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Dennis Siver vs. Nam Phan: What’s Next for Siver

Dennis Siver put together one of the most most impressive performances of his career at UFC on Fox 5, absolutely dominating Nam Phan for the entire length of their 15 minute contest. The match was so one-sided that the judges’ scorecards…

Dennis Siver put together one of the most most impressive performances of his career at UFC on Fox 5, absolutely dominating Nam Phan for the entire length of their 15 minute contest.

The match was so one-sided that the judges’ scorecards read 30-24, 30-25 and 30-26, all in favor of Siver.

The win moved the German to 2-0 at 145-pounds and was convincing enough to suggest he’s capable of impacting the UFC’s featherweight division at the highest level. Just how high he is able to reach remains to be seen, but what is for sure is that Siver is ready for the opportunity to fight his way into the weight class’ top tier.

The opportunity to penetrate the nest level was earned, not just because Siver looked good against Phan, but because he looked good, period.

Siver is massive at featherweight yet demonstrated spectacular cardio for all of 15 minutes against Phan. Granted, he didn’t take any of the damage that saps a fighter’s endurance, but he did set and maintain a blistering pace the entire match. He also executed his strikes with both precision and speed.

These are all attributes that are not opponent-specific in the slightest.

Siver also showcased improved wrestling and strong grappling, as well as his usual strong standup.

In the case of these latter performance elements, the argument could be made that his UFC on Fox 5 opponent doesn’t represent anything near the best that the division has to offer. But it’s not like Phan is a pushover, and it’s not like we’ve never seen Siver impress before.

Still, it’s time to get confirmation of just how well Siver‘s skills will translate against the upper echelon of the 145-pound weight class, rather than the just adequate.

When we look at the current landscape of the division, many of the top fighters already have impending obligations. Jose Aldo, Frankie Edgar, Erik Koch, Ricardo Lamas and Dustin Poirier all have matches scheduled for the near future.

That means immediate options are sparse, but there are a few viable candidates remaining for Siver‘s next bout.

One option is Cub Swanson, who has strung together three straight knockout wins. The winner of Siver vs. Swanson would produce a possible title contender and the bout would most certainly have some real potential for fireworks.

Alternatively, Charles Oliveira or the winner of Poirier vs. Jonathan Brookins all embody appropriate opponents, though the latter options would keep Siver on the sidelines a little longer.

Chan Sung Jung is another possibility, though his place on the featherweight ladder might be a bit lofty just yet.

Of the scenarios available, I’d like to see Siver get Swanson. If not, at least someone approaching Swanson’s level. He earned an opportunity of that magnitude with his performance on Saturday night.

Siver looks poised to make waves at 145 and there’s certainly no cause to make him take the long road to the top. That’s not to say he should get an easy road, but rather that he’s ready for the hard one, and should begin that journey in earnest as soon as possible.

Watch for the German to continue his ascent in 2013.

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Rory MacDonald: Will He Ever Be Champion If He Doesn’t Face GSP?

It was bound to get awkward eventually. As soon as Rory MacDonald stepped into the UFC’s famed Octagon for the first time almost three years ago, it was obvious that the young Canadian possessed a tremendous amount of potential. As his UFC career…

It was bound to get awkward eventually.

As soon as Rory MacDonald stepped into the UFC’s famed Octagon for the first time almost three years ago, it was obvious that the young Canadian possessed a tremendous amount of potential. As his UFC career progressed, it became apparent that “Ares” was going to find himself in the welterweight title picture before he hit his 24th birthday.

Whether it was his impressive showing in a loss to Carlos Condit in just his second Octagon appearance or his absolute destruction of Mike Pyle barely a year later, every fight fan has had that moment where they’ve realized “Wow, this Rory MacDonald kid is really, really good.”

After watching MacDonald annihilate MMA legend and future UFC hall of famer BJ Penn at UFC on Fox 5 Saturday, it became obvious just how good the Tri-Star-based fighter can really become.

For three full rounds, MacDonald completely had his way with “The Prodigy.” Throwing sharp jabs, connecting on a few beautiful elbows from inside the clinch and even “Ali-shuffling” his way around the cage, MacDonald essentially put on a clinic against one of the most popular and well respected fighters in the history of the sport.

Simply put, MacDonald proved that he’s for real during his beat down of Penn.

The problem is, he may have arrived a bit too soon.

While we all knew that “Ares” was going to be good, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone thought he was going to be this good, this quickly. While it’s never a bad thing to add a new contender to one of the UFC’s toughest divisions, it does become a problem when said contender has no intention of fighting the current champion.

MacDonald’s relationship with Georges St-Pierre has been well-documented. The fighters both fight out of the Tri-Star gym in Montreal under the tutelage of Frias Zahabi, they’ve trained together for most of the last few years and St-Pierre has publicly gone out and said that he believes that MacDonald is a future champion.

They’re friends and they have no intention of ever fighting each other inside the Octagon.

However, we’ve seen training partners swear they’ve wanted no part of each other in the past, only to see the relationship go up in flames when UFC gold gets thrown into the equation. Jon Jones and Rashad Evans seemingly went from best friends to bitter rivals once that elusive belt got between them. But while the situation between Jones and Evans seemed inevitable, it appears that St-Pierre and MacDonald share more of a Josh Koscheck-Jon Fitch (longtime teammates that have refused to fight) type of loyalty.

Unless they decide to split custody of Mike Ricci and part ways, there isn’t going to be a Canadian super fight for the belt any time soon.

This leaves Rory in a tough spot. He’s a championship-caliber fighter at just 23 years old, but St-Pierre is only 31 and is still sitting in the prime of his career.

MacDonald could just stay active and wait for St-Pierre to either get beaten or walk away, but when you look at the success that Anderson Silva is still having at 37 years old, it becomes harder to justify taking that chance.

Any way you look at it, MacDonald has one option if he absolutely refuses to fight GSP: middleweight. Since MacDonald clearly believes he is better suited to fight at 170, that’s not exactly an enticing option.

Right now, MacDonald is still a fight or two away from getting a serious look as a possible title contender, but it’s only a matter of time.

Eventually, he’s going to get the call from the UFC asking him to fight GSP for the title, and when that happens, he may have to make the tough choice.

Like every other fighter, MacDonald’s main goal is to become the best in the world. He may never get there if he refuses to fight St-Pierre.

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BJ Penn Next Fight: Fighter Ruins Legacy Continuing Career in Octagon

B.J. Penn looked absolutely spent Saturday night.Simply saying he lost to Rory MacDonald at UFC on FOX 5 doesn’t do justice to how much MacDonald dominated the fight. Two of the judges scored the fight 30-26 with the third a little closer at 30-27.Figh…

B.J. Penn looked absolutely spent Saturday night.

Simply saying he lost to Rory MacDonald at UFC on FOX 5 doesn’t do justice to how much MacDonald dominated the fight. Two of the judges scored the fight 30-26 with the third a little closer at 30-27.

FightMetric had MacDonald scoring 116 signature strikes to Penn’s 24. In terms of percentages, it came out to 57 percent for MacDonald and a paltry 24 percent for Penn.

At one point, MacDonald dropped his hands and simply taunted his opponent. It’s the ultimate sign of disrespect, but it’s also very telling of Penn’s present ability in the Octagon.

The fight might not have been in the weight class in which Penn has excelled in the past, but it doesn’t change the fact he looked like he had nothing left in the tank.

Penn has “retired” before only to return from hiatus, but this time he should make it official.

Even UFC President Dana White put in his two cents regarding Penn’s future. He told ESPN:

I would love to see BJ Penn retire. I really do love the guy. All the good, the bad, the ugly we’ve been through over the last 13 years—I care about him. He’s got money. He’s got a family that loves him. He’s got a beautiful wife, kids, nothing left to prove. I would like to see BJ ride off into the sunset.

White hit the nail right on the head when he said that Penn has nothing to prove anymore. He career exploits already make him worthy of the UFC Hall of Fame. Nothing he does from now on will change that.

The longer he prolongs his career, however, the further he gets from when he was one of the best fighters in the world. He can’t do anything from now that will change how good he was, but it can alter his legacy. The only place left to go is down at this point.

Brett Favre is one of the greatest quarterbacks in history, but his career was irrevocably damaged by his waffling on whether or not he would return and subsequent stints with the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings.

Mike Tyson hung on way too long and was knocked out by Lennox Lewis, Danny Williams and Kevin McBride. The days of “Iron Mike” are a mere afterthought to his biting Evander Holyfield’s ear and his talking of fading into “Bolivian.”

Fighters especially have a hard time calling it quits.

Whether it’s boxing or MMA, fights can turn with one punch. That’s the attitude that many fighters have. Although their ability is diminished, they firmly believe that they can end a fight with the right opening.

As much as fans might love Penn, they wouldn’t enjoy another fight in which he was thoroughly outclassed again. It leaves another sour image on to the end of his legacy.

Penn has had one of the more illustrious careers in the history of UFC. Now’s not the time to go and mess it all up.

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UFC on Fox 5 Results: Henderson Is a Great Round Fighter, but Not a Great Champ

Oh, hello, plate of crow, nice to see you again.Often, in the world of sports journalism, writers like myself are forced to take back prior assertions and face reality. Sometimes we suck, and I’m not above admitting that. Enter Benson Henderson.Pr…

Oh, hello, plate of crow, nice to see you again.

Often, in the world of sports journalism, writers like myself are forced to take back prior assertions and face reality. Sometimes we suck, and I’m not above admitting that.

Enter Benson Henderson.

Prior to his fight against Nate Diaz at UFC on Fox 5, I gave him the worst odds of any current or interim champ at making the UFC Hall of Fame.

In addition, any time Nate Diaz popped up in a slideshow of mine, I labelled him “future lightweight champion Nathan Diaz.”

I did not see Henderson as a legitimate champion; I thought Frankie Edgar soundly defeated him in their second encounter at UFC 150, and I thought his skill set as champion was only good enough for that singular controversial defense.

Nate Diaz was a better boxer, he had a better ground game, and his constant pressure would throw Bendo off his game and force him into rookie mistakes.

No, no and no.

Henderson masterfully controlled the pace of this fight, and he got the better of Diaz in all areas of the game. Diaz looked flustered and confused, and Bendo‘s riddle proved unsolvable for 209’s finest (and he is 209’s finest).

The champ was utterly dominant, and he proved to me that he belongs atop the lightweight-division rankings after dismantling the dangerous Diaz.

This being said, I’m still not quite sold on Bendo as a great champion.

Like Georges St-Pierre, Henderson controls the pace of his fights and overwhelms his opponents with excellent control and a calculated approach. He is a mathematician, and his opponents can’t solve the formula he dishes out.

You see, Henderson is an excellent rounds fighter. He knows what it takes to win, and he does just that. He never blitzes for a finish, and he’s never looking to completely dismantle his foe. He wins, and he wins convincingly.

That’s good. In fact, that’s sensational. In such a stacked division, earning a title shot—let alone capturing the belt and defending it—is impressive.

The fact remains that Bendo does not strike me as some indestructible force of nature. He does what GSP does, but not quite as good as GSP does it.

His opponents do not seem to fear him, and he does not have any remarkable qualities that are impossible to overcome.

When I look at guys like Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, Jon Jones, Junior dos Santos and even Renan Barao, I see guys who instill fear in their opponents. They can end fights in an instant, and they can make their opponents look downright silly while doing so.

Benson Henderson, to this point, has not shown me he can do this at the highest level. He has zero finishes in his six UFC contests, and he is never doing something that truly amazes and makes you spill your beer.

He is a monster, and he is an absolute tactician inside the Octagon, but he does not strike me as an indestructible force like other champions.

Maybe I’m ordering a dish of crow’s feet for dessert, but I think Benson Henderson still has plenty of work to do to achieve the status of his champion counterparts.

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UFC on Fox 5: What’s Next for the Winners and Losers?

UFC on Fox 5 was billed as the best card on network TV in MMA history, and for the most part it delivered in every way possible.Many of the undercard fights were either fun to watch or fun to see how they ended. The opening fight that took a whopping 2…

UFC on Fox 5 was billed as the best card on network TV in MMA history, and for the most part it delivered in every way possible.

Many of the undercard fights were either fun to watch or fun to see how they ended. The opening fight that took a whopping 20 minutes to build up to ended with a huge KO from Matt Brown, which is always a great way to start off a card.

The BJ Penn-Rory MacDonald fight was tough to watch, but I still couldn’t help but watch just to see Penn truly revert to being nothing more than a punching bag for the Canadian. Alexander Gustafsson and Mauricio Rua had a very entertaining first round, but then the rest of the fight went much of the way everyone had predicted.

In the main event Benson Henderson proved why he’s the best in the world at 155 pounds. It’s always a dangerous situation for a title fight to go all five rounds on network TV, but Nate Diaz did enough to warrant fans’ continued interest as he showcased his BJJ skills despite being dominated.

The event was very entertaining to watch and discuss while on Twitter, but where do the fighters go from here? Let’s look into the MMA crystal ball to see what’s next for the winners and losers from the UFC on Fox 5 card.

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BJ Penn: An In-Depth Analysis of His UFC on Fox 5 Performance

Once again, BJ Penn has been roughed up and run over by another legitimate welterweight, and once again we are left to ponder if such a loss will send him into retirement, perhaps permanently this time. When looking at Penn’s performance against …

When looking at Penn’s performance against Rory MacDonald, we see much that has remained the same over his past few outings, and that seems to be a vast contrast to his fights at lightweight.

So, when looking at it under the microscope, so to speak, how do we think Penn did? Granted, he was in there against a rising star that enjoyed the advantages of reach, youth, strength and perhaps even hype, but in the end, Penn held his own future in his hands.

Perhaps one of the glaring holes in his showing against MacDonald is that he chose to fight the wrong fight against a man so much longer and younger than himself. Perhaps this is just a matter of hubris for a man with as much talent as Penn, but it’s clear that he’s not learning from his mistakes.

Penn didn’t use nearly as much movement as he should have. Against MacDonald, he should have been constantly circling and giving angles instead of plodding forward or backward.

He never really gave MacDonald anything other that a mainly stationary target when he should have been giving him a great deal of movement and feints. It seems obvious that he’s come to expect that he’s not going to get to land the heavy leather unless he is planted and can thus explode from there, and given the reach disadvantage he had, that simply wasn’t going to work.

Then, he didn’t respond with energy or desperation due the moment whenever he was pinned against the cage. It’s very good not to panic, but you have to get out of any spot that would be found in your opponent’s wheelhouse, and the clinch game clearly favored MacDonald.

After his last loss to Nick Diaz, this should have been obvious to Penn and he should have done damn near anything to get out of those positions, even if it looked like he was running for a moment.

Another opportunity for improvement for Penn is more defensive head movement to go along with constant circling when his opponent is at range. Penn is small for the division, and MacDonald was basically able to hit Penn with many kicks and jabs, mainly because Penn wasn’t doing enough to make himself anything other than a predictable, stationary target.

Then, of course, comes the question of commitment. Penn knew MacDonald was going to have many advantages while the bout was standing, but he didn’t commit to attacking like a man who knows it is better to give than receive.

He should have come in conditioned enough to throw at least 100 strikes per round, if not more. You can’t keep anyone on the defensive if you don’t give them anything to worry about, and Penn seemed to be either trying to keep MacDonald at bay or to play catch up on the score cards; neither of those plans speak very well for being aggressive toward the end of finishing a fight with strikes.

Lastly, it has become clear in Penn’s time at welterweight that he is slowly beginning to show his inner Quinton “Rampage” Jackson—never mixing things up with kicks and knees and elbows to go along with the punches. That simply won’t win him any fights in a division where his opponents are going to be bigger than he is, and it certainly failed him against MacDonald.

If Penn honestly wants to contend at welterweight, he must make drastic changes that include a brand-new conditioning program and a devotion to smart game plans. In short, he needs to start training with a group of fighters in a camp where he isn’t in charge; learning new things and new ways to apply them requires a student’s mindset, not that of a teacher.

He could always go back and spend some time with Randy Couture or perhaps even throw convention to the wind and train with someone like Frankie Edgar, who knows all about constant movement, effective counters and the like.

Over all, Penn’s performance was typical of the Penn that fights at welterweight, and that’s not the best Penn he can produce.

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