MMA's 3 R's 8.10.09: UFC 101 - Declaration Aftermath

Posted by Matt McEwen on 08.10.2009

Penn and Silva prove why they are the best, MMA judging comes under the gun once again, a new star may have been born, bad fight predictions and more! 411’s Matt McEwen discusses these topics and more in the latest edition of MMA’s 3R’s!



The Column Concept:
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of the column, here it is. The column will look at events and or happenings in the world of MMA. They will be broken down into the three categories, the Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous. The Right will be the good and great fights or positive news items of the week. Perhaps even big fight announcements. The wRong will be bad fights, bad booking decisions and the like. Finally, the Ridiculous are the things that were just the worst of the world of MMA. They get grouped in their categories, and for a show, they will get a score from 1-10, based on the 411 ratings scale.

THE SHOW



The Prelims:
* Welterweights: Jesse Lennox defeats Danillo Villefort by TKO (cut) at 3:37 of 3rd round - Fight stopped by a cut the referee ruled came from a punch, but replays showed came for an accidental headbutt

* Lightweights: George Sotiropoulos defeats George Roop by submission to a kimura at 1:59 of the 2nd round

* Welterweights: Matt Riddle defeats Dan Cramer by unanimous decision (29-27, 30-26, 30-27) - sounds like each judge watched a different fight....haven't seen the fight myself yet though

* Middleweights: Alessio Sakara defeats Thales Leites by split decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28) - another set of odd scores, but by all accounts, the snooziest fight of the night

* Welterweights: John Howard defeats Tamdan McCrory by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) - at least the scores make sense this time....by all accounts a good, solid fight

The Main Card:

* Lightweights: Kurt Pellegrino defeats Josh Neer by unanimous decision (30-27 across the board)

* Middleweights: Ricardo Almeida defeats Kendall Grove by unanimous decision (30-27 across the board)

* Welterweights: Johny Hendricks defeats Amir Sadollah by TKO (strikes) at 0:29 of the 1st round

* Welterweights: Aaron Riley defeats Shane Nelson by unanimous decision (30-27 across the board)

* Light Heavyweights: Anderson Silva defeats Forrest Griffin by KO at 3:23 of the 1st round

* Lightweight Championship: BJ Penn (c) defeats Kenny Florian by Submission (RNC) at 3:45 of the 4th round

THE RIGHT:

The Elite Return to Being Elite

Hindsight might be 20/20 in saying this, but I am not sure that BJ Penn or Anderson Silva have ever been anything other than elite, but if there was any doubt, it was erased Saturday night.

First, needing to answer the critics who have been hounding him over his last two performances, Silva stepped up and took on a former holder of the hot potato known as the Light Heavyweight title, outclassed him, dropped him twice, and KO'd him with a jab...while backing up. This was not a quick beating of lower or mid level 205lb fighter, this was a destruction of a guy who is the 4th ranked light heavyweight and 14th pound for pound in the sport. Only one word comes to mind - ridiculous. It was an amazing performance that has sparked talk of Silva possibly vacating the 185lb title and moving up to light heavy on a permanent basis. That might be the only thing that makes sense for Silva at this point, as there are few contenders at 185lbs that pose a challenge to him. Dan Henderson (the likely next challenger) and Nate Marquardt are solid fighters, but would be getting their second shot at the champ, and Demian Maia is the only fresh challenger who might interest, or might pull a Thales Leites after eating a punch or two.

At 205, there are enough interesting fights that Silva could be challenged, and likely finish out his career with a string of high level fights. Rampage Jackson, Keith Jardine, Rashad Evans, Shogun Rua and Luiz Cane would all be very interesting match ups, and, of course, there is the fight EVERYONE would like to see now. Both have said there is no way they would do it, but Silva vs Machida may have just become the biggest superfight the UFC could put together now.

As for Penn, he looks next to unstoppable at 155lbs. Coming into the fight in undoubtedly the best shape of his life, Penn was never in danger against Florian, a legitimate contender - ranked number 2 in the weight class and at 12 pound for pound - who had been running through the division for the past 2 years, yet never even came close to putting Penn in any trouble. The beating that Penn took at the hands of Georges St. Pierre and the ensuing controversy about vaseline seemed to have tainted the memory of Penn's abilities to many fans, but anyone who needed a reminder of how good Penn is got it Saturday night. His next challenger is likely going to be Diego Sanchez, but "The Nightmare" is likely to find Penn more than he can handle on the feet, will have a hard time taking him down, and if he does, Penn's jiu jitsu as displayed against Florian gives him an advantage there as well. The same goes for Gray Maynard, the likely next in line challenger. Like Silva, Penn seems to have the division wrapped up for the time being, but unlike Silva, Penn does not really have the option to move up in weight. He would likely be competitive against many at 170lbs, but to be in the shape he needs to be in to not have his cardio be an issue, Penn needs to fight at 155lbs.

Any questions about the skills or abilities of Silva and Penn were resoundingly answered Saturday night, and the questions have gone from "Are they really as good as we thought" to "Can anyone even challenge these guys?"



No First Time Jitters Here

Johnny Hendricks, meet the MMA universe.

MMA universe, meet Johnny Hendricks.

Yes, the ending of the fight was questionable, but the 30 seconds that came before it - let alone the uppercut that set it up - served notice that Hendricks is likely going to be a pretty big factor in the welterweight division for the next few years. He was supposed to be a great wrestler with few other high level skills, but the dirty boxing he put on display against the slightly favored Sadollah was a thing of beauty.

Even more impressive might have been Hendricks showing post-PPV. On MMA Live's post fight show on ESPN.com, Hendricks handled questions about the stoppage with class and insight, very thoughtfully discussed his skill set and came out of the show - and the post fight press conference - looking like the UFC might have it's next big time star on their hands. When a guy comes into the sport with one of the best wrestling pedigrees ever, shows the ability to quickly had good striking, the work ethic and lack of ego to develop the skills he does not have and the charisma and personality of a star to boot.....the UFC might have hit a goldmine in Mr. Hendricks.



Honesty

Ricardo Almeida started off the honesty policy by explaining how tight the armbar that Kendall Groves caught him in was, and how he planned to get out of it. When asked if he was close to tapping, Almeida said that while the armbar was tight and locked, he was just waiting for his elbow to pop so he could pull it out. The end result? An arm that Almeida could not straighten out, and a unanimous decision victory.

But the real champion of honesty for the night was Kurt Pellegrino.

While his fight with Josh Neer did not live up to expectations as the potential Fight of the Night, Pellegrino was not afraid to tell everyone why. At the post fight press conference, Pellegrino was asked about what his game plan was coming in, and how he executed it. In answer, and I am paraphrasing here slightly, Pellegrino said that he did not think Neer would be able to handle his right hand, but he hit him clean with it and Neer did not blink. Plan A went out the window and he immediately fell back to his wrestling base. When asked about the bitch slap he hit Neer with at one point, Pellegrino said that in spite of landing several punches and elbows, Neer was telling him that he "hit like a bitch." After delivering the slap, Pellegrino responded, "Well, now you just got hit like one."

Mr Neer - you are an insanely tough bastard. Mr Pellegrino - you are one funny bastard.

THE wRong.

Me

Before I point the wRong finger at anyone else, I have to point it squarely at myself. Go check out the Roundtable and my picks.

I picked Neer and Grove to win by decision, and Griffin to win by TKO (and yes, it is hard to type with this much egg on my face). I did get Johnny Hendricks' win right, but I also picked decision and though Hendricks would grind out a boring win.

I did come close by picking Penn to win by sub in Round 3, but that hardly makes up for being so badly off for the other 4 fights on the main card. Maybe next time....



Criticizing Griffin

I will admit, that while watching the fight, I found the way it ended to be very, very odd. The walking away jab as a KO blow, Forrest putting his hands up in what looked like a "No More" posture, and then immediately high tailing it to the back - it all added up to a very weird fight and seemed quite out of character for Griffin.

The world of internet warriors immediately starting throwing out theories, which ranged from the preposterous - Griffin threw the fight - to the insulting - Griffin just quit.

They are both far from the truth.

Yes, a lot of people expected more out of Griffin. I know I did - I picked him to win. I would imagine that no one expected more out of him than Griffin himself. But going into the ring with a game plan - and I'm sure he had one - is a different thing than being able to execute said game plan on someone the level of Silva. I think the game plan went right out the window when that first punch from Silva landed and Griffin realized the kind of punching power he was dealing. Along with what is apparently a dislocated jaw and some hopefully temporary deafness in one ear, I do not imagine there was much in the way of thought going through Griffin's head by the time the fight was over.

So while many people are bad talking Griffin for quickly leaving the cage after the fight, keep in mind that he walked out of the Octagon and went straight into an ambulance.

THE RIDICULOUS:



MMA Judging HAS to change

I am going to stop well short of saying anyone was robbed of a win by the judges on Saturday night, but take a second and go back and look at the scores of the prelim fights that went to the score cards. Matt Riddle wins a unanimous decision, but one judge scores it 30-26 which is a blowout, one scores it 29-27 which gives Riddle one 10-8 round and one round to Cramer, and the final judge has it 28-27. How two judges can award a 10-8, and one doesn't, and why the first judge scored all three rounds for Riddle while the other two clearly saw Cramer taking a round.....we need some level of uniformity.

Even odder are the scores in the Sakara/Leites fight. Leites loses the split decision, but one judge thought he won all three rounds. Again...we need some form of uniformity.

The main card wasn't free of judging issues either. In the opener, Josh Neer was very, very active from his back with submissions and strikes, and I thought he very well may have won the first round. But Joe Rogan said it all when he said that Neer is on his back, so you know he's losing the round. Sad, but true.

Even more glaring was the second round of Grove/Almeida. Grove's guard was very active, and the armbar he put on Almeida in the second is as close to finishing a fight as you can get without doing so. For the rest of that round, the striking was a wash, but Almeida had takedowns and was on top. All three judges scored the round 10-9 Almeida, which I think is ridiculous. Almeida won the fight, but he certainly lost that round.

The rumblings from fans, fighters and insiders are not going to go away as long as these kind of scores keep showing up in fights. I will not say that I know the solution, but something has to be done to correct this as it is happening far too often at this point.

The 411

By no means was this a great PPV. No fight was particularly exciting, and even the two KO's on the night were more weird than exhilarating. At the same time though, there were no bad fights on the card, and it did have two of the five best fighters in the world putting on performances that answered a lot of questions about both of them.. The good outweighed the mediocre, but just barely.
SHOW RATING: 6.0