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In an incredibly shocking fight Quinton “Rampage” Jackson knocked out Chuck Liddell at 1:53 in the first round. This fight was four years in the making. After Liddell’s shocking loss to Randy Couture at UFC 43: Meltdown he made a stint in PRIDE where he was defeated by Rampage in 2003. After that defeat Liddell went back to the UFC and was unstoppable for seven straight fights, which were all won by knock out.

Liddell predicted that this fight would be his moment to erase his only unavenged loss. He said in pre-fight interviews that he would knock Rampage Jackson out in the first round. He was very confident and was in character as the “Ice Man”. Liddell getting knocked out in the first round was on neither fighter’s mind, in fact, in Rampage’s pre-fight interviews he said that “He is going to whoop Chuck’s ass” and win in the third round with a knock out.

The fight started like any other Liddell fight. The challenger moves forward as Chuck tries to lure them in. Rampage circled and Liddell slid around the octagon. About a minute in something strange happened though. Rampage takes a small step back and puts up his in arms, basically calling Liddell out. Instead of sticking to Liddell’s tried and true formula he reacted to Rampage and started to pursue, he took Rampage’s bait.

Not much longer after Rampage Jackson’s taunt Liddell threw a hard body shot that Rampage blocked. From Jackson’s defense posture he exploded with an enormous right hook that hit Chuck squarely on the chin. Chuck fell to the ground and Rampage pounced and punished a relatively helpless Liddell with strong hammer fists and elbows before John McCarthy, the ref, stepped in and called the fight.

Chuck Liddell initially thought the fight was called too quickly but didn’t pursue with argument after he saw the fight replayed on the big screen. Rampage Jackson is the new UFC light heavy weight champion and is now set to defend his title against the PRIDE middle and light heavy weight champion, Dan Henderson.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 26th, 2007 at 7:01 am and is filed under UFC 71. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.