Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
UK Certification E | UK RRP £17.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 340 minutes
On June 12, 2010, nearly 18,000 frenetic fight fans packed General Motors Place in the fastest sellout in Ultimate Fighting Championship history for the Octagon's return to Canada, and the UFC's debut in Vancouver, British Columbia. The 115th blockbuster event would prove to be a diamond in the recent rough of substandard shows put on by the company, and turned out to be an energetic and entertaining evening full of great fights and even greater finishes, where we saw bouts ended by the score cards of the dreaded judges, as well as decisively by submission and knockout, one of which drove the nail in the coffin of the career of a certain MMA legend.
Rory MacDonald, the youngest fighter in the UFC at the time at just 20 years old, proved himself as a force to be reckoned with when he made his Octagon debut by making Mike Guymon tap out in the first round. Several months later at UFC 115, British Columbia's own MacDonald would step inside the caged walls once again to combat the USA's Carlos Condit, and what a way to kick off the event. With his 10-win undefeated streak on the line, the Canadian would unfortunately come up short to a TKO defeat in the third round in what was a truly valiant effort. If the referee hadn't had stopped the fight in the last few seconds, the judges would have awarded it to MacDonald. He's a tenacious fighter and electric on his feet. He scored three beautiful takedowns in the first round alone and put up some excellent defense against the American in the opening ten minutes, only for his strategy to fade away in the third after being tagged just above his right eye, which instantly began to swell in a big way. This fight set the bar for the rest of the show and put the last few main card openers to shame.
Heavyweight Bout: Ben Rothwell vs. Gilbert Yvel ???
The UFC continues to present cards that look one way on paper, but turn out to be the complete opposite when they play out. Over the last few months we've seen fights brimming with potential that haven't lived up to the natural hype, and then we have match-ups like Rothwell and Yvel, which looked pretty unappetising. I was expecting a slow-paced, uneventful and quite frankly boring fight, but it was in fact highly entertaining with the first two rounds bursting with excitement. As soon as the referee let them go at it, Rothwell mounted a vicious assault and soon took the Dutchman down to the mat after an aggressive exchange, working him over. With the fight going the distance, the first two rounds saw Rothwell using all his weight to overpower his opponent and keep him down, rapidly draining the energy of both men. Rothwell's control over the first ten minutes shifted as the fight went to the final round and Yvel made a pretty monstrous comeback, planting the American down to the bloodstained floor of the Octagon and knocking him for a loop with repeated haymakers. Yvel's sudden onslaught very nearly had the referee ending the heavyweight battle, but it was an instance of close but no cigar. In the end it came down to Rothwell's victory of the first two rounds, as opposed to the Dutchman's undoubted superiority in the final, that influenced the judges' decision to award the fight to the American, making his UFC debut a success. Yvel's debut in MMA's grandest proving ground howeve
Welterweight Bout: Paulo Thiago vs. Martin Kampmann ??
The best performance of Kampmann's entire career. What an effort. Even with a unanimous decision loss, Paul Thiago remains one of the most dangerous combatants in the UFC, yet he was really taken to school by Martin “The Hitman” Kampmann. No one could have anticipated such domination, but the entire fight was the Dane's. 15 minutes of sound strategy, technical and striking excellence put the Brazilian away in one of the most obvious decisions I've ever seen.
Heavyweight Bout: Mirko Filipovic vs. Pat Barry ???
The dream came true for Pat “HD” Barry at UFC 115. Although incurring a defeat at the hands of Cro Cop, it was Barry's career ambition to meet the MMA legend, his idol, in the cage one-on-one. It was essentially a battle of respect between student and teacher, though with Barry being a pure student of the game, and Mirko a tutor through influence in his years in the sport and the countless fights HD has watched him in. Very nearly going the full three rounds, Cro Cop managed to pull the rug from under Pat's feet and clobber him with a ferocious series of wrecking balls to the face, followed by a hard elbow and perfectly synched-in choke for the submission with only just under a minute left on the clock. But the entire fight was far from in the legend's favour. Noticeably slower than he once was, he stuttered through rounds one and two, acting almost like a punchbag for Barry. An excellent performance by both men which resulted in the capture of a battered, bruised and swollen Mirko's second victory in a row inside the Octagon, though Barry himself soldiered on with a broken hand and foot. Cro Cop faces Frank Mir in the titular main event of UFC 119 and the veteran's proven that he's not ready to throw in the towel just yet.
Light Heavyweight Bout: Chuck Liddell vs. Rich Franklin ??
And so Ace Franklin will now be known as the man who ended the Iceman's UFC career. Just a few short hours after UFC 115, Dana White announced that Liddell's defeat against Franklin would be the last time that he would ever be seen competing inside the Octagon. He'd lost five of his six previous fights and he was growing accustomed to being knocked out and made a bloody mess, so it makes perfect sense for him to hang it up. He's a global superstar of the sport, and at 40 years old, well past his prime - a prime in which he obtained 16 victories in the UFC alone, coming only second to Matt Hughes' record of 18. In this pay-per-view's main event, however, having not competed in over a year leading up to the fight in order to maintain his sobriety and focus on sorting himself out, Liddell fought not as a caged gladiator plagued by ring rust, but as a shadow of his former self. Too many mistakes were made, and a stumble off a punch in the closing seconds of the first round enabled Franklin, though suffering a broken arm thanks to a powerful body kick, nailed a right for the only knockout victory of the main card.
EXTRAS ???? The usual bonus features for a UFC event release make up the second half of the double-DVD set - the Countdown to UFC 115 show; the weigh-ins; fighter interviews; a behind the scenes feature; and yet again the preliminary card is included on the second disc, which is a six-fight card consisting of:
Welterweight bout: Mike Pyle vs. Jesse Lennox
Welterweight bout: Ricardo Funch vs. Claude Patrick
Welterweight bout: James Wilks vs. Peter Sobotta
Middleweight bout: David Loiseau vs. Mario Miranda
Lightweight bout: Mac Danzig vs. Matt Wiman
Lightweight bout: Tyson Griffin vs. Evan Dunham