WEC 47 goes from sizzle to fizzle

Anti-climactic. That just about sums up Saturday’s WEC 47. Whether it was Jens Pulver being armbarred into retirement (again) in the first round, or former bantamweight superstar Miguel Angel Torres being choked out by a fighter half his size or champ Brian Bowles throwing in the towel after two rounds because of a broken hand, the rug was repeatedly pulled out from under the card.

In fact, Bowles’ inability to continue – and his admission that the broken hand hampered his mental game, his ability to focus on not getting his ass kicked – was jarring and disappointing. I even cracked that Urijah Faber broke both hands in the first round against Mike Brown and still went the distance, throwing wild elbows instead, and all Bowles managed was a few more minutes of damage avoidance before giving up. Not fair, I know. I stub my pinky toe and I’m on the DL for a week. Still, the quit-factor was disappointing.

But give credit to his opponent, the new champ Dominick Cruz. Busted hand or not, Bowles looked like a statue opposite the fleet-footed, stance-switching firecracker. Cruz’s manager, Matt Stansell, predicted the fight would resemble a bullfight, and Cruz was every bit a matador, dancing around Bowles, peppering the increasingly frustrated fighter with punches and kicks and the occasional takedown. I’ve little doubt that broken hand or not, Bowles wouldn’t have left the cage with the belt around his waist.

While Bowles goes back to the drawing board, the win sets up a rematch between Cruz and Joseph Benavidez. Cruz took their first encounter by unanimous decision, handing Benavidez his only loss at the same time.

Benavidez overcame an 11-inch reach disadvantage to stun Torres with a second-round guillotine submission. He waded into the pocket to land overhand rights that left Torres looking bewildered, he took Torres to the ground and opened a nasty cut on his forehead that left him looking scared, and he finished him off with the choke after a failed armbar attempt that left him and me and a lot of other people in shock. It was the former 135-pound champ’s second straight loss (he surrendered the title to Bowles last year).

Pulver, a former UFC lightweight champ and semi-legend, was a step or two behind in the few minutes he lasted against Javier Vasquez. He got taken down three times, reversed it twice but on the third found himself in an armbar that hyper-extended his elbow and in all likelihood shortened his cage career.

A couple of other notables from the card. How did Bart Palaszewski manage to hang on to Karen Darabedyan’s wrist tightly enough to pull off that armbar? By a thread, I’d wager. And Scott Jorgensen’s standing guillotine 31 seconds into the opening round that lifted Chad George off his feet and rendered him unconscious even as he was tapping was one of the most vicious I’ve seen.