Hyden's Take
HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from UFC on FOX 10
Jan 29, 2014 - 10:45:39 AM HYDEN BLOG: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from UFC on FOX 10

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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor

The UFC ran another of their network shows last weekend. The card wasn't nearly as strong as some of their previous events, but let's break it down.

UFC on FOX 10

BAD: Mike Rhodes vs. George Sullivan, Junior Hernandez vs. Hugo Viana, and Chico Camus vs. Yaotzin Meza

Sullivan won a boring decision and Viana won one-sided through the first two rounds, then held on after Hernandez woke up in the third. Camus also won a boring decision after dominating Meza. These fights were BAD for different reasons. The first and third were just bad fights, the second was BAD because Hernandez could have won if he had shown up earlier.

GOOD: Daron Cruickshank stops Mike Rio

Cruickshank opened it up and finished off Rio after some initial hesitancy. It's the side of him that he always needs to show, instead of only against opponents he has outmatched.

GOOD: Eddie Wineland stops Yves Jabouin

They were pretty even in the first round, but Wineland took control in the second. He was pushing forward the whole fight, and he got the opening he was wanting and capitalized on it. Good win for Wineland.

GOOD: Alex Caceres submits Sergio Pettis

This was a really good fight. In my eyes, Pettis took the first and Caceres took the second so they were even. Pettis was winning the third until they scrambled late and Caceres was able to get the rear-naked choke on to force the tap. These guys were going back and forth the whole fight, which was very cool to see. I'm sure we'll see a rematch down the road. It might not be right away, but it'll happen eventually.

UGLY: Jeremy Stephens vs. Darren Elkins

Stephens won the lackluster decision. Despite having Elkins wobbled in the second, Stephens backed off instead of pushing forward. This was after having unloaded some powerful leg kicks into Elkins that severely damaged his leg. Unlike the NFL announcers who always implore you to watch a replay of a big hit with words of "Listen to this hit" which you then watch only to hear silence, you could actually hear the leg kicks that Stephens was landing. Those things were powerful, yet he did nothing to take advantage of them. This was another of those fights that you knew Stephens was going to win halfway through the second round. Elkins had nothing for Stephens and he knew it. For some reason, Stephens refused to throw any big combos, he seemed content to just throw a punch or two at a time.

GOOD: Donald Cerrone stops Andriano Martins

Martins was likely winning the first round until Cerrone caught him with a beautiful headkick. They showed it from a few angles and in slow motion. It's always so freaky when you see the human body absorbing punishment. When you see the skull rattle around you can't look away. It's like when Drew Brees was clotheslined by Ahmad Brooks several weeks ago. In this case, Martins was out immediately. Cerrone pounced, with his hand cocked back and ready to unload, but the ref stepped in. Apparently to Joe Rogan, this was Cerrone showing great sportsmanship even though he would have hit Martins again if the ref didn't come flying in.

UGLY: Stipe Miocic vs. Gabriel Gonzaga

This fight sucked. Gonzaga gassed hard towards the end of the first round. The first round! It wasn't like he was even doing that much either. Holy hell, that's terrible. That contributes to the UGLY, but what puts it over the top was that Miocic didn't take advantage of the situation. Miocic slowed down some, but his cardio was much better than Gonzaga's. So why the hell didn't he push forward and finish Gonzaga? When your opponent is sucking wind like a jet engine and you don't get the stoppage it really makes you look bad.

This was even worse than Jeremy Stephens not finishing Darren Elkins because at least Elkins didn't have his hands at his sides and mouth open at times during the fight. Elkins still posed at least a little danger to Stephens, not enough to justify not finishing him, but still some danger. Miocic should be very frustrated with himself about the way he handled this fight. Some of the worst parts were where they looked like they fighting underwater. I expected better from Miocic.

GOOD and BAD: Benson Henderson vs. Josh Thomson

The fight itself was good enough to be in the former, but the decision was what strayed into BAD territory. I thought the fight was interesting because it was a nice chess match between skilled competitors. Thomson got great position a few times, and then Henderson would eventually reverse or somehow escape. I would have given the fight to Thomson, but that's not what makes this BAD. My problem is that one judge gave Thomson three rounds, another gave him two, while the other judge only gave him one round. Such disparity in the scoring highlights the need for more clear criteria in judging.

I could throw out the old lines about if they were watching the same fight, or how they're going in for cataract surgery next week, but I'm sure we've all heard them a million times. I just would like for the criteria to be more clear. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the way it's set up, at least it would give you an idea of what's more important. The fact that three judges could all watch the same fight, and come up with such different scores, shows that something needs to be done to better clarify things.

This was the weakest Fox card the UFC has run. The fact that they're running a pay-per-view this week which features two title fights only serves to magnify that. I told one of my friends that the UFC is running three pay-per-views in six weeks, and his response was something that I probably can't include here. To paraphrase, though, he said something to the effect of "Screw that, that's stupid." I think the UFC is making a big mistake placing these events so close together. Not only will it hurt the buyrate of those shows, it also weakens their other cards. This event was a clear example of that.


Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank