UFC 87: Seek and Destroy - 10 Years On
On the 9th August 2008, the UFC hosted UFC 87; a card co-headlined by George St-Pierre's Welterweight title defence against challenger Jon Fitch and Brock Lesnar's second bout for the company versus the "Texas Crazy Horse" Heath Herring, a late substitute for former UFC Heavyweight Champion, Mark Coleman.
The preliminary portion of the card hosted the debut match of future Light Heavyweight Champion, Jon Jones. Jones looked impressive on his first outing winning by unanimous decision, in his seventh professional bout. Jones moved to 7-0 with the victory.
The main card began with a Middleweight matchup between Damian Maia and Jason MacDonald in a match which hosted entertaining wrestling and grappling exchanges. Maia largely controlled in the mount before earning the win with a rear naked choke for the submission in the third round. The tap out earned Maia "submission of the night" honours.
In a matchup that conversely did not live up to the hype, Kenny Florian met Roger Huerta in a match where the story was Florian's excellent defensive skills subduing the effects of Huerta's brawling. A war of attrition in which Huerta was unable to land any real blows on his opponent led to a rather inevitable win for Florian by unanimous decision.
Next up was the shortest match on the card by some considerable distance; a mere 12 seconds. The battle of The Ultimate Fighter alumnus ended with Rob Emerson knocking out Gamburyan with a huge left hook. Gamburyan didn't see it coming and was seeing only stars for a while after this. The knockout was brutal.
Brock Lesnar stepped into the Octagon for the second time, needing a victory to justify his huge UFC salary. His opponent, Heath Herring on paper was an easier proposition than Lesnar's previous opponent, Frank Mir, given Herring's limited ability off his back, and Lesnar's extensive wrestling background. However, Herring was vastly more experienced than Lesnar and had fought the best in the sport.
In a departure from Lesnar's bout with Mir, he was soundly cheered in this encounter emanating as it did from Lesnar's hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. As it turned out, the bigger, stronger Lesnar was more than a match for Herring. Lesnar rocked Herring with a huge right hand which almost turned the Texan inside out. From there, Lesnar controlled the match with ground and pound and earned a unanimous points victory.
In the headliner, George St-Pierre put his Welterweight Championship on the line versus Jon Fitch. Prior to this encounter, Fitch had lost just twice in his entire career and was unbeaten in six years. He was a formidable opponent for the defending champion. However, the champion was GSP. In a match, in which he truly came of age, GSP dominated Fitch standing up, on the ground and repeatedly took him down. It was a testament to Fitch's heart that he went the full five round distance. However, there was only one winner. GSP defended his title by unanimous decision.
UFC 87 was in the books; an entertaining show, then the sixth highest grossing pay-per-view buyrate in UFC history at around 625,000 buys. Interesting to note that a full decade later, St-Pierre is still competing in the UFC and Lesnar will soon be joining him. Their future is equally as exciting as their past.
