Chris "The Crippler" Leben - The Evolution: From Thug to Legend

First off let me just state that I am a HUGE "Crippler" fan, I have seen all of his fights more than once, including post UFC + TUF, and I have always liked his style and standard of fighting.


When Leben first started fighting as an amateur he went an impressive 5-0 and captured two amateur middleweight belts, and it was no surprise, he was training along side the likes of, Randy Couture, Matt Lindland, Nate Quarry and other impressive fighters.


After his success in the amateur ranks, Leben turned professional. He won his first five fights, three victories of which came via knockout, whilst doing so he earned the Gladiator Challenge, Sportfight, and WEC middleweight titles. Leben achieved wins against Benji Radach, Mike Swick, Jorge Rivera, Edwin Dewees and Patrick Cote, an otherwise perfect record blemished only by a decision loss to Joe Derkson.


Along came The Ultimate Fighter. I never saw much of Leben outside of the cage so I was nothing but surprised when I saw him taking a leak on Jason Thacker's bed in the first series of the show. There's something very demoralising for a man to not only get some punk kid using their bed as a urinal but to then get to fight that punk kid, and have the referee pull him off you after only 95 seconds of getting smacked upside the head by him is pretty depressing.

Throughout the show Leben went through a lot of emotions and as TUF progressed we watched him grow as not only a fighter, but as a person too. I gained a lot of new found respect for Leben. Whenever there was confrontation in the house you could guarantee who was gonna be in the mix of it all, and most memorably was when Bobby Southworth called him a "fatherless bastard", with this being a very emotional subject for Leben he ultimately flipped out and punched his way through a window. With Josh Koscheck continually being the one to grind The Crippler's gears, Dana White set up the fight. This was bad for Leben, Koscheck was and is a fantastic ground player and his wrestling is spot on, something that Leben could not compete with, forcing the fight to go do decision we saw Leben take a hard loss to Koscheck, forcing him out of the competition.

Showing respect to the fans

With Leben seemingly out of the show I was pretty devastated, I wanted to see more of this guy fighting his heart out inside the octagon. So when Nate Quarry was sidelined due to an ankle injury, he had to choose someone to replace him and he selected Leben. Sadly he was later defeated by Kenny Florian due to doctor stoppage in the first semi-final match after Florian opened a cut above Leben's eye with an elbow strike. His losses on the taped show are not on his professional record, as the fights were classified by Nevada as exhibition bouts.


Looking back to the first series of TUF we can see how much this guy has evolved, he is now (looking beyond his hazy past) a great ambassador and role model for the sport and in the UFC. He is always respectful to the company, the fighters and the fans which is something that can only be admired, and with hands as quick and hard as his to boot, I always know he's gonna put on a good show for as far as his MMA career takes him.


He's had more fights than any other middleweight in the UFC, and holds a pretty impressive record of 22-7 with more fights than any other fighter in the devision at 18 in total, and possibly one of the greatest moments in his UFC stint is when he pulled over an impressive TKO victory over Aaron Simpson at The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale, scoring a "knockout of the night" bonus too, but not only did he destroy Simpson he took another fight a mere two weeks later against an amazing prospect in Yoshihiro Akiyama in which he ended the bout in style in the last 20 seconds of the final round where he pulled out an impressive triangle choke, again nailing another bonus, this time under "fight of the night". Suffering losses to only the best fighters in the division including, Bisping, Anderson Silva and more recently and UFC 125 Brian Stann so it'l be interesting to see which path the fight goes down.

Squaring off against Yoshihiro Akiyama, UFC 116

He has many other great accomplishments in the sport, he was the first ever WEC Middleweight Champion, has scored the "Fight of the Night" bonus 2 times, the "Knockout of the Night" bonus 3 times and has knocked out more people than any other person in the middleweight division (inside the UFC).


I can't wait to see how his fight with Mark Munoz goes down at UFC 138. My prediction is that If Munoz is smart he will use his wrestling and control Leben on the ground. Sadly, unless Leben can stay on his feet I see Munoz taking the decision.