metricjulie

The alternate name to this blog entry was: “The UFC That Was As Overblown And Controversial As The Montreal Goaltending Controversy Except It’s Not Goaltending, It’s Fighters, And It’s Not Really The Same Thing At All Except That It’s Current And Has Two Number Ones But One Who Everyone Thinks Should Be The Real Number One”.

Quick review of my predictions, what happened, what REALLY happened and what should happen next.

First, let’s see where I was right. A little wrong too, but mostly right. I posted my UFC 104 predictions here.

Heavyweight bout

Cain Velasquez vs Ben Rothwell

metricjulie’s prediction: Velasquez by KO in the second round.

Result: Velasquez by TKO in the second round.

As I thought, Velasquez came out hard with exceptional takedowns and kicked (well, punched) the crap out of Rothwell. He landed some sick blows and punches on Rothwell in the second round; unfortunately, due to early stoppage by referee Steve Mazzagatti, the crowd jeered and it was quite the anticlimax. Nevertheless, Velasquez looked great and I would love to see him fight Shane Carwin, future Heavyweight champion (am I right???).

Lightweight bout

Joe “Daddy” Stevenson vs Spencer Fisher

metricjulie’s prediction: Stevenson by submission in the third round.

Result: Stevenson by submission (elbows) in the second round.

Fisher demonstrated some good takedown defense, but as I was expecting, Stevenson’s strategy greatly benefited from training in Greg Jackson’s camp and he was able to get him good early in the first round with a cut above the eye after 90 seconds. In the second round, Daddy worked the ground and pound and landed some vicious and unanswered elbow strikes, rendering Fisher utterly helpless.

Light heavyweight championship bout

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua vs Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida

metricjulie’s prediction: Machida by unanimous decision

Result: Machida by unanimous decision

I haven’t seen a decision so controversial since Nordiques player Alain Côté was refused a goal in 1987. The judges scored the fight 48-47 for Lyoto Machida, and though at first I thought it was an even fight and would have been very hard to judge, I noticed something that made me want to watch the fight again: When Bruce Buffer came in with the official decision and announced that Machida retained his light heavyweight title, there was pure shock on the faces of both Rua and Machida. Rua seemed disappointed and his posse, outraged, while Machida just looked plain shocked and relieved.

Upon watching the fight again on Sunday while I was more sober attentive, I admit that this is how I would score the fight, with my non-existent knowledge of MMA scoring and complete lack of experience judging fights professionally:

the metricjulie scoring system
Round 1: Machida
Round 2: Rua
Round 3: draw, but let’s say Machida for the sake of my post so it’s more interesting
Round 4: Rua
Round 5: Rua

I thought Machida had excellent takedown defense and landed some great body shots; Rua proved to be the aggressor in this fight with many takedown attempts and many leg kicks. At best, I give Machida 2 rounds, although to me, round 3 could have gone either way. And if the hundreds of thousands of cries of injustice and robbery by bloggers and twitterers worldwide are any indication, I am not the only one who would have scored the fight in favor of Rua.

So what happened?

So much has been written and speculated about this, but the most interesting take on it was that of Will Cooling of insidefights.com, who asks the question: How Did Machida Win?

The key points I retained from this article were:

- MMA scoring cards are not well suited to properly evaluate damage done by repetitive blows, such as leg kicks, meaning they may have seemed rather harmless in the first and second rounds, but by the fourth round those kicks were definitely eating away at Machida’s concentration; however, once a round is scored, it’s done, so no matter how the judge scores a fourth round, even if he believes he sees the toll those leg kicks from rounds 1 and 2 are having now, it is too late to make amends and give more credit to the blows.

- Like me, Cooling wonders how takedown defense could possibly get more credit than takedown attempts, stating takedown defense has been overemphasized before in judges scoring.

- Apparently, leg kicks are seen as “easy to land” and are considered by many to be a low-skilled alternative to a real hit.

Some people, in championship fights, give the edge to the champion. Don’t beat the crap out of = Don’t take title away from. Others have pointed out that Machida, UFC’s least-hit fighter of all time, couldn’t handle Rua’s surprisingly intelligent strategy and stand-up and that Rua should get the edge since he managed to land so many shots on the elusive champion.

No matter the schools of thought here, UFC judging is what it is and Machida retained his title, but perhaps not for long: Dana White has announced an immediate rematch between the two warriors, one that could happen as early as January 2010 for UFC 108 (although the Lesnar vs Carwin fight has been rumored to be postponed to UFC 108 as well due to Lesnar’s illness… if both fights are on the same night, this girl will FREAK OUT. and drink.)

In the end, I think Rua was wrongfully denied the championship belt, but I think Machida is wrongfully taking a lot of crap from outraged fans everywhere (and lord knows outraged fans are the most vocal fans). What I thought while watching the fight, be it Saturday while I was drunk excited or Sunday when I could better analyze the fight, was the fact that both men fought an extremely intellectual and graceful fight and that despite the result, we fans should be thankful for such amazing talent in the UFC.

Oh, and I rock at predicting UFC fights.