Ennis' Take
ENNIS: A History of UFC Rematches, and What to Expect From UFC 150's Henderson-Edgar II
Aug 9, 2012 - 4:00:00 PM ENNIS: A History of UFC Rematches, and What to Expect From UFC 150's Henderson-Edgar II

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By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist

We've got another rematch coming up this Saturday night at UFC 150, as Frankie Edgar looks to regain the UFC Lightweight Title against Ben Henderson, who beat Edgar by unanimous decision at UFC 144 in February. Much has been made in the past of the UFC's love affair with rematches, and rightfully so, but rematches aren't always without warrant. Today we're going to take a look at why we have rematches, and what kind of outcome we can expect this Saturday night based on history. First, a look at why we have rematches.


1.) The Fluke Outcome

This can either be a no contest or a fluke injury. You usually can't tell by the outcome what will happen in the next fight, but sometimes you've got the "Fighter A was totally winning that fight until [something] happened." There's certainly precedent for this, even in title fights. Like in 2004, when Randy Couture lost the Light Heavyweight Title to Vitor Belfort on a fluke eye injury that happened less than a minute into the fight. Couture would rectify that result seven months later when he dominated Belfort en route to a doctor stoppage after the third round. Then there was Anthony Johnson, back when he could still occasionally make 170 pounds, who took a shot to the eye from Kevin Burns in the third round of a fight that he likely would have won, and referee/whipping boy Steve Mazzagatti called the result a TKO. Johnson knocked Burns out a few months later in the rematch. And of course there's just this past week, where Phil Davis unintentionally poked the eye of Wagner Prado less than two minutes into the fight. They'll rematch in October.


2.) The Money Fight

You know those rematches that don't need to happen but they'll draw fans? That's these ones. First on the list, of course, you've got to talk about Tito Ortiz. You knew going into most of his rematches what the outcome was going to be, but you also knew (for the most part) that people were going to watch. Did anyone really need to see Ortiz-Liddell 3? No. And luckily it didn't happen due to an injury, but the only reason it would have happened in the first place was because people who don't always tune in would have watched. But that wasn't the first Ortiz rematch.

Let's hop into the wayback machine for a minute and go all the way back to UFC 13. That was Ortiz's first night as a pro, though it was his second fight of that night. Ortiz had blown through a bare-fisted Wes Albritton in an alternate bout (yeah, this was the old days – Randy Couture debuted on the same night, and they routinely called Vitor Belfort "Victor") and he was brought into the Lightweight (non-heavyweight) tournament final against a one-gloved Guy Mezger when Enson Inoue was unable to advance due to injury. Early in the fight Ortiz landed some knees to the head of Mezger and it looked like there was a tapout, but John McCarthy determined that Mezger was attempting to block the knees. McCarthy did halt the action, however, to have the doctor check on the resultant cuts on Mezger's head. Ortiz and his camp thought the fight was over and celebrated. The doctor, though, decided that Mezger could continue. The action was restarted on the feet (the position from which the fight was stopped had Ortiz with Mezger in an inside cradle-type position – again, old days,) and Ortiz was caught in a guillotine in short order from that point.

Thus began Ortiz's rivalry with the Lion's Den camp, and this was also Ortiz's first rematch. Ortiz removed any doubt at UFC 19 with a TKO win. This wasn't as big a money fight as Ortiz's fights with Liddell or Shamrock, but if the UFC had a budding star at that point, it was Tito Ortiz. He would go on to fight and rematch Liddell, Shamrock, Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans.


3.) The "What about NOW?" Rematch

These happen every once in a while and they're almost incidental. The fight happens, time passes, and the two fighters just happen to cross paths again. So Fighter A won the fight last time, but what about NOW? These usually only tend to happen when the first fight wasn't a blowout, but the blowout rematch certainly isn't unprecedented. Rich Franklin-Wanderlei Silva is an example of this one. The first fight was good, and it was close, but it didn't necessarily scream for a rematch. But of course it has been the summer of injuries, and when Vitor Belfort pulled out of the fight with Silva that was scheduled for UFC 147, in came Franklin, who bested Silva three years ago.

And speaking of Silva-Belfort, that was a "what about now" rematch as well. Belfort blew through Silva in 44 seconds in one of the UFC's early highlight reel finishes in October 1998. But what about NOW? (There's probably not much doubt about now, but "what about eight years ago" would have been intriguing). This also fits the Chuck Liddell-Rampage Jackson rematch. Rampage knocked out Liddell in Pride's 2003 middleweight (205 lbs) tournament, but what would happen in 2007, when Rampage came to the UFC? (As it turns out, the same thing). Other examples of this type of rematch are Griffin-Shogun, Brian Bowles-Damacio Page (which I only mention because both fights ended with Bowles winning by guillotine choke at 3:30 of the first round), Ortiz-Evans, Hughes-Penn, Hughes-GSP, and Couture-Liddell I-II (the Couture-Liddell trilogy fits into category 2, 3 and 4 really).


4.) Erase-All-Doubt Title Rematch

Now we get to Saturday night. There have been a lot of these rematches. It's a title fight, it usually ends by decision, and the decision is close. There are those that don't end by decision, though. These happen when there is a sudden finish of a tenured champion, or if there's a finish that makes you say "that's got to be the 1% of the time that Fighter B wins this fight, right?" The best example of the latter is GSP-Matt Serra. In their first fight at UFC 69, TUF 4 winner Serra caught GSP early and won by TKO, slackening the jaws of fans worldwide. A year later GSP erased all doubt that this was a one-time occurrence, obliterating Serra with knees to the body that make me wince just to think about them.

Rich Franklin-Anderson Silva is another series that saw a champion finished but resulted in a rematch. In October of 2006, Anderson Silva knocked Franklin out with a knee in the first round of their title fight. Silva and Franklin would both go 2-0 over the next year, and they rematched in October of 2007. It was the kind of rematch where you thought, "Surely that's not going to happen again, right?" Franklin wasn't the favorite going in, but there were people picking him (Remember, this was five years ago, before Silva had been almost universally accepted as the GOAT). Of course, the fight lasted a little longer this time, but it still ended with Franklin sniffing around corners. You've also got Urijah Faber-Mike Brown in this category. Faber was knocked out after attempting an ill-advised spinning elbow (sound familiar?) and had his rematch after one fight against Jens Pulver. Brown ended up winning that one by decision. Matt Hughes was all about erasing all doubt. He did it in rematches with Carlos Newton and Frank Trigg, and had it done to himself against GSP.


5.) The Decision-Necessitating Rematch

Now let's look at title fights that get an immediate rematch after decisions. Frankie Edgar, of course, is the king of these. He won the title in April of 2010 against BJ Penn in a contested decision, then erased all doubt when he won an emphatic decision six months later. He fought to a draw in a spectacular fight against Gray Maynard last year, then knocked Maynard out seven months later in the rematch. Also in this category you've got Machida-Shogun. Lyoto Machida won a questionable decision in October of 2009 against Shogun Rua. There may have been some outside of the judges who saw that fight for Machida, but I don't know any of them (until they leave their contrarian comments here). Either way, the immediate rematch was granted, and Shogun erased all doubt categorically seven months later with a first round TKO.

Most recently, there was Anderson Silva-Chael Sonnen. If you don't know what happened there, you must be really new to the site, but the only reason we didn't have an immediate rematch in that case was Sonnen's suspension and legal troubles that followed the first fight. Silva, for his part, did what he had to do in the second round of the second fight and, say it with me, erased all doubt. Other examples include Tim Sylvia-Andrei Arlovski (though the decision came after the TKO in that one), and Randy Couture-Pedro Rizzo.


What does this tell us about the Henderson-Edgar 2? While it doesn't guarantee any particular outcome, history certainly is not on Edgar's side. Outside of Machida-Shogun (in which Shogun really should have won the decision), no challenger has ever defeated the champion in an immediate rematch. And, in fact, typically the outcome of the rematch is more definitive than the first, leaving no doubt as to who deserves the title. Speaking of which, there was one rematch I left out of this category. Remember the WEC? Ben Henderson beat Donald Cerrone by decision at WEC 43 for the interim Lightweight Title. They rematched at WEC 48. Henderson won by guillotine choke in under two minutes.

So yes, Frankie Edgar is certainly the king of the rematch as far as UFC history is concerned up to this point. And before I wrote this, I was picking Edgar to regain the Lightweight Championship this Saturday night. But now? Now I'm going with history. Henderson wins by stoppage in the fourth round of a great fight. Or he wins quickly. But either way, Henderson retains.

Questions? Comments? Let me know via email (ennistorch(at)gmail(dot)com) or twitter (@shawnennis,) or just leave a note in the comments.