actually i'm thinking of ufc 3 that jennum won as an alternate, sorry
Hear ya, & that is valid, but Jennum was kind of the 1st MMA fighter, and watching his 2 fights in 3 & 4 really showed it. Bowen was also a much better boxer, not yet over the hill at that time, than ones whose UFC appearances have been much more remembered re "boxing vs mma" match-ups, and Jennum took him out in very classic form with basic wrestling & intermediate JJ way back then (when both were fresh in UFC 4).
His JJ was probably only blue belt (if that, but probably that) by today's standards, and his striking was intermediate level by modern standards, but his bouts showed how emerging combinations of skills could & did do against someone like Bowen who was an excellent athlete. Bowen was a journeyman boxer, but he was for real, and he came to fight that night. His skill set just wasn't what the occasion needed.
Such a cool match-up for that period, when people's perspective on how that type of match-up would likely play out wasn't quite known like today. So much more uncertainty for the fighters, for that reason, and so much pressure.
It's really too bad Jennum was an alternate in 3, because he probably would have been Royce's toughest match-up, there. It would have been black belt vs blue belt, but Jennum was much more sophisticated as a striker and might have had the intelligence to disengage on the ground, having at least some familiarity with what he would have felt, being on the ground with Royce.
