UFC 115 Results - Rich Franklin Knocks Out Chuck Liddell

Martin Kampmann was the underdog coming in to UFC 115 with the hot new thing in the welterweight division, Paulo Thiago, thought to be the more complete fighter. Kampmann didn’t let popular opinion stand in his way though as he outworked Thiago on the feet with crisp combinations and outgrappled him in both the wrestling and submission departments.

Kampmann was shockingly effective in every department of the game and other than a few moments it was Kampmann in control. Admittedly I expected Kampmann’s kickboxing to fail him and Thiago to outclass him on the ground. However, Kampmann was a different fighter than he had been at any point in his career.

There were some scary moments for Ben Rothwell as he took on Gilbert Yvel at UFC 115. After a safe and controlled first round where Rothwell was able to get takedowns and work from the top Yvel found his rhythm in the second. For a large chunk of the round Yvel was on top of Rothwell and hurting him with heavy ground and pound. Rothwell was able to survive a near stoppage to come back in the third and control the final round with takedowns and positioning.

The scorecards read 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28 all for Rothwell.

Former WEC welterweight champion Carlos Condit was able to survive a rough opening two rounds against top prospect Rory MacDonald to get a TKO in the last round of the fight. Rory was able to get takedowns and win the striking battle in both the first and second rounds. In the moments where Condit got on top Rory was able to use sweeps to get out of bad positions and end up back on top.

In the third round Condit came out with fire and started to hurt MacDonald over and over. When the fight went to the ground this time Rory wasn’t able to sweep and ended up a lot of punches and elbows. After a few minutes MacDonald’s eye had swollen up very badly and it appeared he had a broken orbital socket. It appeared that MacDonald would be able to manage to survive to the scorecards but with just 10 seconds left the fight was stopped and Condit was awarded the TKO victory.

Evan Dunham was able to find takedowns seemingly at will against Tyson Griffin when they met at UFC 115. Dunham also had a lot of success working his way to taking the back in all three rounds. There was not a ton of action as the majority of the fight was Griffin attempting to fend off the choke as Dunham rode his back.

It was a clear 30-27 decision on the SB Nation scorecard but somehow one of the judges found a way to score the bout for Griffin. The other two judges got it right and gave the clear decision to Evan Dunham who gets the biggest win of his career by split decision.

In the first fight of the Spike TV portion of the card Matt Wiman won via a controversial referee stoppage. Early in the first round the two fighters tumbled to the ground with Mac Danzig on top. Danzig started to land some ground and pound before Wiman was able to lock on a guillotine choke. Wiman used the choke to roll into the mount where he continued to work for the submission. Wiman believed that Danzig had gone unconscious and when he told the ref the fight was stopped.

Following the stoppage Danzig was clearly alert and was moving to get out of the choke. Both fighters said during the post-fight interviews that they did not want the fight to end the way it did. It was an unfortunate ending to what could have been a very good fight.