Delayed Reactions 09.12.08: UFC 88

Posted by Luken Weaver on 09.12.2008

Are Chuck Liddell's days as a top fighter over? Not quite, but he'll have to tweak his game to stay in the elite. Plus, late thoughts on Randy's return and the UFC's approach to unifying the title. Who should be up next for Kurt Pellegrino? And why is everyone from Jackson Submission Fighting tweaking their nipples? All this, plus other delayed reactions to UFC 88.

During this year's Olympics, Usain Bolt set a world record by running 200 meters in 19.30 seconds. The next runner crossed the finish line about a half-second later, and in the half-second after that all but two of the runners had finished. Everyone said that Bolt had absolutely blown away the field, and they were, of course, right. A half-second is a lot. For contrast, the three Americans in the final race all crossed within three thousandths of a second of each other. A half-second is a lifetime.

On the other hand, if you were to run all of those racers one at a time, and just watched them without a stopwatch, you'd probably be hard-pressed to say who was faster than who. I know I'd have trouble with it, at least. A half-second isn't very much, at all.

The man whose record Bolt broke, Michael Johnson, set his record in 1996. He doesn't race anymore. And it's a good thing, too, because while Bolt is the first man to even approach Johnson's record, let alone break it, we all know what would happen if the two were to race today. Johnson would get killed. Even if he had trained intensively the whole time, most anyone will lose a step over the course of more than a decade. Hypothetically speaking, if he were very lucky, Johnson might be one second slower than he used to be, which would still make him faster than 99.99% of humanity. But, at the highest level of competition, that one second is the difference between unbeatable record-holder and lurking at the back of the pack. If a half-second is a lifetime, a whole second is an eternity.

This obviously, is a column about MMA, not track and field. Few of the people who might read this ever cared about Michael Johnson or Usain Bolt. I was never that interested in them, myself. But I couldn't help but think about them after I saw Chuck Liddell, who debuted at UFC 17 only two years after Johnson set his record, get knocked out cold with his iconic fist not two inches away from its target.

How long does it take Chuck Liddell's fist to travel two inches? A thousandth of a second? Less? Forever?

The point being that most everyone will slow down a bit by 38, even if it's only a little. But a little is still too much. If you watched Liddell spar or work a heavy bag he'd probably look much the same as he always has. His coaches, his training partners, even Liddell himself might not be able to tell the difference. A thousandth of a second is barely perceptible, after all. But an MMA match, or any of a number of high-level sports competitions, breaks down to a series of moments that are often determined by ridiculously small units of time, space, and force. I think that Evans knocking out Liddell the way he did was as striking a demonstration of that as I've ever seen. At 28, Liddell probably blasts Evans to pieces in that exchange. At 38, he gives Evans just enough time to slip his head to the side and play tetherball with Liddell's chin. And the difference between these two extremes is hardly anything at all.

I'm not saying Liddell isn't an elite fighter anymore. A victory over him is still enough to all but guarantee a top-10 ranking (and/or title shot, in Evans' case) and rightfully so. He still is not that far removed from his excellent performance in convincingly besting rival Wanderlei Silva. And there's precedent in former foe Randy Couture that a fighter can stay competitive at ages north of 40. To be fair, in the UFC it can be hard to tell the difference between a fighter who just had a series of bad nights and happened to be aging, and a fighter who "got old," just because fighters fight so rarely that as a fan you can't get a sense of their rhythm, whether they're steadily declining or just at the low point of a roller coaster. Liddell fought three times in the past year, not an uncommonly low number, and lost twice. If a football team loses twice in a year, they're in pretty good shape. Anyone can have an off night, but it's harder to keep them in perspective when you only get to ply your trade three times a year. So maybe, just maybe, that's all that has been going on with Chuck Liddell.

That tiny ray of hope aside, the overwhelming probability is an unhappy one. Liddell has slowed down. But the part about him still being an elite fighter is true, and there are "quick fixes" that Liddell can do to stay competitive at that level. He doesn't have to become a ground-and-pound specialist, for example, but he'd be well-served to diversify his offense to keep from being predictable. This includes using different striking techniques from just going for the kill with every punch. He showed many of these skills earlier in his career. And I'd love to see him utilize more takedowns, even if it's just to keep his opponent off-guard like he did against Silva. He's not fighting on even terms if he's the only one who has to worry about a takedown, and people are beginning to key in on this fact. Thankfully for Liddell, he has all the tools in his toolbox already, he just has to dust them off.

But it will be harder for Liddell than it was for Couture to stay at the top, and it's largely just an issue of style. More than anything else, Liddell's style has always keyed off of being a harder, faster, more accurate puncher than his opponents, and being able to absorb punishment in order to dish it out. Well, what are some of the first things to go as you age? Reflexes, speed, and durability are all among them. So I'm impressed that Liddell has stayed as good as he is, and is still one of the best in the world. I'll never write him off. But it's going to take a lot of work, and some careful matchmaking, for him to climb back up to the mountaintop at this point.

As for Rashad Evans… the guy is very, very good, and is deserving of far more hype than he's been getting (I'm aware that I'm playing right into it by writing more about a guy he beat than about Evans himself; this is partly due to the fact that hype and attention beget more of themselves in a weird kind of cycle... the other part is that I'm hypocritical and lazy). He's got a strong wrestling base, and his striking is so underrated that anytime you heard someone compliment it before the Liddell fight, chances are good they used the word "underrated" instead of something actually complimentary. I'll go one step farther and say it's good. His fast hands, good footwork, and efficient technique make him a threat to anyone. Marry his excellent talents with the gameplanning of reigning MMA mad genius Greg Jackson and some fierce pre-fight nipple tweaking and you could very well see him take the belt from champion Forrest Griffin. Maybe even in convincing fashion. When and if that happens, I'll be sure to mention it in my column about Griffin's short championship tenure.

(Just kidding, I'd write about Evans.)

(Probably.)


There Is No Champion

Granted, Randy Couture's return happened a while ago, but that's one of the benefits of calling this thing "Delayed Reactions": It's a ready-made excuse to address things well after the fact.

Anyway, I'm psyched with how the UFC is handling his return. Couture was never stripped of the title, so technically he's still the champ. Nogueira is the interim champion, and ideally would fight Couture to unify the belt right away, but he's already slated to fight Frank Mir and they've filmed an entire season of TUF to build it up. So they're not going to cancel that fight.

What's their solution? Have Couture fight Brock Lesnar, who despite having only one UFC victory probably already generates more excitement than the rest of the heavyweight division combined. The winner fights whoever emerges victorious from Mir/Nogueira to become the undisputed heavyweight champion, in what is as close to a tournament as Dana White has ever allowed outside of TUF. And I couldn't be happier about it.

Since this plan was announced, there have been two major criticisms of it from the MMA fan community. The first is that Fabricio Werdum is being left out in the cold. The second has to do with titles and who deserves them ("Brock Lesnar gets to fight for the title after one victory?" "Why wasn't Randy stripped of his title?" "It's a disrespect to Nog, he earned the championship!" or some permutation of those ideas).

Concerning Werdum: Unfortunately for him, he hasn't looked that great in the UFC. He was made to look like a patsy by Arlovski in his debut. He has since rolled off two wins against solid competition, which is indeed twice as many as Lesnar, but neither were the sort that puts the world on notice. He was losing handily to Gonzaga before GG gassed hard. His win over Vera should have been solid, but it will always be slightly colored by the controversy over Dan Miragliotta's stoppage of the fight. Werdum's an excellent fighter who was probably at the front of the line for a title shot, but that position was almost granted by default and he hasn't done anything to drum up excitement for the possibility of seeing him compete for a title. In this sort of instance, I don't think the UFC's decision that one hugely dominating win over Herring is worth more than two so-so victories over Vera and Gonzaga to be any great injustice.

The other side of it is that this could very well work in Werdum's favor. While this mini-tourney unfolds, Werdum will have fought Junior dos Santos, whom he should beat handily, and maybe one more fight, probably against another man far less threatening than any of the four in the tournament. If he's truly worthy of a title shot, then this waiting period is just a chance to solidify his position as #1 contender, and be the guy waiting for the first shot at the champion (whoever it turns out to be) when the dust clears. Not a terrible position to be in.

The other complaint, about who's officially a title-holder and whatnot, is coped with quite neatly by considering the heavyweight title, for all intents and purposes, vacant. Randy Couture does not still hold the championship after so many months of inactivity. He holds half the championship, which is little more than a ticket to fight for the whole thing, and a convenient excuse to make his semi-final bout against Brock Lesnar a five-rounder in the meantime.

There's no reason to be worried about Big Nog. He was never officially the undisputed champion, anyway, and his fight with Mir has been scheduled for months. His life doesn't tangibly change at all with this plan.

As for Lesnar, of course he doesn't deserve a title shot right now. But who would really consider him the heavyweight champion if he beats Couture, with Nogueira/Mir hanging around as the interim champ? He'll still have to fight once more, against the type of opponent (jiu-jitsu powerhouse) that should be his kryptonite. So regardless of his current inexperience, before Lesnar is a legitimate champion, he'll have to have beaten Herring, Couture, and Nogueira/Mir in a row. If that actually happens, his credentials will be rock-solid.

In other words, excepting the possibility of Werdum having a convincing win and still being passed over as first challenger, however this situation turns out will be, in retrospect, exactly how it should have turned out all along. I'm just going to relax and enjoy watching.


Quick Hits

Top to bottom, UFC 88 was probably one of the deepest cards of the modern era ("modern" in this case meaning since the UFC started putting on shows on a fairly regular, monthly basis). Without exception, every fight on the card included at least one name that would drum up interest amongst dedicated fans. Also without exception, every fight was at least semi-competitive and interesting. We got a little of everything: a huge upset, a top knock-out of the past several years, two split decisions, a liver-kick KO, the always-rare "match-up that looks like a surefire bet to be Fight of the Night and actually comes through", and a guy entering to music from the Conan soundtrack. If only there had been a flying gogoplata, I would have completed my MMA scavenger hunt in one event. I mean, this show was packed. I'll bet that's why Dana White decided to secretly have someone injure Karo Parisyan's back at the last minute. He realized it would be better to save his match-up with Yoshiyuki Yoshida for later.

Anyway, with so much happening at once, it'd be impossible to do it all justice without flirting with a 10,000 word count, and I just don't hate you enough to put you through that. Instead, I'm going to try the bullet-point thing which is so popular these days.

(Actually, it's going to be numbered instead of bulleted because I just realized I have no idea whether bullets would format correctly when I upload the column. So here's "11 things I think I thought I mused". The number 11 has no significance whatsoever other than that's what I had when I was done, but let's just pretend I intended it that way. I'm an idiot when it comes to these things, bear with me.)

1. I'm fairly confident that Dan Henderson will be able to grind out decisions against solid middleweights well into his forties. It's just what he does. Against good prospects like Rousimar Palhares, that's nothing to sneeze at, either.

2. That said, Henderson still has quite a bit of drawing power from his hey-day in Pride. But if the only people the UFC puts him up against are the alpha dogs who can beat him and talented, but fairly anonymous, prospects, I can't help but think he's being somewhat squandered.

3. I know I mentioned this before, but there is something about nipple-tweaking going on at Greg Jackson's camp. First Georges St. Pierre, and now Rashad Evans, both before career performances? I'm telling you, Jackson discovered something. Something dark.

4. I love watching Kurt Pellegrino fight these days. Even in his loss to Nate Diaz, he was dominating and entertaining before he got overconfident and took himself down into a triangle. We need to get him in a match against someone like Frankie Edgar, Clay Guida, or Roger Huerta as soon as possible. There's no reason this shouldn't happen.

5. Also from the Pellegrino-Tavares fight, I want to know whether I'm the only one who consciously thought at points throughout the fight, "Man, I'm glad Dan Miragliotta isn't refereeing." We should have a name for an instance when a fight rightly keeps going, but there's a good possibility Miragliotta would have stopped it had he been in charge. I counted two such instances in the Pellegrino fight, one when he had Tavares in trouble on the ground in the first round, and then again when he had an armbar locked in and Tavares pseudo-tapped before escaping/being released. I propose that we call it a Mirg, and that it be worth ½ a win. Pellegrino scored two Mirgs and the victory, so he should get two wins on his record.

6. I also love the way Bruce Buffer barks "Batman!" when announcing Pellegrino. I just wanted to throw that out there.

7. I don't really have anything interesting to say about it, but it wouldn't feel right if I didn't mention Nate Marquardt's excellent first-round stoppage of Martin Kampmann. Just an excellent performance against a very skilled opponent.

8. Someone more creative than me should come up with a good nickname for Jason MacDonald that somehow captures how well-padded his carotid arteries must be.

9. I don't know what to think about Dong Hyun Kim's split-decision victory over a surprisingly game Matt Brown. After his multi-faceted destruction of Jason Tan, I was all aboard the Dong bandwagon as a future contender. Meanwhile, while he obviously had heart and toughness and his housemates were always somewhat terrified of him, Brown never showed a whole lot in the cage that indicated he could be successful at this level. So should I be disappointed in Kim, or incredibly impressed with Brown? I'm not saying it can't be both, I'm just asking in what proportion.

10. I also don't know what to think about Rich Franklin as a light heavyweight. Clearly, his skills and excellent gameplans can keep him competitive, as shown by his body-kick KO of Matt Hamill (those are always fun), and he's intriguingly quick for the division. And there aren't any giant wrestler-types in the elite of UFC's 205 lb division to take advantage of his size deficit and grind him up. But looking at him I can't get past the impression that, regardless of the UFC's desire to keep him as far from Anderson Silva as humanly possible, Franklin's a damn middleweight! He's the perfect size for 185! Maybe I just need some time to get used to it.

11. I don't think I'll ever be satisfied with Tim Boetsch until he knocks someone out by throwing them onto their face again.


RIP, Evan

With the death of Evan Tanner, the world of mixed martial arts, and the world at large, has lost one of its most interesting, endearing, and human participants. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that, though they didn't know him personally, many of Tanner's fans had something very personal at stake with his well-chronicled struggles. He will be missed.