UFC 112 Parting Shots
When MMA fans think of an event that everyone will be talking about afterward, it’s usually a good thing. You might envision a startling upset, a Fight of the Year candidate, or ridiculous knockouts and slick submissions. Unfortunately, UFC 112 will go down in history mostly for the wrong reasons. On the other hand, columnists like myself have plenty to write about for the next few days, so hey…there’s that, at least!
Silva “Disrespected”, Responds By…Running?
After the fights ended, I told my fellow viewers that the post-fight press conference may even be better than the fights themselves were. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that everyone wanted to not only hear what kind of justification Anderson Silva would come up with for his performance (beyond the lame apology he gave post-fight), but also wanted to witness what promised to be a memorable statement from Dana White, who left his seat and went backstage mid-fight for the first time in UFC history during a title fight.
While White certainly didn’t disappoint, Silva simply confused everyone a little bit more with his rationale for his actions, even distancing himself from his spur-of-the-moment post-fight apology in the process. There were no apologies whatsoever at the press conference, where Silva explained that he had felt disrespected by Maia in the lead-up to the fight, and as a result decided to fight the way that he did.
When a member of the press pointed out that if Silva wanted to punish him, it made no sense to repeatedly run from Maia in the later rounds of the fight, Silva’s reply did little to help anyone understand his thinking. His manager, Ed Soares, translated Silva’s response as, “My goal in the fight was to finish the fight if I had the opportunity to, but my main goal was to make my opponent feel vulnerable at anything that I did.” He continued to say that he didn’t feel that he had the right opportunities to finish. Yet, I remember quite clearly seeing Demian Maia come forward at Silva almost desperately in the final rounds, swinging rather wildly, even resorting to punching from his knees at one point. Does Anderson Silva really expect us to believe that he could not exploit such a situation, if he had really wanted to?
As I was watching the fights on Saturday, I likened Silva to an underachieving student who occasionally shows what he or she is truly capable of. If you’re the parent of this student, who regularly turns in “C” grades, and all of a sudden your child decides to study for one particular test in a very difficult class and aces it with no problems, you have a lot of questions for that child all of a sudden. “If you could ace calculus, what in the world happened in your history class? And what’s with the C you got in algebra last year?” you’d wonder. With Silva, we’ve seen him “turn it on” against fighters with far superior standup skills than Maia’s.
Silva’s telling us that he can utterly destroy Forrest Griffin as Griffin aggressively attacks him, but he couldn’t capitalize on a wildly-swinging Demian Maia, who already had his left eye swollen shut? Not only that, but he’s telling us that after he just dominated the guy and almost put him away a couple of rounds earlier, when Maia was fresh and fighting much more conservatively.
Quite frankly, it’s insulting to the fans, the media, the fighters he’s faced, and the UFC. Even more annoying than Silva’s elusiveness late in the fight was that he continues to be just as elusive after his fights, refusing to take any real responsibility for his performances. He wants us to believe that he simply couldn’t finish his opponent, as if our own eyes didn’t just witness that he wasn’t even trying to do so. There is a lot more that I could say on this, but I’ll leave it for another time.
Maia Impresses in Defeat
If there’s one good side effect to the Silva-Maia debacle, it’s that Demian Maia has earned the respect of just about everyone who watched UFC 112. He could have easily fought like Thales Leites did, continuing to fight conservatively and resorting to butt-scooting around in an attempt to get Silva to jump in his guard. Instead, he did what surprisingly few fighters do when they realize that they can’t win a decision- he went for broke. How many times do fighters obviously drop the first two rounds (or three rounds, in a championship fight) of a contest and refuse to adjust their strategy anyway, which essentially means that they’re accepting their loss?
Maia did just the opposite, pursuing Silva all over the cage over the last two rounds of the fight, and even swinging like a madman at the world’s most dangerous striker in the hopes of winning the fight. He did so knowing full well that Silva could devastate him with a counter strike in an instant. I wasn’t disappointed with Maia at all. Nobody was under the impression that he was going to be able to stand up with Silva with any success, so the first couple of rounds don’t hurt my perception of him. In the loss, he showed heart and determination, and the rest will come with time.
Edgar Deserves Credit, As Does Penn
Outweighed by the ridiculousness of the judge’s scorecards (Doug Crosby, anyone?) was the fact that Frankie Edgar fought a very good fight against BJ Penn, who stubbornly refused to change his gameplan, even in the late rounds of a very close fight. Edgar’s cardio is obviously unbelievable, as the guy looked every bit as fresh in the 25th minute as he did in the first seconds of the fight. Furthermore, Edgar is, by all accounts, a nice, hard-working guy who will represent the lightweight division in a way the UFC can be proud of.
For his part, Penn responded in a very sportsmanlike fashion to a result that he would be well within his rights to criticize. While I wouldn’t argue that the fight could have gone either way, Penn still has a legitimate bone to pick with the judges after scorecards of 50-45 and 49-46 were turned in, along with a more sensible verdict of 48-47. However, as of the writing of this column, Penn has not commented on the decision and has instead congratulated Edgar both in the cage after the fight and on his website. Props to Penn for being a good sport, and to Edgar for stepping in with the world’s best lightweight and fighting with skill and bravery. The lightweight division will be very interesting for the rest of 2010.
What’s Next for Hughes and Gracie?
Matt Hughes is kind of a difficult guy to figure out. He avoided the challenges of the trio of American Kickboxing Academy welterweights (Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck and Mike Swick), stating that he wanted to fight bigger names at this point in his career. However, he also stated that he wouldn’t mind rematching Thiago Alves and Georges St. Pierre, as he felt that he could win this match-ups, if given the chance. Of course, he apparently does not want to fight more than once a year, and taking a fight with Renzo Gracie is not a move that will put him in title contention.
I’m going to have to assume that Hughes has no real interest in working his way back to the top of the division, leaving him to just pick and choose occasional fights for the balance of his career. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a rematch with Matt Serra in the future, especially since Serra wants that fight and is coming off a nice knockout against Frank Trigg.
With Gracie, the future is even less clear. He says he isn’t done fighting, but will the UFC have him back? If they do, I think it will be the next time that they come to Abu Dhabi, and it will be against someone who will readily engage him on the mat. Perhaps the UFC would even sign someone from outside of the organization to take on such a fight? In any case, don’t expect to see Gracie back in a fight against a top ten welterweight or a young fighter who hasn’t built up a name for himself…either fight just wouldn’t make sense for any of the parties involved.
Quick Shots
–Many have compared Phil Davis to Jon Jones, if for no other reason than that they are the two best light heavyweight prospects in the UFC. Count me among those that feel Davis has more long-term upside than Jones, even if Jones is more well-rounded at this moment. I’ve seen a lot of interviews with Davis, and I’m really impressed with his attitude, as well. That would hold true with Jones, too. The UFC’s money division is in good hands for many years to come.
–I also clearly underestimated Mark Munoz, who has plenty of heart and has definitely worked hard to improve his game in the last year or two. He showed flaws against Grove, of course, but he also showed the rare quality of being able to turn a losing effort into a win by keeping his composure and continuing to fight to his strengths, even when things aren’t going well.
Tags: Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, Dana White, Demian Maia, Frankie Edgar, Jon Jones, Kendall Grove, Mark Munoz, Matt Hughes, Matt Serra, Phil Davis, Renzo Gracie, UFC 112
