MMAsterpiece Theater: Paul Kelly vs. Paul Taylor

From time to time we need to go back and relive some of the classic battles. If for no other reason than they were extremely badass and fun to watch. In the future, there will be actual video to accompany this feature.

Event: UFC 80: Rapid Fire

Location: Newcastle, England

Date: January 19, 2008

Hyperbole aside, UFC 80 might be the greatest UFC event ever aired. That’s what I thought the morning after in The Roundup at TBL (Bonus picture of Gemma Atkinson in that link) and that’s what I still think today. Only one fight from the entire night didn’t make the PPV show. Only 2 fights out of 9 went to the judges.

One of the fights that did go to the judges was this Fight of the Night winning battle between Paul Kelly and Paul Taylor. This fight between the Brits in front of their countrymen had one of the most intense starts to a fight you’ll ever – especially given the stage. Since this fight, both Kelly and Taylor have been been booked for just about every European UFC event.

This fight came to mind when I was working on the under card previews (Spoiler Alert!) and saw these two (and Marcus Davis) were scheduled to appear. I then spent 20 minutes watching the fight (squint and it’s like HD!) and another hour and a half looking for an embeddable version of the video.

Unfortunately, the only video of the fight I can find is on MMA-Core – which is a great site – but I can’t figure out how to get the embed code from the video. I’m guess they want it that way. That way you’re spending 20 minutes on their site watching the video they were able to cull from a weird Russian version of YouTube. Taking my precious page views away while adding to their own. How selfish. Anyway, do yourself a favor and go watch this awesome fight.