barry flipped over but Cro Cop held dominant position to the end of the round. Great come back for Filopovic.
A bruised Pat Barry looked at a shattered Mirko Filopovic across the cage to start round three. They hugged a gain then got to business. Cro Cop fired combinations. Then he landed an axe kick! Cro Cop ducked a right hand and got body hooks. Barry timed a high kick and kicked his leg out from under him, dropping Cro Cop on his ass. Barry pinged with leg kicks. Barry tagged him with a left. Cro Cop answered with an uppercut. And another followed by a combination of hooks. Then they clinched near the cage where they traded standing elbows. Cro Cop landed more. The ref restarted them again . Cro Cop landed hard and poured it on. Then he dropped Barry and pounded away. Cro Cop whaled away and looked at the ref asking for a stoppage. Not getting it, he went for the rear naked choke and got the finish.