The WEC Files: UFC Fight Night 24, Garcia vs. Zombie

There are two WEC alums on the main card of UFC Fight Night 24, and they're fighting each other.  Again.  Leonard Garcia and Chan Sung Jung engaged in one of the most memorable and exciting fights in WEC history on April 24th, 2010.  Their fight was shown on Spike TV, used as a lead-in to the WEC's first pay per view, WEC 48.  And did it ever lead in.  The show had one million viewers, one of the highest ratings ever for a WEC show, and likely lead to many people deciding to purchase the PPV to see what the little guys were all about.  But as good as the PPV was, no one lived up to Jung/Garcia.  It was voted fight of the year for a reason.

Garcia had been a longtime featherweight favorite in the WEC, going 3-2-1 in the promotion up to that point after a 1-2 run in the UFC at 155 pounds.  Jung, the "Korean Zombie", was making his debut in the WEC after a solid run in Japan where he fought in hugely entertaining wars with Masanori Kanehara and Shintaro Ishiwatari.  If you don't follow Japanese MMA and haven't seen these fights, I encourage you to watch both.  Here's the Ishiwatari fight, and here's the Kanehara fight.   I've personally been a fan of Jung since he was in DEEP, beating the likes of Michihiro Omigawa, a man he would like to fight again.  Jung also had a 15-6 kickboxing record, including a spectacular spinning backfist KO of Pajonsuk at It's Showtime Prague 2010, two months before his American debut.  Unfortunately the blow was illegal under It's Showtime rules and he lost by DQ. 

The idea of KZ coming over here to fight Leonard Garcia seemed like guaranteed violence, and had a lot of JMMA fans drooling at the thought of it.  And they didn't disappoint.  The two men battered each other for 15 minutes, throwing over 400 strikes and landing 177 total.    Both showed unbelievable heart and resilience.  It wasn't the most technical fight by any means, but most didn't care - it was non-stop excitement.  Garcia won a very debatable split decision in a fight where he broke his hand and Jung broke his forearm.  People were clamoring for a rematch since the decision was announced, and due to an injury to Nam Phan, Zuffa's giving us what we want.  The only difference will be the size of the cage and the color of the gloves.  Can this fight live up to the first?

Who's going to win? - Korean Zombie.  Sure, he's coming off a brutal KO loss to George Roop, where he smoked his face on his own knee while collapsing.  Sure, he's stated that he's not going to fight Zombie-style anymore.  And yes, he's coming in on short notice.  But he's clearly the better fighter, with better technical standup (when he chooses to use it), better kicks, better wrestling, a more offensive guard, and he has a cooler nickname.  He's also even gone back on the new style thing a bit, saying he'll just refine the Zombie Style.

I don't expect a carbon copy of the first fight, but I do expect Jung to abandon that whole "smart fight" credo pretty early.  If you watch the fights with Kanehara and Ishawatari, or even his fight with Omigawa, you'll see that it's easy to draw KZ into a firefight, even if it's to his own detriment.  As we all saw in the first fight, Garcia's good at one thing - getting guys to fight his fight.  He takes a lot of heat for getting decision wins when it's pretty clear he lost.  But his ability to get guys off their game is commendable.  Even excellent technical strikers like Mark Hominick have been drawn into unnecessary wild exchanges, just based on how Garcia comes at them. 

In the end though, Jung's superior skills standing will guide him to the decision win he was robbed of in the first fight, and a place on UFC cards for months and years to come.  And I will be proudly repping my Korean Zombie shirt at the pub tonight, telling everyone that will listen about this crazy fight I just watched.  If this fight is half as good as the first, tonight's going to be a fun night.