By Mark Vester
In a Las Vegas pay-per-view headlined by grudge filled return bouts, there was no revenge as the winners of the previous meetings reigned supreme in the Octagon. The biggest announcement of the night took place when Dana White came out and called Pride's Wanderlei Silva to the ring and announced a November super fight meeting between Silva and the UFC's Chuck Liddell. Liddell must win his fight with Renato Sobral in August to make this fight a reality. The announcement sent a clear message that the two biggest MMA promotions in the world, Pride and UFC, are now working together.
In the main event, Tim Sylvia held on to the UFC heavyweight title by way of a unanimous decision over former champion Andrei Arlovsky in their trilogy bout. The bout was a cautious chess match between the two fighters and fans in the arena grew upset as they wanted to see blood.
Arlovsky started strong with strong punches and leg strikes, but his chin would get exposed every time Sylvia connected with a decent punch. The fight was more of a boxing match than a mixed martial arts encounter as Sylvia was counter the strikes of Arlovsky in a battle of nerves and patience to see who would open up their defense to catch a big punch.
The fight was close, but the judges felt Sylvia did more than enough to win the fight. The scores were 48-47, 49-46 and 48-47, all for Sylvia.
Josh Burkman scored a decision over Josh Neer in an action filled fight. Burkman took the first two rounds with hard slams and crisp punches. Neer went for broke in the third round with numerous submission attempts, but was unable to finish the job.
The scores were 29-28, 30-27 and 29-28, all for Burkman.
In the ultimate UFC grudge match Tito Ortiz did a close repeat of their first fight when he easily beat UFC legend Ken Shamrock by way of a stoppage in the first round. Ortiz got Shamrock to the ground and began to launch elbows that opened up a cut on Shamrock's head.
Referee Herb Dean jumped in to stop the fight as Ortiz landed an elbow. The bout lasted 78 seconds and many fans in arena felt the stoppage came too soon, showing their anger with loud chants of bullsh**. It was unlikely that Shamrock would have been able to get off his back and Ortiz was on his way to stopping him as Shamrock was not defending himself.
Frank Mir scored a decision over Dan Christison, the scores were 29-28 across the cards for Mir.
Drew Fickett beat Kurt Pellegrino via choke in the third round.
Cheick Kongo beat Gilbert Aldana by stoppage in the first round.
Jeff Monson beat Anthony Perosh via knockout in the first round.
Hermes Franca beat Joe Jordan with a triangle choke in the third round.
Joe Stevenson stopped Yves Edwards after two rounds of action when the doctor stopped the contest between the second and third rounds. After a very competative first round, Stevenson took over in round two and hit Edwards with a barrage of punches and elbows on the floor to open a huge cut on Edwards' forehead, making the bout a bloodfest. The doctor took a look at the cut between rounds and felt there was no way he could let the bloody affair continue.
