UFC 58: Franklin Dominates Loiseau; 'Rush' Beats Penn

[Andrew Green]

LAS VEGAS, March 4 – Tonight was supposed to be Rich Franklin’s toughest test yet, but after a five round battering of courageous challenger David Loiseau at UFC 58 – USA vs Canada before 10,362 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, the only question has to be, who has a legitimate shot to challenge the UFC middleweight champion?

The unanimous five round decision read 50-42 twice and 50-43 for Franklin, who defended his crown for the second time and did it with a broken left hand - and possibly a broken foot and right hand - from the second round on.

“It’s the first fight where I’ve gone to a decision, so I’m very displeased with myself,” said Franklin, who could now be dubbed ‘The Punisher’ after his dominating performance.

Full Story: http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=2323

 

[Andrew Green]

Full results:

Rich Franklin Vs. David Loiseau - Rich Franklin Wins by Unanimous Decision at 5:00 in the 5th round.

Georges St. Pierre Vs. BJ Penn - Georges St. Pierre Wins by Split Decision at 5:00 in the 3rd round.

Nate Marquardt Vs. Joe Doerksen - Nate Marquardt Wins by Unanimous Decision at 5:00 in the 3rd round.

Mike Swick Vs. Steve Vigneault - Mike Swick Wins by Submission at 2:09 in the 1st round.

Yves Edwards Vs. Mark Hominick - Mark Hominick Wins by Submission at 1:53 in the 2nd round.

Rob MacDonald Vs. Jason Lambert - Jason Lambert Wins by Submission at 1:54 in the 1st round.

Spencer Fisher Vs. Sam Stout - Sam Stout Wins by Majority Decision at 5:00 in the 3rd round.

Tom Murphy Vs. Icho Larenas - Tom Murphy Wins by Technical Knock Out at 1:59 in the 3rd round.

 

[WilliamJ]

Hominick was VERY impressive. I hope they have him back soon.

 

[Rick Wade]

How did BJ Penn do during his fight?

V/R RIck

 

[WilliamJ]

He started out well and GSP looked very tentative. Penn was beating him on the feet and for some reason was avoiding the ground. After the first round it looked like it was Penn's fight. In the second GSP started to get his confidence back and took Penn down a few times. It was a pretty even round, could have gone either way. Penn started to look gassed though and GSP ended the round well so he got that one. Round three was GSP's clearly. Penn did very little and he was gassed big time. GSP took him down a couple times, and was the aggressor. 29-28 GSP. A close decision but the correct one. Penn should have been in better shape.

 

[7starmantis]

I dont know that I agree with that, Penn was calm and in control through most of the fight. I dont think he was as "gassed" as you make it sound in your post. What got GSP the fight was his agressiveness. I didn't agree with the decision of the judges either. Plus, I think Penn has a better chance of beating Hughes, but GSP did impress me in this fight, so it will be interesting to see now.

I'm not trying to take anything from George St. Pierre, not at all, I just thought he was struggling to hold on through the whole fight. He did very little damage to Penn and I think simply won the fight out of agressiveness. Penn was way too lackadaisical but I dont think it was fatigue per se. I dont know why he didn't fight his game, if he had, it would have been a very different fight. GSP has a great opportunity here to rise to the top, lets hope he can pull it off. (I'm for anyone that can beat Matt Hughes).

7sm

 

[Andrew Green]

There's been a lot about the decision in this fight, basically it comes down to the 2nd round which was pretty close. Penn clearly won the first, St Pierre clearly won the 3rd. The 2nd was a little iffy though.

A lot of the time it comes down to the visible damage, but remember what caused it. St.Pierre got bloodied up quite a bit in round one, and kept on bleeding, but it was caused by a thumb in the eye and a glancing uppercut that clipped his nose.

It was a good fight, I would have given it to St. Pierre and if Penn sticks around we'll likely get to see a rematch at some point.