Back in April, it was announced that Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei ‘Pitbull’ Arlovski was re-signed with the UFC. It was not too long after, it was announced he would be making his comeback against then-ranked fighter Brendan Schaub at UFC 174 in June.
His return to the promotion was highly anticipated, and although the pay-per-view numbers for the event were not high, he may have helped raise that number marginally.
On June 14th, it finally was time to see the Pitbull back inside the Octagon, on the main card of the PPV event. Fans’ enthusiasm of the fight lowered greatly when the fight got underway. Arlovski was way too tentative, barely striking at all. On the other hand, Schaub wasn’t doing much at all either and both fighters looked bad. Very bad. I can guarantee even die-hard Arlovski fans fell asleep during the fight.
Very little punches were thrown, all in all it was a terrible performance coming from both of them. Schaub did get in one takedown in the second round, which some people believed won him the fight. Although, it was hard seeing someone leave the arena a winner, because neither of them deserved it. With that said, only on a very rare occasion a winner isn’t crowned, therefore Arlovski was announced the winner. By the end of the fight though, most people were picking Schaub to win just because he landed that take down and did a little bit more, but it was close enough that it didn’t really matter and people just wanted to get onto the next fight.
Arlovski was even surprised with the controversial split decision result himself. He was very upset with his performance and even promised to do better next time.
“Honestly, I felt and I still feel really horrible,” he said at the post-fight press conference, “I’m glad Dana White isn’t here because he’s probably so pissed at me.
“Next time, I promise I’ll do much better.”
Although Arlovski won the title back in 2005, participated in 5 title fights and 14 fights overall, and is obviously an experienced fighter, he said the ‘UFC jitters’ got to him, just like a fighter making his or her debut in the promotion.
“For some reason, I was nervous a lot,” he said. “Before the fight when I stepped in the octagon, my legs and hands shook for some reason. I was just nervous. It was like the first time I fought 14 years ago.”
Fast forward a couple of months. You see Arlovski training hard and improving his fighting skills at Jackson’s MMA in Albuquerque where he can train with fellow heavyweights Travis Browne and Alistair Overeem, and his next fight was announced. He was set to fight top 5 heavyweight Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva in the main event of UFC Fight Night 51 in Brazil, enemy territory. Many people were confused why Dana White gave Arlovski a main event slot against a highly ranked fighter with great skills, as he looked very bad against Schaub, win or lose. Fact is, Arlovski is a marketable fighter and many people who have watched mixed-martial-arts for a long time really like him.
Not many people were really looking forward to seeing him fight again. Sure, he’s a likeable fighter so people are going to be somewhat looking forward to the bout, but after his last performance, mostly everyone was picking Bigfoot. On websites and social media it was pretty common to find people predicting Arlovski would look relatively bad and get knocked out. He was a pretty big underdog, as well. The time came, when Bruce Buffer roared into his microphone, “It’s time!” and the Brazilian crowd screamed for Silva.
The fighters touched gloves and it was underway. Instantly Arlovski looked better, he was faster and bounced around more. He landed a few shots, but so did Bigfoot. One thing that made some people doubt Silva a little bit was that this was his first fight off of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). Most of the fighters that used the substance before it was banned earlier this year looked very bad in their most recent fights. Dan Henderson was submitted by Daniel Cormier, and Vitor Belfort has looked a lot smaller in pictures of him training in preparation of his fight against middleweight champ Chris Weidman this December, since he stopped using TRT. Although, that was pretty small and everyone was still counting the Pitbull out even before the fight started.
It wasn’t long before Arlovski tagged Bigfoot. He dropped him, and followed up to his huge shot by smothering him with nasty ground and pound. Shortly after, the referee stepped in and called the fight off, and the crowd went silent. Arlovski looked unbelievably good and him knocking Bigfoot out was a huge surprise to everyone. Get this: Arlovski connected 17 significant strikes in his fight that lasted under 5 minutes on Sept. 13th, but only had 12 significant strikes in his fight against Schaub at UFC 174, which went the distance, 15 minutes. Obviously Arlovski got in a few hard punches in his ground and pound which counted, but you can’t say that’s crazy. He clearly improved while training in the past two months, and completely seems like a different fighter. In two months he went from a fighter than looked like he could be cut the next day, to someone who looked like a top 5 fighter that could be a threat to anybody. The former champion defined his position as a contender in the heavyweight division and definitely surprised the world.
