Verbal Submission: UFC 123 Review

Time to review UFC 123

Music to listen to: Synchronicity 1 & 2 by The Police

　

UFC 123 was an entertaining event that saw a decision in the main event that has rekindled a major debate in MMA, a former champion dismantles an old foe and many other things in between. Here are my thoughts from the night of fights…

Rampage Jackson’s victory over Lyoto Machida shows the flaws in current MMA scoring: For those of you who aren’t major fans of MMA, each round is scored on a 10-point “must” system, meaning that after each completed round, one fighter must be given a score of 10 while the opponent can also receive a 10, 9, 8, etc. This is the same system that is used in most combat sports, particularly boxing.

The problem with this system is that when you have closely contested fights like Rampage and Machida, it’s difficult for the judges to decide in such an arbitrary way.

In some MMA promotions in Japan, you can give half points to someone, which would have been useful in this fight because the first two rounds were close to draws. It consisted of Rampage pushing forward, Machida countering and that was all.

It would be hard to determine who decisively who won the first two rounds in the current point system. If you used the new system, you can have 10-9.5 rounds.

In the current system, I had it 29-28 for Rampage, giving the first and second rounds to Rampage while Machida got the third round.

In the new system, I would have had round one 10-9.5 Rampage, round two 10-9.5 Rampage and round three 10-9 Machida, making the fight a 29-29 draw.

Anyway, Rampage looked much better in this contest than he did in his fight against Evans a few months ago. He has some potential interesting fights possibly coming up, including a rematch against Forrest Griffin, Jon Jones, rematch against Shogun Rua to bring back some fun Pride memories, Rich Franklin, etc.

As for Machida, he’s going to have to change his style after two consecutive losses to Rua and now Rampage. He’s going to have to be more aggressive and score more offensive points in his fights against top competition in the future because he’s going to most likely not win decisions in the near future.

B.J. Penn looked fantastic against Matt Hughes: This fight lasted less than 30 seconds and Penn knocked the stuffing out of Hughes.

I’m a fan of Penn so it was nice to see him get the win in such an aggressive manner. You could tell that he was motivated in his return to the welterweight division. He will fight Jon Fitch in his next match and that’s an intriguing affair that I will have an extensive preview of in the future (leaning towards a Fitch decision at this moment).

As for Hughes, it surely wasn’t a good showing for him no matter how you spin it. This was the first time that Hughes was dismantled in such a manner in his career. He hasn’t entered the Chuck Liddell-level of weak fighting but it can get to that point quick.

If Hughes does fight again, the opponent will have to be chosen carefully to avoid embarrassment. It won’t be for money because Hughes is one of the only fighters I believe actually wants to fight for the competition and not the finances.

Phil Davis may be a dark horse light heavyweight contender: We’re all on the Jon Jones Fun Train of MMA Excitement but don’t forget about Davis. He looked impressive in his victory over Tim Boetsch with an excellent submission and pushed his record to 8-0.

George Sotiropoulos will be an interesting fighter in the lightweight division: With the WEC merging into the UFC starting in January of 2011, there will be an influx of 155 pound fighters who will make it the second-most competitive division in the promotion behind the 205 weight class.

I think the UFC would like to make George a contender in the 155 division but he still needs more seasoning and the win over Joe Lauzon was a good start. Plus, his international intrigue, especially in Australia makes him a marketable commodity.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours?