MONTREAL — Former middleweight champion Rich Franklin earned a TKO over Travis Lutter at 3:01 of the second round tonight at UFC 83.

Franklin survived a stint on the ground with Lutter, a black belt in jiu-jitsu, in the first round of a fight that did not live up to its billing.

Lutter tried for an armbar but missed and he soon paid for that failure. In the second, Franklin's Muay Thai strikes and knees eventually took a toll on a gassed Lutter as he tried unsuccessfully for a takedown.

Franklin improved to 25-3 in bouncing back from a second loss to champion Anderson Silva. Lutter, fighting for the first time in 14 months after back and neck problems following his own loss to Silva, fell to 12-5.

The mixed martial arts fight was the co-main event of the Matt Serra-Georges St. Pierre welterweight title showdown at a soldout Bell Centre, which packed in 22,000 fans for UFC's Canadian debut.

On the undercard middleweight Jason MacDonald pounded out a win in an all-Canadian grudge match with rival Joe Doerksen.

MacDonald (21-9) finished the mixed martial arts fight with a string of elbows to the head, then stood over his fallen opponent after referee Steve Mazzagatti stopped the bout 56 seconds into the second round.

The Canadian show ranks as the biggest _ and fastest sellout _ in UFC history. The previous attendance record was 19,049, set at UFC 68 on March 3, 2007, at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

Also, welterweight Jonathan Goulet of Victoriaville earned the first UFC win on Canadian soil when he survived some heavy punishment late in the rough first round to stop Kuniyoshi Hironaka at 2:07 of the second.