Ennis' Take
ENNIS: Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down for UFC 140 - Jon Jones, Minotauro Nogueira's mistake, Lil' Nog's strategy, and much more
Dec 11, 2011 - 2:45:08 PM ENNIS: Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down for UFC 140 - Jon Jones, Minotauro Nogueira's mistake, Lil' Nog's strategy, and much more

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By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist

UFC 140 was one of the best cards of the year, but not everything was sunshine and rainbows. Let's take a look at the good and the bad from yet another memorable card.

Thumbs Up: to Jon Jones. Unquestionably the best light heavyweight in the world right now, Jones put the cap on perhaps the best year that any fighter has ever had. It's probably fitting that his year of domination included a thrashing of Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, who, until Jones's year, probably had the best year ever in 2005. But this year, Jones won four fights over top-ten fighters, all by stoppage, including three former UFC Light Heavyweight Champions. No one has ever done that. I'm not ready to call Jones the best fighter in the world, since to me that's still Anderson Silva (and as a side note, it doesn't matter whether or not Silva would win in a fight between the two, because they're in different weight classes – even though the fight could theoretically happen). But Jones isn't far from becoming the best light heavyweight ever in my mind. You think Dan Henderson's right hand is going to derail this train? It'll probably get the chance, but I don't see that fight lasting too long.

Thumbs Up: to Lyoto Machida. If anyone has the ability to give Jones a fight, it's Machida. He showed that by winning the first round, and even though he came out on the losing end tonight, Machida never wavered. Great showing on his part.

Thumbs Down: to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's decision to not finish Frank Mir on the feet. Mir was on roller skates after being tagged by Big Nog, but when Nog decided to dive for a guillotine choke, he gave Mir a chance to come back. Mir doesn't have nearly the instincts on the feet that he has on the ground. In deciding to take the fight down, Big Nog put Mir in his element, and that was what cost him the fight and his arm.

Thumbs Up: to Frank Mir. As much as I hated the decision to take the fight to the ground even as it was happening, you've got to give Mir credit for hanging in the fight and securing the nastiest kimura I've ever seen, and causing the worst break this side of Shinya Aoki's hammerlock of Mizuto Hirota. It was hard to watch Nogueira being submitted, but Mir deserves all the credit in the world for maintaining his composure and getting himself in a good position. I've said it before and I'll say it again – this is not the "old" Frank Mir. The 2008-2011 version of Frank Mir is far superior to the 2001-2004 version. He'll probably never be champion again, but he's no longer a guy you can stall with until he runs out of gas in the second round and then take him out.

Thumbs Down: to bad judging. Two judges gave the first round of Jones-Machida to Jones, which is incomprehensible to me. It's not as if Machida won the round 10-8 or anything, but it was clearly a round for Machida. Luckily this didn't end up being a factor, but no one likes bad judging, especially in title fights. (Well, I guess Leonard Garcia likes bad judging, but who's counting?) Also on the judging front, Brian Ebersole won a split decision over Claude Patrick, and I would call that highly questionable even though I know a few people also scored the fight for Ebersole. (Note: Those people are wrong, but not inexcusably so.)

Thumbs Up: to Little Nog's strategy. It was simple, and it was very effective. I'd love to see the Fightmetric report for the Nogueira-Ortiz fight just to see the amount of body shots landed in contrast to strikes to the head. Nogueira knew that Ortiz's ribs were kneed into oblivion in his last fight, and the picture of a crumpled, grimacing Tito during and after the fight tells the tale of whether his ribs would hold up to more punishment. A bonus thumbs up goes to good strategy in general. Specifically, Yves Jabouin and Walel Watson came out and did something that's sadly rare in MMA – they didn't cruise through the third round of a close fight. Both fighters went at it like they had lost the first two rounds, and it resulted in an exciting fight and a situation where not a lot is lost by an up-and-coming fighter in Watson, who ended up losing the split decision.

Thumbs Down: to bad defense. I love watching Jared Hamman, but I would love it more if he didn't insist on getting beaten up in each fight whether he wins or loses. To be fair, Hamman's loss wasn't all due to bad defense. The counter punch that signaled the beginning of the end by Philippou was pretty nasty. But if we add in John Makdessi's bad takedown defense followed by bad defense on the ground and Krzysztof Soszynski's bad defense, there was plenty to go around. But speaking of counter punches…

Thumbs Up: to Chan Sung Jung. I don't know that I'm ready to give Jung a title shot yet like the Twitterverse is suggesting, but he definitely made a strong case for a title eliminator fight. The problem with that idea is that the potential opponents are tied up. Dustin Poirier is fighting Erik Koch, Hatsu Hioki is fighting Bart Palaszewski, and Diego Nunes is fighting Manny Gamburyan. With Jung having just beaten a top-ten fighter, maybe he doesn't need another win. But if he does, the scenario could play out like this: Hioki-Palaszewski winner gets a shot at the Aldo-Mendes winner, and the winner between Poirier-Koch gets Jung in a title eliminator. That having been said, Jung has a following, which is more than pretty much any other featherweight can say. That in and of itself is a qualification for a title shot, so we'll see what happens.

Thumbs Up: to not hearing bad commentary (which is really a thumbs down to bad commentary.) I typically watch the fights at a local establishment which I won't name here because they don't pay me [/Lesnar], and with that being the case, I don't hear Goldberg and Rogan. I do hear about them on Twitter, however, and if it's true that no one even mentioned Frank Shamrock in Brian Ebersole's corner, that's simply shameful. I hate revisionist history, and the refusal to acknowledge one of the UFC's greatest fighters in Shamrock is petty and ridiculous. Not hearing commentary also helps me to get a better idea of what I think is going on in the fight. I love Joe Rogan's commentary most of the time, but we all know he can play favorites, and Mike Goldberg tends to be a commercial-spouting catchphrase machine who doesn't actually call the action, I don't feel like I'm missing anything on that front either. There are certainly worse commentary teams than Goldberg and Rogan (which includes…well…all other MMA commentary teams), but that doesn't exonerate them from criticism.

Thumbs Up: to Yves Jabouin and Mark Bocek, the only two Canadians (out of seven on the card) to come away with victories. Tough night for the hometown fighters. Honorable mention goes to Claude Patrick, who should have picked up a win tonight as well.

All in all, it was another great night of fights. And hey-if you've got something to say, say it. Leave a comment, shoot me an email, or hit me up on Twitter.

ennistorch(at)gmail.com @shawnennis