With his back against the wall looking down the barrel at a possible fourth loss in a row, Keith Jardine knew he had to come out of the gate strong in his fight on Saturday night and he did exactly that. Firing off quick jabs and leg kicks, Jardine battered Hamill in the first round.
The mistakes for Jardine came in the 2nd round as he started to get into big exchanges with Hamill, who landed big shot after big shot, while also taking the fight to the ground and opening a huge cut on his opponent's forehead. As the fighters traded shots on the feet after working their way up from the mat, Jardine looked to push Hamill away but in the process jammed a thumb into his eye.
The fight was paused, and referee Herb Dean deducted a point from Keith Jardine due to the eye poke.
It turns out the eye poke only played an incidental role in the decision as Hamill kept pushing forward, crashing Jardine with power shots, and working away at the cut on his head that continued to give him a crimson mask throughout the fight. Two exhausted fighters closed out the third round with a few more strikes, but the damage caused by Hamill was likely a deciding factor.
"I'm not really happy with my performance, I thought he did really good, I don't know what happened I'm going to have to go home and review it, and study my mistakes," Hamill said emotionally after the fight.
For Keith Jardine, the questions now begin as he's lost 4 fights in a row, and 5 out of his last 6. Will the UFC keep the tough as nails light heavyweight? That question will likely be answered in the next few days.
It's been five years since Chris Leben was a competitor on the "Ultimate Fighter" reality show, but he returned home on Saturday night where he TKO'd previously unbeaten Arizona fighter Aaron Simpson to pick up his second win in a row.
Simpson, a former NCAA All-American wrestler, came after Leben hard in the first round, slamming the Hawaii based fighter down to the mat twice with takedowns, but couldn't keep the fight on the ground very long. Maintaining his composure, Leben bided his time looking for an opening, and that came in the second round as Simpson's cardio started to fade.
Trapping Simpson against the cage, Leben popped Simpson in the jaw with a straight left hand, and followed it up with more strikes. Simpson survived momentarily, but turned his back on Leben as they stood up and took a few more shots as they separated. Trying to avoid more damage, Simpson stumbled across the cage to get away from Leben, and referee Josh Rosenthal saw enough, stopping the fight and giving Leben the TKO win.
"I hit him in the face, cause that's my job," Leben said after the win while dedicating the fight to his longtime friend Ed Herman, who lost to Simpson in 2009.
Bouncing back from a loss in his last fight, Russian born Dennis Siver got the better of Spencer Fisher for three rounds to get a unanimous decision win, his fifth in the Octagon.
It was a game of who could throw the bigger power punch and land it for the most part, and Siver got to the punch just a little quicker than Fisher did in the latter part of the fight. A clash of heads in the first round saw Siver get a good sized gash opened over his eye, but luckily the cut was dealt with between rounds and never caused him much of a problem in the fight.
Fisher, who worked with Mark Dellagrotte for this fight, showed good quickness in moments, but just couldn't put together the combinations to hurt Siver. To his credit, Siver used good footwork, mixed with strong punches and some stinging body kicks to get the judges' nod in the end.
A broken arm stopped Rich Attonito during the eleventh season of the "Ultimate Fighter" but time to heal and a win over Jamie Yager probably helped soothe some of those wounds from not getting a chance to win the show's championship.
Giving up considerable reach, Attonito had to avoid Yager's strikes in the first round, and the American Top Team fighter seemed to struggle to get to the inside. Yager kept Attonito away from him, but didn't unload any big shots.
The time between rounds woke Attonito up, and he got Yager down on the mat and immediately showed his dominance on the ground. Flattening Yager out on his stomach, Attonito opened a barrage of strikes to his opponent's head, and left only to throw up an arm to defend, referee Steve Mazzagatti stepped in to stop the punishment.
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