The Greatest MMA News Column 8.10.09: UFC 101 Fallout

Posted by Dan Plunkett on 08.10.2009

UFC 101 has come and gone, so join 411's Dan Plunkett as he takes a look at all things Silva vs. Griffin, BJ Penn submitting Kenny Florian, the UFC at Fenway, some possible changes to upcoming UFC and Strikeforce cards, a tribute to the latest octagon girl to be given the axe, and much more!

What am I doing on Monday you ask? Jeremy Lambert attended some MMA event in Philly this weekend, so we switched days this week, which means you can find the Cardio Freak MMA News Report tomorrow. But now, onto the Greatest MMA Column!

Silva DESTROYS Griffin

Anderson Silva has been talked about as being the best pound-for-pound fighter for well over a year. Personally, I have ranked Georges St. Pierre in the number one spot in my time here at 411. That will surely change.

You can say Forrest Griffin fought Silva's fight. You can say he was a tailor made opponent to highlight Silva's strengths. Those assessments may be true; however, you can't deny that a middleweight moving up and embarrassing a top 5 light heavyweight is an incredible feat.

Of course now the talk will start that Forrest is overrated, that he was given a gift decision over a not-at-his-best Rampage Jackson, and that he fought an out of shape Shogun Rua. I think we'll get an idea of how good Forrest is in his next fight, and until then everything is speculation. I don't want to talk about how good Forrest may or may not be though; I want to talk about how great Anderson Silva was on Saturday night.



Had I not seen the event and I was told that Anderson beat Forrest, I wouldn't be surprised at all, in fact I expected it. I knew going into the fight that Silva would probably win, probably in spectacular fashion. Yet watching the fight, I was in complete awe.

This fight was far worse than domination. All I could say while watching was "ooh," "oh shit," "holy shit," and "oh my God." Anderson taunting Forrest, showing amazing head movement, just walking forward with his hands down dodging punch after punch. We saw a sample of it in the second Rich Franklin fight, but this was just on another level.



The final blow was even worse for Forrest. It was almost Petruzellian in that Anderson was moving back and threw a right hand. There wasn't much behind it; it was just an arm punch. There are reports that Forrest had dislocated his jaw and couldn't hear out of one ear. If that's true, it certainly would have contributed to the end of the fight. I would like to think that the first two knockdowns took so much out of him that he simply couldn't continue. But you would think a guy that can't continue fighting wouldn't be able to get up and run out of the arena.

It's possible that he felt that he was seriously injured and needed to get it checked out right away. Though if he thought he was seriously hurt why would he shrug off the cage-side doctor? Another popular theory is that he quit. He realized that there was no way he could beat Anderson, and if he stood up he would just get knocked out again. Forrest has never seemed like the fighter to do that though, but he was never dominated like this.



Truth is, we won't know what lead to the end of the fight until we hear from Forrest. And who knows where the hell he is now.

Anderson's performance should transcend the language barrier that he has with the American fans. I certainly hope that his next fight is bought by many more people than his previous fights have been bought by. Everything about his performance on Saturday was just beautiful and full of his personality. From his facial expressions to hearing the fans boo him, to the incredible bobbing and weaving, to the knockout, Anderson Silva should be a guy that 50 people clamor around a small TV to watch. He's just amazing. His performance truly was a ballet of violence.



After ravaging Griffin, what's next for Anderson? The common thought is that Dan Henderson is next in line, which I would love to see. However, Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports is reporting that Ed Soares, Anderson's manager, brought up to Dana White the idea that Anderson would move to light heavyweight permanently. "I like that, we can do that," White replied.

I do not like that.

Yes, Anderson has dominated the middleweight division, and he's beaten pretty much everybody there, but I would like to see him stay there for a few reasons.

Firstly, there are still some interesting fights for him there. Dan Henderson matches up well with Silva stylistically, and while "The Spider" already holds a submission victory over Hendo, there is a lot of intrigue behind that rematch with both coming off knockout wins. After that, the winner of Nate Marquardt vs. Demian Maia could be an interesting challenger. Marquardt already had his shot at Silva, but I believe that if he gets it to the ground he has a chance at dethroning him. Maia has incredible skill on the ground, and he would need to get it there to win. Everybody seems to have less interest in that matchup since Silva's boring decision victory over BJJ expert Thales Leites, but I give Maia the benefit of the doubt.

After that, I wouldn't be completely against Anderson moving up to 205 full time, but there is one more fight I would like to see. I propose that should Anderson defeat Henderson and Marquardt/Maia, he can go up to the light heavyweight division for a year. During that year, Georges St. Pierre can put on the necessary weight to bulk up for a middleweight title bout against Silva. I know people will think I'm crazy since Silva just destroyed a big light heavyweight in Griffin, and they'll say that GSP is too small, but I think that's a very interesting matchup. GSP wouldn't be able to stand for too long, but he has some of the best takedowns in MMA, and one of the best top games in MMA.

Just getting up and leaving the middleweight division would leave the division in a bad spot. It has historically been the worst draw of the UFC's divisions, and the belt holder would be hurt by the thought that he never actually beat the champion to gain it. I believe the UFC should always want a champion to leave the belt with more prestige than it had before them. If Anderson loses the belt, it would certainly have more prestige, but if he just vacates it, the belt would mean nothing.

Lastly, and the thing that is being overlooked in this, Anderson would be free to leave the UFC after his current 3-fight deal is up if he moved up to light heavyweight. While he is the middleweight champion, he can't leave due to the champion's clause, where as long as he holds the belt his contract rolls over.

Anderson has made no secret about his desire to box Roy Jones Jr. while UFC President Dana White is against completely against the idea. If he moves up to light heavyweight, he doesn't want to fight current title holder Lyoto Machida due to their friendship, so with no title he could be very tempted to go and fulfill his dream of boxing Roy Jones. I don't blame Anderson, by all means do it if you really want to, but I'm not crazy about the fight, though there's no doubt I would buy it on PPV.


The Prodigy is Back

Throughout BJ Penn's entire career, he has been very highly regarded for his talents. Going into Saturday night, Penn's 13-5-1 record didn't exactly resemble that of one of the best fighters in the world. After a dominating loss to Georges St. Pierre, there were a lot of people dismissing Penn as overrated.

At UFC 101, Penn took on the #3 ranked lightweight in the world, Kenny Florian. After it was over, there's no question that BJ is the best lightweight in MMA.

After being rocked twice in the first round, Kenny used his game plan and tried to tire BJ out by pushing him against the cage. There was no way Kenny was going to take BJ down, but I guess he was assuming that BJ wasn't in good shape and that he could tire him out and take the fight in the later rounds. Assuming your opponent is in bad shape is a very bad strategy. By the time you realize that hey, maybe his cardio has improved a lot, you've wasted the majority of the rounds in the fight. Kenny was behind going into the fourth round. I had BJ winning every round, since Kenny had little offense while pressed against the cage and every time they separated BJ landed some good shots.

In the fourth round BJ decided that he didn't really feel like being pushed up against the fence anymore, so he picked Kenny up and took him down easily. BJ might have the best top game in MMA, and he probably has the best control from the mount and back. Once he gets your back, it's done, unless of course your name is Caol Uno.



After the choke out, it was nice to see BJ get on the good side of the fans again. I've always liked BJ, and decided a long time ago to completely ignore everything that happened in the whole "greasegate" thing.

One thing the UFC does is put up a stream of the locker rooms of the top fighters. The stream was still up after the main event, and to see Kenny Florian, a man who just had a dream that seemed like it was about to be realized just minutes ago snatched away from him, was completely dejecting. I was happy that BJ won, but I didn't really care about that after seeing Ken-Flo with his face in his hands. I can only imagine what he felt at that time, and he was probably feeling even worse than that.

This was Kenny's second shot at the lightweight title, usually that means he'll never get another shot. I think that Kenny can make his way back up to a title shot though. He wasn't completely destroyed, he's still a very good fighter, and if he works on his wrestling a lot, maybe he'll be able to finish the takedown next time, and who knows what happens from there.

---

---

Diaz vs. Hieron Could Be Off

Nick Diaz was supposed to take a drug test on Friday, but he no showed. He can take the test on Monday, but the results may not be back in time for the event, which takes place on August 15. I really hope Nick takes the test and the results get back in time, this is one of the few fights Strikeforce can give him in which he is matched up with a top welterweight.

If this fight doesn't happen, it's completely unacceptable on Nick's part. They won't release him, but he should be punished in some form. Jay Hieron was supposed to fight on the Affliction card, and now he may not even fight on the Strikeforce card. The dude hasn't done anything wrong and yet he still has to deal with the ramifications of the mistakes of others. It's just not fair.

On the bright side, the event is only a week away and it will be a good one. I'm very excited for Carano vs. Cyborg, and it should be a great fight. It will be very interesting to see how both women react to not only the 5 rounds, but the 5 minute rounds.

James Irvin Gets Hurt, Ed Herman Steps in, Then His Opponent Wilson Gouveia Gets Hurt

This is a bad situation. Herman was supposed to fight Aaron Simpson at UFN 19, but Dan Miller has replaced him in that fight, so he can't go back to it. So who could fight Ed Herman at UFC 102? Let's investigate.

Tom Lawlor: "Just Bleed Guy 2.0" would be a possible replacement. He beat CB Dollaway at UFC 100 in under a minute, so I'm sure he's healthy but it's just a matter of if he's been training since that fight.

Alan Belcher: Many think "The Talent" was robbed of a victory over Sexyama at UFC 100. He wasn't injured during the fight, so no medical suspension for him. For him it's also a matter of if he's been training or not since his last fight.

Drew McFedries/Thomas Drwal: These two are scheduled to fight at UFC 103, but one could be pulled off the card and become Herman's opponent. You could take one of the names above and switch them with one of the guys in this fight, that way they would have more time to train and such.

---

This week saw the UFC release ring card girl Edith Labelle. She may have been my least favorite ring card girl, but that doesn't mean I can't dedicate this part of the column to here.

---

UFC to Fenway?

UFC President Dana White stated at the post fight press conference that they were thinking of bringing the UFC to Boston's famed Fenway Park once the sport is sanctioned there. Fenway is the oldest MLB stadium, opening in 1912. The stadium holds around 37,000 for baseball, but if the UFC came there it would open up much of the field.

I've seen smaller MMA events at various independent league baseball fields, and I can't say they're ideal places to hold MMA events. It just looks weird to me. If they do it right, it could be very cool to hold a UFC event in Fenway. It will be interesting to see if they stack the event and try to sell 40,000 seats, or if they think people will just come because it's the UFC at Fenway.



The ideal time to do it would probably be in the summer when the Red Sox are on a long road trip, or during the MLB All Star break and the Sox have a road series after the All Star game. That would give them an adequate amount of time to set everything up and take everything down when they're done.

The UFC at Fenway may just be intriguing enough for me to make the trip up to Boston.




That's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed the column. Feel free to leave feedback. You can follow me on twitter if you please. Thanks for reading.

TWITTER

FOLLOW ME!
http://www.twitter.com/411mania
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma