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UFC on Fox 9: The Good, The Bad, And the Ugly

(Uh…guys? I’m pretty sure that’s Herb Dean. / Screencap via r/MMA)

Before we get into the endless promotion for the year-ending and stacked UFC 168: Weidman vs. Silva 2, let’s take one last, clear-eyed look at what went down at ~~WEC~~ UFC on Fox 9. The injury-cursed event seemed destined to be a disappointment to many fans who consider the lighter fighters boring, especially considering it was the lightest fight card in UFC history, with an average weight of just over 145 pounds. The fact that the fights were taking place at the Sleep Train Arena seemed like a bad omen, foretelling the coma-inducing boredom that might have resulted from a night of decisions. Nevertheless, despite the haters, the smaller guys provided a card of highly entertaining fights and they showcased why many MMA purists consider them the most exciting fighters in the sport.

The Good
• Too often, referees only get noticed when they screw up. However, the officials for this card should be praised for a solid night of work in which they did their jobs properly and kept the focus where it belongs: the fighters. Props to John McCarthy, Herb Dean, and Mike Beltran for getting through the 11-fight card with no critical errors. Even Dana White, who has been openly critical of MMA officiating in the past, praised both Big John and Herb Dean, saying, “These are the best guys” and complimented his one-time nemesis, McCarthy, saying, “When John is in that Octagon, he is in absolute and total control.”

• Much has been written lately about the success of Team Alpha Male under head trainer, Daune “Bang” Ludwig. Saturday night gave the camp an opportunity to showcase how deserving they were of that praise, with four fighters from the Sacramento-based crew competing. As a whole, the team didn’t perform flawlessly, but they did manage to win two of their four fights. It was a great night for Urijah Faber, as the hometown hero steamrolled Michael McDonald and established himself — again — as the top contender in the Bantamweight division. Chad Mendes also did what he needed to, beating Nik Lentz by unanimous decision. On the losing side, Danny Castillo dropped a close decision to Edson Barboza that many thought should have been a draw, and Joseph Benavidez got knocked out cold by Demetrious Johnson. Other than Benavidez, Team Alpha looked good, and judging from their backstage reaction to Urijah Faber’s win, they truly are a tightknit group that will continue their upward trajectory.

(Uh…guys? I’m pretty sure that’s Herb Dean. / Screencap via r/MMA)

By Mark Dorsey

• Demetrious Johnson looked incredible. Once known only for his wrestling and cardio/pace, “Mighty Mouse” showed that he is a well-rounded mixed martial artist, dangerous in grappling and striking. I’m not sure who he should replace in the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings, but he definitely made the case that he should be near the top of that list. His post-fight celebration was almost as entertaining as the fight itself, with Johnson performing flips and other acrobatics before his trainer, Matt Hume, seemed to tell him to calm down and “go get some fans.” Mighty Mouse had the best night of anybody, putting a definitive end to his rivalry with Benavidez and earning a $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus.

• Having a card full of lighter weight fighters may not have been a ratings success, but it was a good format that I hope the UFC continues to employ. It reminded me of the all-heavyweight main card of UFC 146. The good thing about limiting a card to certain weight classes is that it really clears up the rankings for the featured divisions and gives the card tournament-like significance. The UFC is struggling ratings-wise. Part of that is due to the confusion amongst fans about who the top contenders are. Cards like this weekend’s help to sort out those issues in one sitting. This “light” card was a good step in the right direction towards putting an end to myth that the lighter weights can’t finish fights.

The Bad
• In between rounds 1 and 2 of the Castillo-Barboza fight, the Fox cameras had an extended focus on Barbosa’s corner, with no translation provided. It seemed unprepared and unprofessional. It would have been great to hear what advice his corner was giving Barboza, especially considering the onslaught he survived in the first round and the comeback he had in round 2. It’s a minor complaint, but for a station struggling to keep the attention of North American UFC fans, Fox should have planned ahead and provided a Portuguese-English translation.

• Another broadcasting mistake saw Fox wrongly identify referee Mike Beltran as John McCarthy in the lead-up to the Castillo-Barboza fight. It was an honest mistake but one that shouldn’t happen, especially considering Beltran is hard to misidentify with a beard that makes him look like a character straight out of Middle-earth.

• Joe Rogan gets a lot of flak for the bias he demonstrates in his commentary. He did a great job remaining neutral for most of the fights on Saturday night but it was a bit of a turnoff to hear him criticize the performance of Chad “Money” Mendes in his win over Nik Lentz. Sure, Mendes didn’t win in particularly exciting fashion but it was a solid performance over a quality opponent who was undefeated at Featherweight. After the fight, Mendes told matchmaker Joe Silva that he was sick and “felt like shit tonight” which might have explained why he seemed to gas a bit after the first round. Regardless, Rogan’s criticism seemed to undermine Mendes’s win, Lentz’s skill level, and an otherwise solid night of commentating from Rogan.

• It has become somewhat of a tradition to lambaste the decisions made by MMA judges lately, and usually for good reason. A couple of the decisions on Saturday night were bad, but not completely ugly. First, Bobby Green defeated Pat Healy by unanimous decision in a fight where Healy seemed to outwork and out-grind Green for the final two rounds. The crowd showed their displeasure, and although it wasn’t a horrible decision there is certainly no way it should have been scored 30-27 for Green, as one judge apparently saw it. 29-28 for Green is reasonable. Giving all of the rounds to Green is not. Second, Edson Baboza defeated Danny Castillo by majority decision. Only the one judge who scored the fight a draw at 28-28 got the decision right. How the other two judges didn’t score the first round 10-8 for Castillo is beyond me. A 10-8 round seemed obvious and even 10-7 would have been justifiable. If that wasn’t a 10-8 round, I don’t know what is. It was an unfortunate decision that overshadowed what was a barnburner of a fight that saw both fighters survive near finishes and earn “Fight of the Night” bonuses.

The Ugly
• Joseph Benavidez had never been stopped before in his MMA career. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t show much caution in the striking exchanges from the start against Johnson. Benavidez even had his eyes closed while he was swinging during the final exchange, so he probably didn’t even see the final right hand that ended his night early. Benavidez clearly didn’t respect the striking of Johnson. Granted, Johnson hadn’t shown KO power in the big leagues before, but this is MMA where anything can and often does happen. The result of the technical lapse was the fastest KO in flyweight history, forcing Benavidez back to the drawing board to try and climb back up the rankings.

• Cody McKenzie had a rough night. He looked gassed and unimpressive while getting soundly beaten by Sam Stout in a unanimous decision loss. However, the loss may not have even been the most embarrassing part of his night. McKenzie fought in what looked like basketball shorts with the tag still on them after he apparently showed up at the arena without a mouthpiece or shorts. Someone had to actually run out and buy some shorts for him at a nearby store. What exactly did he think he was doing in Sacramento? McKenzie probably lost any sponsorship money that he was supposed to get from the real estate on his shorts and afterwards he was reported to have drowned his sorrows with a couple of shots and beers, before allegedly getting into a brawl in a hotel lobby. Needless to say, it was an ugly night that McKenzie would likely soon forget and one that may earn him his walking papers in short order.

• Speaking of ugly, Mac Danzig’s face was pretty busted up after going through the meat grinder with Joe Lauzon. Danzig, the TUF season 6 winner, is experienced and usually durable, but the truth is he is just not on the same level as “J-Lau”. In fact, the fight was likely booked with this in mind — to get company-man Lauzon back into the win column. Lauzon didn’t get any of the “Of the Night” bonuses he has grown accustomed to but he did look impressive and is back on track. Danzig, on the other hand, is at risk of being dropped from the UFC and is probably still licking his wounds from the nasty elbows thrown by Lauzon.

UFC on Fox 9: The Good, The Bad, And the Ugly

(Uh…guys? I’m pretty sure that’s Herb Dean. / Screencap via r/MMA)

By Mark Dorsey

(Uh…guys? I’m pretty sure that’s Herb Dean. / Screencap via r/MMA)

By Mark Dorsey

St-Pierre vs. Hendricks: The Most Important Bad Decision In UFC History

(Ladies and gentlemen, your “winner.” / Photo via Esther Lin, MMAFighting)

By Adam Martin

There have been many terrible decisions handed out by MMA judges over the years, but none of them had the same consequences as the decision read by UFC ring announcer Bruce Buffer following the main event of UFC 167 this past weekend.

After five rounds of back-and-forth action, Johny Hendricks and Georges St-Pierre headed to the scorecards to hear the official outcome of their fight, which should have been in the bag for the challenger. Watching the fight live, I scored it 48-47 for Hendricks, giving him rounds one, two and four, and St-Pierre rounds three and five, all rounds scored 10-9. My friend and fellow journalist James Lynch, whose judgment I trust and who I watched the event with, tallied the same score on his card. So did all 15 media members who had their scores counted by the great database MMADecisions.com. So did most fans and observers of the sport on Twitter and in the arena. So did UFC color commentator Joe Rogan. And so did UFC president Dana White.

Despite this, two Nevada State Athletic Commission judges inexplicitly scored the fight for St-Pierre by scores of 48-47, and the champion got to keep his belt. He then announced to the audience at MGM Grand Garden Arena that he wanted to take some time off after defending his belt for the third time in the past 12 months.

Hendricks, on the other hand, got screwed.

(Ladies and gentlemen, your “winner.” / Photo via Esther Lin, MMAFighting)

By Adam Martin

Hendricks, on the other hand, got screwed.

I thought all five rounds were clear. Round one was Hendricks’ because he was the more effective striker and grappler. Round two was Hendricks’ because he rocked GSP and displayed more effective striking overall. Round three was GSP’s because he outlanded Hendricks by nearly twice the amount of strikes. Round four was Hendricks’ because he was the more effective striker once again. And the fifth and final round belonged to GSP, who made a late comeback highlighted by two successful takedowns.

For some reason, though, it seems that there is some disagreement with the first round. Although I thought it was clearly Hendricks’ round when I watched it live, two judges — Tony Weeks and Sal D’Amato — gave it to St-Pierre, and it ended up being the round that swung the split-decision verdict in his favor.

24 hours after the fight, I re-watched it, hoping that I was wrong and that the first round was closer than I remembered. And as I watched those first five minutes unfold, I could only sit there and shake my head in disbelief that two professional judges could score the round for St-Pierre. Hendricks won the first round, no doubt about it.

In the first few minutes of round one, St-Pierre landed some nice strikes and a takedown. He then attempted a submission while Hendricks was standing up, but wasn’t able to lock it in. In the Unified Rules of MMA, submission attempts aren’t scored by the judges. Effective grappling is, but having an arm around someone’s neck for a few seconds isn’t effective at all. And neither was that takedown that GSP landed early in the round, because Hendricks used his butterfly guard to get back up almost immediately.

What was effective, however, were the big elbows Hendricks landed to the side of GSP’s head while the champion tried to take him down against the side of the cage. Look at UFC matchmaker Joe Silva’s reaction outside the cage at that moment — he knew those hurt. Then Hendricks got a takedown of his own. Then he landed a bunch of big knees to GSP’s body. And while St-Pierre landed a few nice kicks on Hendricks, the challenger landed a bunch of hard punches at the end of the round, putting an exclamation mark on it and winning a competitive, but at the same time clear, 10-9 round.

Or at least most people thought he did did. Viewing Twitter, there were a few fans who gave St-Pierre the first round 10-9, but they were in the minority (about 10-20% of people I would say, but they are fans and I bet most have never actually read the rulebook). Still, mostly everyone gave round one to 10-9 Hendricks. But two of the judges did not, and at the end of the day that’s the only thing that matters in this sport.

I’ve seen a lot of people say that the first round was close in their minds and therefore the round should be scored in the champion’s favor. So listen up, jackasses: There is NOTHING in the Unified Rules that says, “To be the champ you have to decisively beat the champ.” It’s made-up logic by people who don’t know how to properly score a competitive round. In a mixed martial arts fight, the only thing that matters is who won the round and who lost it. The belt is completely irrelevant and should never be taken into consideration when judging fights.

I am bothered by the decision the judges made, but I am more bothered by the reaction of the MMA community to the decision. When the president of the UFC, 95 percent of professional fighters, 95 percent of the media, and most fans scored the fight for Hendricks, I’m sorry, but that’s a robbery. If this wasn’t a robbery, then someone please tell me what is.

Monday morning on Twitter, a follower told me to move on and to stop flooding his timeline with talk about the decision because “bad decisions happen. It’s a part of the sport.” But this is such flawed logic in so many ways. If we can’t discuss the judging in the sport in a civil manner on a public forum it will never improve. If we keep letting the judges get away with screwing up, and let them off with not even a slap on the wrist every time, the sport will never evolve. And we will keep getting bad decisions where someone who deserved to win gets screwed.

When there are discussions about the worst decisions in UFC history, there are usually a few usual suspects that are brought up. Michael Bisping vs. Matt Hamill at UFC 75. Lyoto Machida vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 104. Nam Phan vs. Leonard Garcia at the TUF 12 Finale. Frankie Edgar vs. Benson Henderson at UFC 150. Henderson vs. Gilbert Melendez at UFC on FOX 7. The were all horrible decisions, and it’s hard to say that Hendricks vs. St-Pierre was worse than any of them. They’re all about on par, because in each case the wrong man got his hand raised. That’s why I can’t say that Hendricks vs. GSP is the worst decision in UFC history.

But out of all the bad decisions handed down in UFC history, St-Pierre vs. Hendricks is the most important because the stakes were the highest and because it featured the biggest star in the sport on the sport’s biggest stage, the main event of the UFC’s 20th-anniversary pay-per-view card. And because of two bad judges, Hendricks was robbed of the chance to wear a belt he deserved to win. This wasn’t St-Pierre’s fault, and he shouldn’t be blamed for the judges’ incompetence, but at the same time I don’t consider him the best welterweight in the world anymore, even though he still gets to wear the belt around his waist.

I’m hopeful that because of the high-profile nature of this fight that everyone in the MMA community can take a step back and look at the judging in the sport and realize that it’s actually gotten worse in the 20 years since the sport began. That’s a huge problem if we want the sport to succeed going forward.

Hopefully this is the moment where we all open our eyes to a huge problem that has been plaguing the sport for years. We need to have an open forum to try and fix this problem. Maybe that means the scoring system must change. Maybe we need to go back to PRIDE rules. Maybe damage has to be added to the criteria. I don’t know what the solution is, but I want to find one. And so should all of us, instead of just brushing it off to the side. Because it’s wrong and it’s hurting the sport.

Until anything changes, though, we are stuck with the 10-point must system. The system isn’t perfect, but for the most part it works, because under the current system one judge, nearly every media member and the president of the UFC was able to still crown Hendricks as the rightful winner. No, it’s not the system that’s the biggest problem, it’s the judges who are applying the scores incorrectly that is the problem.

I know that judging MMA fights isn’t easy and that the judges in this sport never get any credit for the job they do. But they chose to do the job, and they should do it right. And at UFC 167, they failed at it. But it won’t hurt any of them at all. Most likely, they will all keep their jobs and there will be no ramifications. In actuality, the only person it hurts is Hendricks. And it’s not fair. It’s not right, and we need to change things. How we can do that, though, is a difficult question to answer. But hopefully we can answer it sooner than later before this sport goes right to hell. That is, if it’s not down there already.

[EXCLUSIVE] Cole Miller Reflects on Strange Fight With Manny Gamburyan at ‘Fight Night 26?

(Photo via Getty Images.)

By Elias Cepeda

Cole Miller was confused. Near the end of the first round of his UFC Fight Night 26 featherweight fight against Manny Gamburyan this past Saturday, “The Anvil” was working for a double leg takedown against the cage on Miller when Cole defended and hit him with two elbows before the horn.

The elbows were ruled legal and they hurt Gamburyan. Bad.

So much so that the former title challenger slumped down to his knees in an apparent daze and could not immediately stand up and walk to his own corner. In fact, he was on his knees in Miller’s corner.

“I didn’t really get it,” Cole told CagePotato on Sunday. “I looked at [referee ] Yves Lavigne, he was looking at Manny. I was unsure if the fight was over or if time had expired. I was looking for the ref to give us an idea of whether there was finality in the fight, or if it was an illegal blow. Later, Yves told me was a legal blow and so does the video. But at the time, if it was illegal I was looking for him to say so, take a point, give me a warning, call the fight or something. It was a confusing situation. Yves told me to go to my corner but I told him, ‘I am in my corner.’ The way Manny was there on the ground in my corner, I couldn’t raise my hands, walk away and go to my corner or anything. They actually moved me and my corner to another area while he stayed there on the ground. Yves was pointing to a direction for me to go. I was thinking, ‘I’m in my corner. Someone needs to take him to his corner.’ Over a minute and twenty passed before they had the doctor even look at him.”

The break between rounds for fighters is a minute long. If a fighter cannot answer the start of the next round, they lose, normally. Examples of this have been seen throughout MMA, kickboxing and boxing history.

If you’re so beat up that you can’t answer the next round’s bell, you’re done. You’ve lost.

(Photo via Getty Images.)

By Elias Cepeda

The elbows were ruled legal and they hurt Gamburyan. Bad.

If you’re so beat up that you can’t answer the next round’s bell, you’re done. You’ve lost.

Gamburyan, of course, didn’t lose the fight. He was given far more time to recover than he was supposed to be allowed, and then he continued on for two more rounds. After three rounds, he was declared the winner by the judges, presumably on the basis of his repeated leg kicks, take downs and ground control.

In a post fight interview with MMA Fighting, Gamburyan acknowledged that “maybe” the fight should have been stopped after the first round, though he disagrees with Miller that the strikes were legal. UFC President Dana White said that he scored the fight for Miller, who left Gamburyan’s face a cut, bloodied and swollen mess, but said that Cole essentially sabotaged himself by sticking around Manny after the first round and appearing to check on his condition. White told reporters after the event that Miller should have just gone to his corner.

“I was in my corner.” the irritated ATT fighter emphasizes. “I was in my corner. Where was I supposed to go? I hit him with legal blows and he couldn’t continue and couldn’t go to his corner. I was kind of propping him up so he wouldn’t fall on my leg. I couldn’t walk off to get instruction, we were already there in my corner.”

That confusion and officiating mishandling aside, Miller feels that he won the fight a second time, or deserved to. “I don’t really know how they score things in Massachusetts,” he says.

“I don’t know if they score things differently for MMA or what. The effective grappling part definitely went to Manny because of his takedowns. I wasn’t able to do anything about that, he had all takedowns but I had all the striking and did all the damage. I cut him twice. He’s a tough dude, to his credit. He earned every bit of it. I hit him with knees, punches and kicks so hats off to him. I just think they made the wrong call. I was trying to finish my opponent the whole fight.”

Cole and Manny were friendly before the fight, knowing one another since they spent six weeks training together on the fifth season of The Ultimate Fighter on Jens Pulver’s team. With such a bitter taste in his mouth about this fight Cole insists that he still doesn’t harbor any negative feelings against Gamburyan.

“Manny didn’t do anything wrong. He fought the way he knows how and I fought the way I know how,” he says.

“He didn’t get the judges to call his name. He’s good and he fought well. I was just throwing those knees to take his head off. I’m not going to bug him for getting the decision.”

Cole says he doesn’t count this fight as a loss and, although he’d be willing to rematch Gamburyan, he isn’t calling for a re-do. “I’ve never wanted a rematch with anybody,” Cole maintains.

“A fight is a fight. If the UFC wants to make that happen, I’ll rematch anybody. But, I don’t want a rematch. For what? I fought the kind of fight I fight and he fought the way he fights. The judges made the wrong call, that’s it. There is no need for a rematch.”