Regardless, this was a major show for the company and they put together a fairly impressive card for it. This paid off with the final ppv buyrate is rumored to have been somewhere around 1.7 million with a live gate of 5 million.
The show presented two of the biggest stars Welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre and Heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar defending their belts, along with the coaches for the ninth season of The Ultimate Fighter squaring off. Since the event happened some time ago, I am going to talk about the outcomes so spoilers are ahead.
Brock Lesnar took on former champ (and current Interim champ) Frank Mir. Mir previously defeated Brock in his UFC debut with a slick submission after taking a fair amount of abuse. Quite a bit of trash talking occurred leading up to this match. The result was an almost rabid Brock putting on a post-fight performance that seemed right out of his pro-wrestling days. Most of it is here, except for his dissing of show sponsor Bud-Light and his giving the fans the double bird.Lesnar still has a lot of learning to do, but you can see he has learned a hell of a lot since tapping out to Mir in Jan of 08. This time around, he scored a 2nd round TKO as he pinned Mir against the fence and bloodied him, leaving the ref no choice but to call a stop to it.
Quite the opposite of Lesnar is Georges St. Pierre, generally thought of as one of the nicest, classiest guys in the sport. GSP used this event to further cement not only his place as the best 170 lb fighter in the world, but arguably the best in MMA history. Many thought Alves had the best chance of dethroning St. Pierre, but he quickly found himself not only being taken down at will, but also being out struck, the area in which many felt he was superior to GSP. About the only time during this fight that GSP was anything less than completely dominate was during the fourth round when he injured a groin muscle. Despite this, GSP came back to control the fifth and final round and walk away with the unanimous decision.
Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping: These two were the coaches for season nine of The Ultimate Fighter, the UFC’s reality show on Spike. Dan was a former U.S. Olympian and double champion from Pride, while Bisping was the season three Light heavyweight winner.
South Korean fighter Yoshihiro Akiyama, already a star in Japan, made his debut against Alan Belcher. Belcher has played the spoiler before, defeating Denis Kang. A win for Belcher would certainly move him into contention for the MW title, while Akiyama was looking to move an impact right off the bat because, as they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
In my market, the UFC PPVs are not available in HD, so this was the first time I got to watch fighting in HD. It looks fantastic. The picture is sharp and the contrast is quite nice. There is no distortion, no pixilation to speak of.
The extras are pretty much what has become standard for the UFC Anchor Bay releases. The weigh-ins, and the behind the scenes featurette that takes us through the days leading up to the event to the end of the night. Personally, I find the backstage stuff fascinating, as each fighter seems to have his own way of dealing with the stress.
UFC 100 is an entertaining night of fights featuring some of the best in the world as well as some up and comers that may well be future champions. Anchor Bay has set a fairly impressive standard of quality for this, the debut Blu-ray. I look forward to the future releases.
Order UFC 100: MAKING HISTORY on Blu-ray.
Order UFC 100: MAKING HISTORY on DVD.
Jeremy Lynch
For more reviews from Jeremy, and the rest of the Crimespree crew, check out the index of reviews.
