In one of the featured bouts at Ring of Combat XVIII Gregor Gracie (Renzo's cousin) suffered his first career loss after being KO'ed with a picture perfect right high kick from Doug Gordon (7-4). In the opening seconds of the fight Gracie scored a takedown into full mount which he was able to do nothing with. This was a recurring theme throughout the fight as Gracie had full mount and side control several times never going for a finish aside from a rear naked choke attempt at the end of the first round. At one point in the second round Gracie had full mount and the fight was stood up as he wasn't going for any submissions or strikes. If you have bad stand-up (and Gregor's striking looked amateurish at best) and want to be a ground fighter you MUST do more than work positions. With the loss Gregor is now 2-1 (2 wins by submission).
Jim Miller (10-1) retained his RoC Lightweight Championship in the main event via a second round arm-in guillotine choke against tough challenger Chris Liguori (7-7). Liguori's record doesn't do him much justice as he suffered four losses in his first five fights (two to Pete Sell, one to Jorge Santiago and one to Keith Rockel) before winning seven of his next eight bouts. Last November the two met with Miller winning by TKO on a cut. The rematch was going Liguori's way as he dominated the standup and didn't allow Miller to spend much time on the ground. However, in the second Liguori got sloppy and was caught with an arm-in guillotine choke leaving him with no other choice to to tap out. Miller has only suffered one loss in his career and that was a tough decision loss to Frank Edgar in November of '06. I wouldn't be surprised if we were treated to a rematch of that fight sometime in the future in the UFC, but with the lightweight division as stacked as it is right now it might be hard for Miller to get the offer to fight in the world's biggest promotion. Regardless, another notch in Miller's belt as he retains his title over a tough challenger.
In the semi-main event Alex Andrade (7-4) was disqualified after multiple low blows left Krysztof Soszynski (14-8-1) with a "swolen left testicle" (his words, not mine). Andrade had a point taken away in the first after a few warnings for low blows, all of which were coming from knees to the thigh in the clinch. Rather than abandoning the strategy in the second round Andrade continued looking for the clinch and knees to the thigh leading to another low blow. At this point Andrade was warned that he would be disqualified for any further low blows. Poor strategy took over and Andrade went for the knees again landing multiple low blows and resulting in a no-brainer disqualification. Soszynski never had a chance to show his skills but anyone familiar with the IFL will recognize Krysztof as a guy who lost twice to Ben Rothwell and once to Mike Whitehead.
In other action Lyman Good defeated Alexis Aquino in a solid brawl. Good has been on my radar for a while and I'm sure we'll be seeing him signed to the UFC by the end of '08. Good is now 7-0 with damn solid boxing skills and decent kicks/knees. He's exciting to watch (although he slacked and lost the second round in this fight) and most importantly...is a middleweight, which the UFC needs desperately. The win over Aquino (6-2) was a nice win to add to his resume which also includes a win over Doug Gordon. His one knock is that for his striking proficiency he doesn't have a lot of KO power, but he throws from bell to bell which is exciting enough to land him in the UFC in the near future.
Update [2008-3-8 10:22:52 by Brent Brookhouse]: Also since it wasn't updated on the site after WVR's show here are the 2008 staff pick totals to now:
Luke Thomas - 39/63 - 62%
Kid Nate - 33/51 - 65%
Brent Brookhouse - 31/48 - 65%
Michael Rome - 30/45 - 67%
Nick Thomas - 31/45 - 69%
Site Total - 164/252 - 65%
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