UFC 130 Parting Shots

I already gave my opinion on whether UFC 130 was “boring” or not, but surely there’s plenty more to discuss about the event, as well. Read on to find out who impressed me the most on the card, whether Rick Story won via “wall and stall”, and the what I find to be the most annoying thing fighters do in mixed martial arts.

Hamill tough, but still not that great

One of our readers commented the other day that Matt Hamill deserved praise for simply surviving his fight with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. While I won’t deny that Hamill’s a tough mofo, I also recognize that his toughness is not going to help him break the glass ceiling that has become all too noticeable in regard to Hamill’s progression as a mixed martial artist.

Look- Hamill’s been in the sport for years now and still looks largely the same as he did years ago. Same awkward, loopy punches, same takedown attempts without any real integration into the rest of his game, same controlling grappling style with a bit of ground and pound when the opportunity presents itself. He hasn’t really evolved and I think he’s barely gotten better.

Check out his takedown attempts against Rampage. Not only were they from a million miles out and absolutely telegraphed, but they were just awful in regards to technique. He was simply bending at the waist and grabbing at Rampage’s legs without any kind of drive or any of the fundamentals you’ll see at even a high school wrestling meet.

Hamill’s not a bad fighter; he’s just not ever going to be a great one, either. Not every prospect can pan out, and we’ve seen enough of Hamill now against a variety of opponents to know what we can expect from him. He gets all kinds of props from me for being a tough guy who can fight through adversity, but that alone isn’t going to make him a great fighter.

Rick Story’s “wall and stall” mucks an otherwise great performance

Let me just say once again that I hate–hate– wall and stall tactics. Give me vintage Mark Kerr head stuffed down in his opponent’s belly, too tired to posture up or do anything but throw teensy little punches here and there any day over a fighter simply pinning his opponent against the cage and whittling at him with little annoying punches and knees. Okay, actually give me neither of those, but the supposed “lay and pray” that we see in fights these days has nothing on wall and stall in my book.

The thing is, lay and pray as it correctly appears is rarely seen in our sport now. Refs force activity and we don’t see near the kind of laziness that we saw in the UFC and yes, Pride in the 90′s. However, fighters are allowed to camp out against the fence for minutes at a time, throwing a half-hearted knee to the thigh here, stomping a foot there, maybe taking their sweet-ass time working on a double-leg takedown that eventually is switched to a single-leg but still has no chance in hell of actually working.

I saw Rick Story doing a lot of that against Thiago Alves. To me, fighters who do that are doing a couple of things. First of all, they’re killing the clock. If you want to beat a fighter who may be superior to you, you want to have to outperform him for the shortest time possible. Shortening the fight via stalling is a smart thing to do.

Most of all, though, fighters are using the technique to play the game. By that, I mean they are abusing the faulty judging system that we have now, which offers credit to fighters for stupid shit like “Octagon control”. In my view, Octagon control should be only used as a potential tie-breaker to determine a round in the most extreme of cases. Call me crazy, but I’ll give credit to the guy who’s actually punching and kicking his opponent or threatening with submissions versus the guy who is managing to hold his opponent against the cage for a couple of minutes any day of the week.

The reason Story gets a pass here is that he actually won the standup during most of the fight’s exchanges. This is impressive even though the reason why Thiago Alves was so reluctant to let his strikes go is that he was worried about the takedown. Still, give credit where credit is due and recognize that Story at least some of the time fought a gutsy, impressive fight. It’s just too bad that he also saw fit to slow the pace and waste time so often.

Ignorance and the last-ten-seconds takedown

If there’s anything that bothers the crap out of me in MMA, it’s when fighters shoot for a takedown with ten seconds or less left in a round. Sure enough, you see it in every event. The ten-second warning is given, and a fighter will sloppily shoot in, hoping to get a last second takedown that would somehow give him the round in the eyes of the judges.

Now, here’s why this is stupid and sad at the same time. It’s stupid because everyone who’s watched more than one MMA fight knows that you can’t do jack with a takedown that happens with seven seconds on the clock. It means nothing. It’s sad because judges will often score it as a significant event if the takedown is successful, and fighters rightfully think they can occasionally steal rounds with the late takedown.

Why should this be possible? In regards to scoring, shouldn’t the ultimate question be “does this or that action give the fighter a better chance to win the fight?” Leg kicks do that. Submission attempts do that. Sweeps and guard passes do that. Takedowns with less than ten seconds left do not do that.

If I had my way, fighters would be penalized for this crap. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a fighter behind on the cards, sometimes hopelessly so, and still wasting their time struggling for a takedown with a few seconds remaining. How is that a better use of your time than, oh, I don’t know, trying to knock your opponent out? You’re going to lose a decision, genius…that last-second takedown won’t magically give you a 10-7 round and the win.

The judging criteria needs to be spelled out more clearly to indicate that meaningless takedowns that can’t be capitalized upon and other pointless actions, such as the wall and stall tactics we discussed earlier, will not help fighters to win rounds. Only then will we see fighters actually fighting instead of simply doing what they think will help them win a decision.

Oh, wait. There is something dumber than the last-second takedown attempt. How about the old “hey, the fight is going to decision, walk around the cage with your hands in the air to show the judges you won” maneuver? Do trainers and cornermen really think this shit works? Do they think a judge will be sitting at ringside going, “I gotta tell you, I have no idea who to give this fight to. Let’s see who’s walking around most confidently after the final bell so I can decide who won that last round”? Come on. News flash: by the time you’ve told your fighter who clearly all three rounds to stupidly parade around the cage as if he deserves a win and has no idea that he underperformed, the judges have already totalled their scores and handed in their cards. Stop the pointless posturing.

Quick Shots

–What do I think about Travis Browne? Nice knockout. As always, it doesn’t mean a whole lot until he faces the top five in the division, however. He’s a ways from there. The elite UFC heavyweights aren’t going anywhere, and it’s hard to get excited about any of the up-and-comers until they put a more experienced head on their mantle.

–Brian Stann impressed me more than anyone else on the card. Unbelievable performance against Jorge Santiago, who now must bear the weight of the “overrated” label until he gets another UFC win or two. Stann is just vicious; an exciting, powerful striker who can please the crowd and stifle opponents. I’m very excited to see what’s to come for him this year.

–Another huge problem with judging in MMA is that the ground game is scored differently depending on the location of the fight, the judges and even the combatants involved. For instance, in Las Vegas, NV on May 28th, Demetrious Johnson’s unanimous decision win over Miguel Torres indicated that takedowns were more valuable than submission attempts and sweeps. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Japan, the judges of Joachim Hansen’s bout decided otherwise. Why not just spell it out for once and for all?

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Tags: Brian Stann, Demetrious Johnson, Jorge Santiago, Matt Hamill, Miguel Torres, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, Rick Story, Thiago Alves, Travis Browne, UFC, UFC 130