Remember watching this fight in a packed bar. Can't believe it was a decade ago already. Sheesh!
UFC 79 took place on December 29, 2007, and it produced one of the greatest fights in UFC history.
In the co-main event that night, Chuck Liddell defeated Wanderlei Silva by unanimous decision in a vicious three-round slugfest. Not surprisingly, the bout earned “Fight of the Year” honors. To say it was incredible to watch on pay-per-view (see the highlights above), would be an understatement.
Can you imagine what it must have been like to sit cageside? Longtime MMA and boxing cutman Stitch Duran recently shared with MMAjunkie Radio exactly that.
“The fight with Chuck Lidell and Wanderlei Silva, I’ll never forget that,” Duran said. “I’m right at ringside, I’m sitting with Chuck’s corner, I’m working the fights, and I can just hear these punches from both these guys. They’re just cracking each other, man. That was one of those fights when I was just thinking, ‘Wow, these guys are really going at it.'”
Stream or download MMAjunkie Radio #2406 with Stitch Duran and Stephanie Ann Cook
As if having a cageside seat for one of the greatest UFC fights ever wasn’t awesome enough, there was a cherry on top. You see, UFC 79 fell on Duran’s birthday. Earlier that week, Duran said he had shared that info with Silva.
After the fight, Duran tended to Liddell, who Druan recalls had just one cut that required attention. When Duran finished with Liddell, he walked across the cage to Silva, whose face was bloodied and swollen, and started working on him.
“I asked Wanderlei, ‘How do you feel?’ And he says, ‘No, I’m OK,'” Duran said. “And then he says, ‘Happy birthday, Stitch.’ … One of the toughest fights I’ve ever seen, and he had the time enough to wish me a happy birthday. So I thought that was pretty awesome.”
Very awesome, indeed.
http://mmajunkie.com/2017/03/stitch...ilva-after-epic-ufc-79-fight-vs-chuck-liddell