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By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist
There's controversy, and then there's unwarranted controversy. What should have been a universally praised performance by Carlos Condit became one that was maligned by those whose judgment is clouded by fanboy tendencies and by those who should know better. But we'll get to that soon enough. Again. And for the last time. First, the rest of the good and the bad from UFC 143. Let's have a look.
Thumbs Up: to the new UFC intro. It's not the Baba O'Riley video that they show at the live events, but it doesn't have to be. It's a lot better than the Gladiator intro, to which I've been wishing death for several years.
Thumbs Down: to the fact that the intro was only half changed. Really, we can't get the rights to a better song than "Face the Pain?" Really? The video package intros are really good, and they always have been. But we could seriously use a new soundtrack, guys. Like seriously.
Thumbs Up: to Stephen Thompson's no-see-it head kick. That was a thing of beauty. And though he's not the welterweight Lyoto Machida (really, Goldy?), Thompson certainly bears watching. I don't know how his crazy hands-down stance will work in the long run, and I'm curious to see how his credentials on the ground translate to his overall game, but I'm definitely looking forward to finding out.
Thumbs Down: to bad gameplans. Matt Riddle, a big welterweight, fought Henry Martinez, who fights at lightweight when he's not making his short notice UFC debut. Martinez is a decent striker but could in no way do anything underneath Riddle given the disparity in size between the two. So what does Riddle do? He stands with Martinez for the majority of two rounds. Whether he would have stopped the fight by taking Martinez down and pounding on him in the first and/or second round as he did in the first is a moot point. The point is that the win would have come a lot more easily, and there would have been no dissenting score from any judge. That's the point of game-planning: playing to your strengths instead of your opponent's.
Thumbs Up: to Matt Brown's intensity. Whether or not he's the most skilled guy on the planet (he's not), he's fun to watch. If the fight hits the floor, "The Immortal" is in trouble, but while it's on the feet, his crazy style and wild fighting attitude can be enthralling. There's nothing wrong with being the guy who beats up people that don't belong in the UFC. Like Chris Cope.
Thumbs Down: to bad judging. Alex Caceres obliterated Edwin Figueroa's balls on Saturday night, and I'm not sure if it's possible that this fact didn't affect the fight. I'm not even disputing the fact that points should have been taken away. Surely one point off was appropriate, and two was probably excessive. But the thing is that Alex Caceres won all three rounds of that fight. Even with a two-point deduction, he should have taken all three rounds on the scorecards. Yes, the head kick landed by Figueroa was nasty. But that was the only meaningful offense he had, and the follow-up to the kick wasn't even effective. Again, I can't imagine getting kicked like he did and continuing to fight. But he chose to do so, and regardless of the effect it had, Caceres should have won the fight.
Thumbs Up: to Dustin Poirier and Max Holloway. Poirier was clearly superior on the ground and made short work of his debuting opponent once it got to that point. But Holloway was nothing if not game when the fight was standing, and I'm extremely intrigued to see what he can do with a full camp against a guy who's more on his level. And as for Poirier, he continues to impress. I think there's still every reason to see him fight Erik Koch, whom he was originally slated to face in this particular event. If that fight gets made again, I'll be very excited to see it.
Thumbs Up: to Clifford Starks and Ed Herman. Another fight where both men impressed regardless of the outcome. Starks bombed Herman in the first round, and the picture of Herman's left eye the day after showed that it had closed completely. He looked poised to do more of the same in the second round until Herman got the fight to hit the ground, at which point he transitioned beautifully into position to get a rear naked choke. Ed Herman flies under the radar for a few reasons. A lot of people have the image of his limp form falling from a Demian Maia triangle choke in 2008, he was out for a couple of years following a knee injury in a fight with Aaron Simpson, and he was on a 1-2 streak before that happened. But those losses were to Maia and Alan Belcher, and those along with the TKO due to injury are his only losses since 2007. Herman does what he does well, and when the opportunity presents itself for him to take advantage of a situation, he does it with bad intentions. He's not going to challenge Anderson Silva any time soon, but a fight with Chris Leben would be a heck of a lot of fun.
Thumbs Up: to Renan Barao's performance against Scott Jorgensen. This is a bit of thumbs in the middle for me actually, but I wasn't about to give it a thumbs down. The outcome was never in question, and you can't really fault Barao for not finishing a guy like Jorgensen, who is very durable. At the same time, I'm concerned with his gas tank. He's got the tools to beat Urijah Faber or Dominick Cruz if he can finish them – but can he last for five rounds against guys with that kind of cardio? I didn't see anything to make me think that. He'd be in trouble in the championship rounds with the cardio he showed on Saturday.
Thumbs Down: to bad officiating. Let me get this straight: Alex Caceres lands some kicks to the groin and gets two points taken away – Josh Koscheck pokes Mike Pierce in the eye multiple times and gets nothing? After he was warned? And this was the same ref in both fights? To state the obvious, that doesn't make sense.
Thumbs Down: to more bad judging. Yes, the Koscheck-Pierce fight was close. And maybe I'm being presumptuous in assuming that Koscheck scored the win due to some meaningless takedowns. But Pierce out-struck Koscheck throughout the fight, which should have given him the victory. Once again we see that it's effective to charge forward with big winging punches whether they land or not. I'm not saying Koscheck is Leonard Garcia here, but I am saying the logic in giving him the nod is the same. I thought initially that it'd be hard to argue the decision whichever way it went. I've reconsidered.
Thumbs Up: to that guy who looked like Fabricio Werdum but fought nothing like Werdum did the last time he was in the cage. Werdum absolutely destroyed Roy Nelson for three complete rounds. I don't know how Nelson was still conscious, let alone standing after that fight. I would've liked to see those two grapple some more, but Werdum had no reason to take the fight to the ground, and Nelson didn't have the wherewithal. Hard to complain about anything Werdum did here.
Thumbs Down: to Roy Nelson's situation. Look, there's no chance that Nelson can cut to 205 and still compete. He just can't do it. He has no reason to do it, and he'd have to completely change the way he fights if he were to try. At the same time, he can't compete with the top level at heavyweight. It's a shame because Nelson is an extremely talented grappler and a not-terrible striker. He just doesn't have the cardio or the speed to deal with guys like Werdum. Speed kills in MMA. At heavyweight, speed annihilates. Nelson will be a decent gatekeeper, and he's a likeable guy, but it's frustrating that we won't see much more out of him than that.
Thumbs Down: to giving a $65k Fight of the Night bonus to Nelson-Werdum instead of Condit-Diaz. I'm always up for a nice beatdown. If I didn't enjoy watching guys get punched and kneed in the face, I wouldn't be writing this right now. But you know what I enjoy more? Great skill shown by both fighters for the duration of the fight with a title on the line (even if it's not a real one). If there were a bonus for Beatdown of the Night, there would be no question. But Fight of the Night? No chance.
Thumbs Down: to fools and crybabies. I have never been more confused by the reaction to a fight than I was here. I know Nick Diaz is a little off. So it didn't surprise me that he thought he won the fight, or even that he said he was going to retire (he's not). But to hear the same dreck from guys like Pat Miletich? Or from Diaz's own coach, Cesar Gracie? Or other fighters? That was surprising. Because here's the thing: Condit won the fight. There is zero question that he won the fight. None. If you think Diaz won, you are wrong. You just are. I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I know this. Were the rounds close? Sure. Was there any question who won them? No. A fight can be close without being in question. Anyone who watches that fight objectively cannot give a compelling reason for a Diaz win. No matter what anyone says, Condit did not run away. You cannot - cannot - outstrike your opponent and run away in the same fight. It's impossible. Even Cecil Peoples, who said at one time that he doesn't count leg kicks, scored the fight for Condit. Condit landed more, and Diaz didn't adjust his game plan according to what his opponent was doing. Period. End of story.
Walking forward is not offense. It's not aggression. It's not Octagon control. It's movement. If you couldn't win a fight going backwards, Chuck Liddell would have won fewer fights than he did. And it's no different just because Condit didn't knock Diaz out. Landing strikes is landing strikes, regardless of what direction your feet are moving. And if there is a rematch, and Diaz's camp doesn't decide to do something different the next time, he'll lose again. In fact, this is more of an indictment on Diaz's corner than it is on him. You can't tell me that they didn't see what was happening in the fight. They knew that Diaz had to cut him off, and yet still the continued to tell him that he was winning and that everything Condit was doing was BS. Spinning strikes are a dick move? What, they don't count? It's like they took offense to the fact that Condit didn't want to get punched in the face. So by their reasoning, if you get punched in the face, you lose. If you avoid getting punched in the face, you also lose. Thumbs down. Thumbs down all day long. Not to losing, but to the reaction. Losing is something that everyone does. Crying about it and refusing to acknowledge what your opponent did right? That's garbage.
Thumbs Up: to Carlos effing Condit. For once, someone comes in to fight Nick Diaz in a manner that shows he's seen Nick Diaz fight before. Here's the thing: You can't hurt Nick Diaz. You can't go into a fight thinking that you're going to stand toe-to-toe with Diaz and knock him out, because it's not going to happen. If Paul Daley isn't the most dangerous striker in the welterweight division, he's really close to being that. He caught Diaz flush and stunned him. Diaz recovered immediately and knocked Daley out inside the first round. If Paul Daley catches Nick Diaz flush on the chin and doesn't knock him out, it would be a fool's errand for anyone else in the welterweight division to stand in front of Nick Diaz.
If you extend the comparison to Nate Diaz (basically the same fighter as his brother), let's look at what Donald Cerrone did not two months ago. We thought it was going to be a barnburner with both guys throwing leather and giving as good as they got. How long did it take to see that standing in front of Nate Diaz was a bad idea? Less than one round. Diaz dominated that fight. Had Cerrone fought smart instead of right into his opponent's hands, he would have had a shot at winning that fight. Would I have enjoyed more of a dogfight? Sure, probably. But you know what? I enjoy a fight in which a guy uses his brains as much as anything else to beat his opponent. Nick Diaz can complain all he wants about judging and running away, but he's wrong. He wasn't saying that Condit didn't hit him with anything when Condit's shin was landing square on Diaz's nose. Thumbs up to Carlos Condit, who fought smart and beat Nick Diaz. That's all I'm saying about this fight anymore if I can help it. It's not often that I state what could be construed as my opinion as absolute fact, but in this case I am right. And if you don't agree, you are wrong. The end.
@shawnennis - ennistorch(at)gmail
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