How about this for an Ultimate Fighting Championship punch line. Forrest Griffin, light heavyweight champion.

The two coaches on The Ultimate Fighter 7 show, known for their joking dispositions along with their fighting ability, provided an early entry for Fight of the Year consideration. Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Griffin went toe-to-toe in the five-round affair that saw the action swing in both fighters’ favor during the slugfest in front of a sellout crowd of 11,172 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Griffin (16-4) won on two judges’ scorecards, 48-46, while a third judge had him winning, 49-46. VegasInsider.com scored the contest in favor of Jackson, 48-47, three rounds to two. Besides becoming the newest mixed martial arts champion, Griffin cashed tickets as a $2.00 underdog (bet $100 to win $200) over ‘Rampage.’

Griffin entered the octagon as the overwhelming crowd favorite, and even had former UFC light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Randy ‘The Natural’ Couture in his corner. Griffin, a former Georgia police officer, won the first three rounds on two judges’ scorecards, including a pair of 10-8 scores for the second round.

"I can't remember what Randy Couture said to me after the decision," stated Griffin in the postfight press conference. "Mike Pyle told me I won and I believed him."

The first, third and five rounds were all very close, but judges Adalaide Byrd, Nelson Hamilton and Roy Silbert gave a slight edge to the challenger. All three judges scored the third round in favor of Griffin, while Jackson won the fourth round on all the cards.

"I didn't want to leave it up to the judges, I'm bummed right now," said Jackson. "I want a rematch with everyone that has beat me.

"I've fought tall guys before, what messed me up is that he hurt my leg in the second round. I was surprised he won the fight, I dropped him a few times and power bombed him. My corner thought he won the second round and maybe the last, I feel like if you're the champ it should be decisive."

Styles make fights, except for the middleweight matchup between Patrick ‘The Predator’ Cote and Ricardo ‘Big Dog’ Almeida. This was setup as a classic striker versus grappler contest, but the biggest damage for this fight occurred to backers of Almeida who moved the line from an opening ‘even’ money selection to a $1.75 favorite. Cote won a lackluster split decision, notching his fourth consecutive victory with the UFC.

Cote (14-4) prevailed on two scorecards, 29-28, while Almeida (9-3) had the same score on the third judges’ card. VI also scored the contest in favor of Cote, 29-28.

There wasn’t very much action in a fight billed as the number-one contender spot by UFC President Dana White earlier in the week. Cote, a French Canadian, wanted to keep the fight standing, while Almeida repeatedly tried to shoot and get this contest to the ground. Cote prevailed by landing a couple solid shots while demonstrating quality takedown defense.

Joe ‘Daddy’ Stevenson (34-8) demonstrated his incredible jiu jitsu prowess with a second-round submission victory over Gleison Tibau (27-5), prevailing as a $2.20 favorite. Stevenson was losing the fight until locking in a guillotine choke and forcing Tibau to tapout at the 2:57 mark. It was also pretty ironic since Tibau was wearing a Jesus didn’t tap shirt leaving the octagon.

Tibau was controlling the action the first five minutes of the fight, with both combatants demonstrating solid submission attempts and defense. This was Stevenson’s first action since getting dominated by BJ Penn in a lightweight title bout earlier this year.

You know elbows are lethal from a ground and pound position when blood gets sprayed on the octagon-side camera lens. Josh Koscheck (14-2) won a bloody affair over Chris ‘Lights Out’ Lytle (35-15-4) with a unanimous decision while cashing tickets as a decided $3.40 favorite. Koscheck prevailed on the scorecards, 30-26, 29-27 and 30-28. VI also scored the contest, 29-27, in favor of Koscheck.

“It was a good fight, Chris Lytle is one of the classiest fighters in the UFC,” said Koscheck. “My gameplan was to stand, but my coaches had another gameplan and I executed it.”

After an uneventful first round, Koscheck took control with a dominant second stanza. Once the fighter from the first season of The Ultimate Fighter got top control, he continued to reign down elbows that opened a couple cuts on Lytle. Head cuts are notorious for bleeding profusely, and the fight was almost stopped at the end of the round. There were few fireworks in the third round until the end when both fighters were standing toe-to-toe trading punches.

**Octagon Extras**

-The lightweight matchup between Jorge Gurgel and Cole Miller was an entertaining back-and-forth affair, with Miller (14-3) eventually prevailing with a triangle choke at 4:46 of the third and final round. Both fighters connected standing up, with Gurgel (16-4) maintaining an advantage with quality leg kicks. It appeared that the fight was going to the scorecards until the late submission from the 6-foot-1 fighter, forcing a Brazilian black belt in jiu jitsu to tapout.

-Brazilian heavyweight Gabriel ‘Napao’ Gonzaga got back on the winning track by submitting Justin McCully with a Kimura at 1:57 of the first round. ‘Napao’ secured his first victory since his monumental upset of Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic that eventually earned him a title shot.

-Tyson Griffin (12-1) took a unanimous decision over Marcus Aurelio (14-6) in a lightweight contest. Griffin prevailed, 30-27, on all three cards, and has now won his last four matchups by decision inside the octagon. The 24-year-old came out to the 1980’s Rocky anthem by Survivor ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ and continues to move up the lightweight standings.

-Melvin ‘The Young Assassin’ Guillard (40-8-3) dominated Dennis Siver (11-6) in a lightweight bout, recording the technical knockout at 36 seconds of the opening stanza. The Louisiana native has now strung together back-to-back victories after suffering consecutive setbacks.

-UFC President Dana White stated in the postfight press conference that the Jackson/Griffin matchup was the Fight of the Night, while Cole Miller got Submission of the Night and Melvin Guillard earned Knockout of the Night.

Brad Young can be reached at byoung@vegasinsider.com.