UFC 123 Mailbag

For a number of reasons, UFC 123 generated quite a bit of discussion after the night was over, from the jaw-dropping quick finish of Penn-Hughes to the debate over who should have had their hand raised between Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Lyoto Machida. Such an event requires- no, demands a mailbag!

Does Hughes-Penn III hurt Hughes’ legacy more or help Penn’s more?

–Lyle from Thunder Bay, Ontario

Short and sweet! Unfortunately, the answer won’t be nearly as concise.

First of all, I’m not a big proponent of how events that happen well after an athlete’s prime “hurt their legacy”. What Hughes did in the past already happened, is done and isn’t affected by what happens now. Could has stock have risen a bit with another win over Penn? Sure. However, he’s still one of the all-time greats, regardless of that fight or any subsequent fights he may have.

So, by default, the fight helps Penn more than it hurts Hughes, in my view. However, I don’t know how much it helps Penn. Hughes is an unknown commodity of sorts at this point in his career, so we don’t really know how to evaluate Penn’s win as a result. I would say that Penn’s fight with Jon Fitch will have a lot more to offer, as beating the guy who has been number two in the division for years and who will have a tremendous size advantage would be much more impressive.

It’s hard to even say what Penn will have to offer as a welterweight due to the Hughes fight. Penn has only fought five times in the UFC as a welterweight, and all five were against Hughes and Georges St. Pierre. If someone else in the division, someone relatively unheralded had defeated Hughes in a similar fashion, would he be seen as a surefire title contender? Most likely not. One thing we can take away is that in terms of punching power, Penn is among the pound for pound best in MMA. Hughes could fight at middleweight and Penn is a natural lightweight, for crying out loud.

How can the judges give the fight to Rampage when Machida was the only one to decisively win a round? Also, how long can the UFC let decisions like this happen on a regular basis before they do something about it? It’s gotten to the point where fans are expecting bad judging, and that’s something that hurt boxing really bad in the past.

Rich from Battle Creek, Michigan

I’ve seen a lot of forum posters saying similar things about how Machida clearly won the fight because he decisively won the third round while the other two were very close. However, you can’t criticize the judges for following the judging criteria and guidelines that they were given. Using the 10-point system that we use right now, either one of the two fighters could have fairly been given the fight. If you can say that the first two rounds were very close, then obviously no one got robbed, because if those two rounds go to Rampage, he wins by a 29-28 margin.

I agree with you, but the judges are not the biggest part of the problem. Why? Because of precisely what I was just talking about. According to the way bouts are scored right now, the third round in Rampage-Machida is worth exactly the same as the first or second. Why should a fighter be able to squeak by in two competitive rounds, get clearly beaten in another, and win the fight by a split decision? Well, quite frankly, because the scoring system sucks.

If the UFC is going to do something, it’s going to be to pressure the commissions into adopting some changes into the scoring system. I’m a fan of the use of half-points, because at least Machida would have drawn the fight (at worst) under that scenario. Plus, with the inclusion of half-points, you could also have more 10-10 rounds without the worry of fights always ending up as a draw. Finally, as I’ve mentioned before, refs could penalize fighters for fouls by taking a half-point and not immediately cripple their chances of winning the fight.

If that can’t happen, then how about this: start encouraging judges to use 10-10 rounds liberally, and whenever a judge scores a fight as a draw, he or she must pick a winner based on who fought the better overall fight. When the vast majority of rounds are judged as 10-9 rounds, you are going to have this problem pop up regularly. The adoption of half-points takes care of this and several other issues right away, and the tie-breaker clause would help, too. Nothing will replace having better judges in general, but under the guidelines the judges are given, I don’t think anyone can say that Machida got screwed on Saturday.

I think you’re right: Hallman-Hughes 3 makes a lot of sense. Since Hallman beat Karo Parisyan and Hughes just lost to Penn, do you think it can happen?

-A. Smith from Jersey

I thought it was a no-brainer, until I read that Dennis Hallman’s manager, Ken Pavia, didn’t think that the fight made any sense for Hallman. He cited that Hallman had already beaten Hughes twice, so there was little incentive for Hallman to step in with Hughes again.

I figured it may be a bargaining tactic to get the UFC to pony up some extra dough if they want one of their poster boys to avenge his previous losses. After all, Hallman would be taking quite a risk with a third fight, as the 2-0 record against Hughes is definitely a feather in his cap. To lose in a third bout would cause many to write the first two wins off as less legitimate, even if wrongly so.

So far, Hughes and Dana White have been cool to suggestions of a Hallman-Hughes rematch, too. If anything, I thought the fight made sense because Hughes has made it clear that he doesn’t want to fight guys like Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, etc. at this point. If he doesn’t want to get into contention, I would say two types of fights would make sense: fights against other established names (regardless of their place in the division’s rankings) or attraction fights that are compelling for other reasons (such as having lost to the other fighter twice already). The UFC could sell the fight, and Hallman deserves a step up in competition after winning a couple of fights in a row anyway, but what do I know?

E-Mail Jon Hartley

Tags: BJ Penn, Dana White, Dennis Hallman, Jon Fitch, Lyoto Machida, Matt Hughes, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, UFC, UFC 123