Falls Count Anywhere

03-11-08

The Undependent Film Channel

OK, so I didn’t do hardly anything wrestling-related this week. It’s Cinequest so I’ve been watching movies and getting ready for my trip to England. These things happen. I did manage to watch UFC 82, which was good stuff. Oddly, the films I watched this weekend really match up with the various matches.

The PPV opened with John Fitch taking on Chris Wilson. This one reminded me of the film The Aerial that I saw on Saturday night. It was a good fight, though it had some slow moments. There was something for everyone in the fight and the film. The Aerial, an experimental-ish Argentine film, had great visuals, and while the story took something of a backseat, the film carried itself well. The fight had some good back and forth, and while there wasn’t a lot of action all the time, there was enough thinking man’s fighting going on to reward those who stuck with it. I liked this fight far more than the crowd did, which was booing by the final round. Fight won a decision, but neither guy looked great.

We got Evan Tanner and Yushin Okami up second. Here’s the thing: Okami isn’t the kind of fighter you like to see. He’s a waiter. He waits out and does just enough to win close rounds and get decisions. His fights aren’t exciting, but his record is very good. Tanner is a sometimes great fighter. He either blows me away or he fails to live up to expectations. This was the film I saw on Sunday called The Eternal City. I didn’t really have much hope for it. I was totally wrong. This fight started slow, just like The Eternal City, and by the time we got to the middle, the performers really started performing. It was Tanner in the second round and the actor who played Johnny in The Eternal City who pushed things forward in the second act.

Tanner, who took something of a backseat to Okami in the first somewhat boring round, came back right off and made it work, but Okami got himself back in and ended up giving us a great flurry to win the thing. Guilia Steigerwalt does the same thing, taking a measured victory in the early portion of the film, but then winning the entire thing with a lovely performance at the end. Okami’s win probably puts Evan Tanner on the chopping block. He really didn’t look good…unlike Guilia Steigerwalt who looked AMAZING!

Hey, Batista was at the show! These WWE types love their UFC.

If you want a fight that’ll be fast and tough and strong, you can’t go wrong with Chris Leben. Even though I hate him as a fighter, I have to say that he can be explosivo. Speaking of Explosivo, the Tenacious D documentary D-Tour features that song being played. The fighter was a fast and big slugfest, much like the film. Leben and Alessio Sakara traded bombs, just wailing on each other with big shots. Leben went for a takedown, but Sakara hit him with an uppercut. That was sweet! The film came fast and was fun and high-energy. There was a meltdown from Kyle Gass that was just nuts. The finish of the fight was Leben getting hit and hitting right back for the KO. The finish of the Tenacious D film was the guys getting rocked by the failure of Pick of Destiny and then doing a huge concert tour. Good fight.

Heath Herring vs. Cheick Kongo was a fight that was incredibly similar to the film Disfigured. Both were strong performances that added up to a good fight, but going in you wouldn’t imagine that they’d be good fights. I thought Kongo did well enough in the first round to get the win if it had stayed in that path, but things swung so much that Herring was the winner of the fight, especially after all the knees he threw. Disfigured had two actresses who were great together, playing give and take like in The Eternal City, but the force of the ending gave it to one over the other. The film and the fight did go a little long for what they were.

The main event has no equal. Silva vs. Henderson was an amazing fight, one of the best I’ve seen in ages. They traded back and forth with Henderson even withstanding a powerful kick to the face from Silva. Henderson managed to take Silva down and get side control, but couldn’t put the lid on the fight. The second round was more trading and it looked like Henderson was about to lose a few times, but then it looked like he was going on hold on. Silva got a choke on with a little bit of time left, and I really thought Silva was going to hold out until the bell, but he had to tap with 8 seconds left. It was one of those endings that just made you hope he’d tough it out, but in the end, he couldn’t.

Good show. Good films, too.

Chris Garcia