Evan Tanner survived an early outburst from Phil Baroni that saw him staggered and cut around the left eye. Baroni was punishing Tanner and nearly had him out on a couple of occasions. Tanner, with some help from a doctor stoppage (it was questionable because of the fact that Baroni had Tanner out on his feet at the time of the stoppage) to check his cut, recovered and took Baroni to the mat once the fight resumed. From there he got the mount position and proceeded to drop a number of elbows to the face of Baroni prompting referee Larry Landless to stop the fight.

Baroni was not thrilled with Landless to say the least and grabbed him by his shirt and tried to punch him. The extra-curicular activities didn't stop there as Baroni took a couple more shots at Landless and had to be separated from him. When all the drama in the ring was over, Evan Tanner was announced the winner by referee stoppage at 4:42 of the first round.