Seth Petruzelli

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1 Profile
2 Early MMA Career
3 K-1 Kickboxing Career
4 The Ultimate Fighter
5 UFC Career
6 EliteXC
7 Post-Slice Controversy
8 Mixed Martial Arts Record
9 Gallery
10 External links

Profile

Seth "The Silverback" Petruzelli (born December 3rd, 1979) is an American professional mixed martial artist.

He stands 6 ft (183cm) and fights in both the light heavyweight (205 lbs.) and heavyweight division (205+ lbs.).

He is a veteran from The Ultimate Fighter Season 2 and currently fights for EliteXC.

Early MMA Career

Seth Petruzelli made his professional mixed martial arts debut on August 26th, 2000. He faced and defeated Nate Robinson via KO in the first round as a part of the World Vale Tudo Federation.

Petruzelli suffered submission losses in his next two fights against Mario Neto and Gan McGee respectively with both fights taking place in June of 2001.

Petruzelli went undefeated in his next 6 fights, culminating with a victory UFC Hall of Fame member, Dan Severn in January of 2004.

K-1 Kickboxing Career

Two months after the bout with Severn, Petruzelli began a short lived career in K-1.

Petruzelli suffered two (T)KO defeats in his two K-1 bouts. He suffered a 47 second knockout loss to Bob Sapp in his debut and a second round TKO defeat to Alexander Pitchkounov two months later.

The Ultimate Fighter

Petruzelli would return to mixed martial arts competition in 2005 when he was offered a heavyweight position on The Ultimate Fighter Season 2 after sending in an audition tape.

Petruzelli made it to the semi-finals after defeating Dan Christison in the preliminary rounds via unanimous decision. He was defeated in the semi-finals by Brad Imes via split decision. Petruzelli suffered a nasty ear injury in the bout.

UFC Career

After taking a year off from fighting, Petruzelli returned at UFC - The Final Chapter on October 10th, 2006.

He suffered a unanimous decision defeat at the hands of TUF 3 veteran, Matt Hamill.

Petruzelli returned to a smaller promotion after the Hamill defeat, where he scored a KO victory over Bernard Rutherford. The victory earned Petruzelli a return to the UFC. In his return he faced Wilson Gouveia at UFC Fight Night 9 and was defeated by guillotine choke submission in the second round.

EliteXC

After being released from the UFC, Petruzelli fough once more in 2007 on a smaller promotion, defeating Sean Sallee via TKO at 2.58 of round 1.

Petruzelli sat out of mixed martial competition for 11 months before being scheduled to return on the undercard of EliteXC's third CBS broadcasted show, EliteXC: Heat against Aaron Rosa.

In a surprising turn of events, Ken Shamrock, who was scheduled to fight Kimbo Slice in the main event of the evening suffered a cut above his left eye on the day of the fight that forced his withdrawal from the bout. After some backstage scrambling to find a replacement fighter, which even at one stage included Ken's adopted brother, Frank Shamrock, Petruzelli was offered the fight with Slice. Petruzelli accepted the main-event bout and moved up a weight class to face Slice.

Petruzelli defeated Slice via TKO at 14 seconds of round 1. Petruzelli, standing on one leg, caught Slice with a right hand which dropped Slice to the mat. After some follow up shots the bout was halted.

Post-Slice Controversy

Controversy arose after his bout with Slice, when Petruzelli was a guest on The Monsters In The Morning radio show. Petruzelli inferred that he was offered money by EliteXC officials to avoid taking Slice down and instead keep the fight standing.

Quote: "The promoters kinda hinted to me and they gave me the money to stand and throw with him, they didn't want me to take him down. Let's just put it that way. It was worth my while to try and stand up punch him"

After the MMA media cried "Fix!" Petruzelli attempted to clarify his statements in a follow up interview saying that his comments were misconstrued and that he was referring to a knockout of the night bonus that he could have scored if he kept the fight on the feet.