UFC 105 Predictions: The Forgotten Show

Hunched over and lurking in the shadows of Pacquiao-Cotto comes ANOTHER UFC, one I honestly thought was in like 2 or 3 weeks from now until today. I don’t know if that means I need to get my shit together or there’s just way too many shows or what, but it really is starting to feel like there’s a huge MMA extravaganza every weekend at the moment. Dana and the Fertittas have always used the “football’s on all the time” line to defend the scheduling; times like this will help determine if they’re right, because free show or not it’s hard to build up hype and interest for any given event when there’s always another big one the next week. Anyway, the picks for this one, and I’ll do Cotto-Pacquiao tomorrow or Friday:

Main card

* Light Heavyweight bout: Randy Couture vs. Brandon Vera

A triumph of odd matchmaking here, which looks even odder in retrospect. The idea, so far as I can tell, was for Randy to drop to 205, get a win under his belt as Machida beat Shogun, then do Randy vs. Machida as another of those Can-Captain-America-Slay-The-Dragon fights which always do well for UFC. Then Shogun beat Machida but lost a bad decision, bad enough to merit a rematch which itself will be delayed as Machida’s hurt, and so Randy’s stuck fighting a build-up fight against a dangerous but not particularly exciting opponent for the sake of a major event that may well never happen. Such is the nature of the fight game.

I’m going to pick Brandon Vera in this one, with an intense lack of enthusiasm. I HOPE Randy KO’s him in the first 30 seconds or pounds on him for 15 minutes (whichever is funnier), but this is not a great matchup for the older man. Randy looked to my eye significantly slower last time out (which is not a dig at Nogueira’s victory) and his head movement and reactions while striking were almost gone. That’s a bad sign in anyone, worse for a 46 year old. Vera, while he can be incredibly irritatingly passive and boring, is a talented Muay Thai fighter with a far more diverse striking offense than Couture. He’s faster and he probably hits harder. I’m not seeing any way that Couture can win a sustained striking contest here; one punch and get lucky yes, but if this goes rounds on the feet in the center of the cage Couture will almost certainly lose them.

Grappling wise is where Couture should theoretically have an advantage but against Vera it’s less of one than usual if it’s any. Couture is the man coming down from a larger weight here, but Vera did so as well and will come in with 3 listed inches of height and reach on Couture. Couture is the superior wrestler, but Vera has a solid Graeco-Roman wrestling background himself and is the younger and probably more athletic man at this point. That doesn’t make him Couture’s equal in skill or technique, but it likely means he’s got more than enough tools at his disposal to defend himself against Couture’s game- it’s hard to see how Couture can impose himself physically on Vera. What’s more, as much as I hate to write this, Vera’s incredibly passive stance actually seems to afford him some major defensive advantages here: he can tee off on guys as they come in on him using his reach, and because he’s never coming forward he’s also never off balance and in a position to be shot on. He can be rushed and put against the cage, but he actually tends to do really well there with knees and using his height to lean his weight on the other man, smothering takedown attempts and wearing out smaller fighters.

I want Randy to win, but it’s going to be very tough for him to find a way to do so. He’s going to have to get to Vera early and hurt him which sometimes puts him into an even more passive shell, and if he can get a takedown he’s going to have to ride it out for the rest of the round and do some real ground and pound damage because that’s the one position where he has a dramatic advantage. On the feet for any length of time he’s in major trouble, and each takedown is going to be precious because while Vera isn’t the greatest off his back, he’s hard to put there. Randy’s made a career especially late on out of taking advantage of other guys’ mistakes; but Vera at 205 with confidence doesn’t really make a whole lot of them. I hope I’m wrong, but Vera by 3 round decision in another of those classic it-was-entertaining-because-it’s-Randy fights he produces. 2 or 3 or 5 years ago Couture is the easy pick, sadly.

Side notes: there’s a ton of might-happens for this fight. Can Vera hurt Couture and keep him outside with legkicks? How much of a benefit of the doubt does Couture get from the judges for being him? Where’s Randy’s chin at? This has a pretty decent chance of being a Rashomon fight, where everyone sees something different as being the decisive factor.

* Welterweight bout: Mike Swick vs. Dan Hardy

Well I’ll pick a KO for starters. Swick is demonstrably and substantially better on the ground and I suspect if he takes it there he’ll kill Hardy, who doesn’t have a wrestling background and 3 of whose 4 submission wins in 22 overall were by strikes or injury withdrawal. But Swick’s one of those guys who gameplans with his balls at times, and I suspect he’s try to bang it out with Hardy. From there, hey, who knows? Swick is a more varied striker and you’d probably back him to win the rounds, but Hardy hits very hard and strikes to finish more than he does to score points; over the course of 15 minutes it’s guaranteed he’ll land his best punch at least once- if it goes that long. I’m going to take Swick by KO off of some ground and pound in the 2nd, on the theory that while he’s sometimes too much into the quien es mas macho deal, he’s also not stupid- if Hardy’s rocking him he will take it down, and Hardy likely can’t stop him from doing so. Should be a fun fight, although the title implications of it are tragic.

* Middleweight bout: Michael Bisping vs. Denis Kang

Ah, once again the stirring battle of He’s Ok vs. He’s Not Too Bad is joined. At least the Britishers got a real main event this time as well as the inevitable Bisping fight. Both guys come into this one off the back of disappointment: Bisping has been more or less definitively revealed as not a real title level guy, while Kang is still trying to climb out of the grave marked “Another Failed Pride Guy.” I think if both guys are at their recent best, Bisping wins this: he’s faster, a better striker and his takedown defense is good enough to probably keep it vertical for most of the fight. Kang hasn’t beaten a top level guy in probably 3 years or more, he’s into his 30’s, and his gas tank has been questionable of late. He’s not a guy I’d want to put money on.

That said, there is one HUGE variable in this fight which can equalize or tip the balance towards Kang: what’s left of Bisping, neurologically and in confidence? Hendo didn’t just knock Bisping out- he knocked him out in as brutal, violent and vicious fashion as has ever been seen in MMA. More than once in fighting sports history a fighter has taken a KO like that and simply never been the same. Sometimes they fight scared from that point onward, never committing to strikes and being willing to give up at the first sign of danger for fear of the past repeating itself; other times their hearts are still willing but their brains have taken too much abuse, and they never react well to punches again. At this point I doubt even Bisping knows exactly what he does or does not have left, and he really won’t know for sure until he gets in the cage. If Kang is smart he’ll force the issue and go at Bisping hard and immediately, throw big shots to the head and make Bisping react; the Englishman is a good striker but not a devastating puncher, so the danger in doing so isn’t as high as it might be in some circumstances. If Bisping is still all there, fine, retreat to a normal strategy; but he may not be, and there’s a chance that Kang can make him crumble in the first minute and look like a dynamo.

I’m taking Bisping because I think he’s the kind of fighter who mentally can survive something like the Hendo KO better than most, but we really won’t know until the first good shot lands.

* Welterweight bout: James Wilks vs. Matt Brown

Goddamn barbarians, these two. Ordinarily I’d kvetch about them scheduling more TUF guys on the free shows, but this is likely to be all kinds of fun. Both guys go for it hard on the feet, and seem to have exciting fight power: they hit hard enough to hurt guys and not hard enough to easily finish them. The ground is probably where the difference lies, if any- Brown’s younger and stronger and will probably have a slight standing advantage, but Wilks is really pretty good on the ground and 5 of Brown’s 7 losses have been by submission. I’m going to take Wilks in a minor upset on that basis, figuring they’ll end up rolling at some point and Brown leaves too many openings. 2nd round RNC.

* Lightweight bout: Ross Pearson vs. Aaron Riley

Can anyone outside these guys’ immediate families care about this? I saw Riley’s last fight live and it bored me to death, he’s the least interesting of all Greg Jackson fighters, and at this point he seems to have pretty much found his level as Just A Guy helping to fill out 155. Pearson’s young enough to still be a prospect and has a story as the first chipmunk to win TUF, but his last fight was pretty boring in and of itself and if he didn’t have the TV hook behind him this fight would probably be among the last of the untelevised undercard bouts. They both seem like really nice guys though, so that’s nice. Riley’s more experienced and still fairly young at 28 so I’ll take him by decision, but man… does this have to be on television?

Preliminary Card

* Welterweight bout: Paul Taylor vs. John Hathaway

Ingurlund Ingurlund Ingurlund, Ingurlund IngurLUND Ingurluuuund. Ingurlund Ingurlund Ingurlund. Ingurlund. INGURLUND. It’s never a European UFC until two British guys (or better still, two English) have a sloppy ass standup war with some jiujitsu sprinkled on top. Hathaway is the prospect here and Taylor is a solid step up fight for him- not world class or a real contender, but significantly more experienced and not past his physical prime. Hathaway is likely good enough to get it down and control things there, so I’ll take him by decision.

* Lightweight bout: Terry Etim vs. Shannon Gugerty

Now here’s a fight I’d vastly rather see than Pearson and Riley. Both of these guys are very good grapplers which may mean we see some excellent exchanges on the mat… or it may mean that the taller and perhaps more confident in his striking Etim may try to turn this into a standup battle where he has the advantages. I favor Etim partly because he’s an oddball favorite of mine, partly because despite being younger he’s had an equal number of fights against better opposition, and partly because I think he’s probably got both a better rounded game and a higher talent ceiling. I’ll take him by decision.

* Welterweight bout: Nick Osipczak vs. Matthew Riddle

Riddle’s like the “after” picture of Osipczak if you had him live in New Jersey and train with Hulk Hogan for a year, and I do not mean that as a compliment. This is a hard one to call only because Riddle leaves openings to get tapped; outside of that he’s vastly thicker and stronger and has the wrestling base to decide where the fight goes, and while Osipczak is a more technical striker, he’s also a point striker for the most part- he won’t finish Riddle, probably won’t hurt him, and may not even bother him much. The odds are that Riddle holds Osiczak down and blankets him while doing enough GnP to win the rounds for a decision, and that’s the pick, but this is another one where I’m rooting against it.

* Lightweight bout: Paul Kelly vs. Dennis Siver

In war, the English; in sport, the Germans. In this one, Siver.

* Light Heavyweight bout: Alexander Gustafsson vs. Jared Hamman

No pick. I try to come up with something for almost every fight, but I know NOTHING about Gustafsson. I’d lean towards Hamann only because I don’t trust it when a Euro debuts on a Euro show in UFC- smells of loading up the card with relative locals.

* Lightweight bout: Andre Winner vs. Rolando Delgado

Really? I’ll take Winner on the theory that being at home will motivate him to do his best and not be so passive.

Overall it’s a pretty decent card for a free show despite the TUF fights placement. The rating should be interesting- it’s got a big star going for it, but Cotto-Pacquiao is the kind of juggernaut fight that tends to squash everything in its way.

An Angry Man

That’s Mike Coughlin!

Strikeforce Fedor vs. Rogers Predictions: How Many Hardcores?

A solid card; but will it draw solid ratings? The fights here will all be entertaining for what they are but if this thing dies on CBS- which it may- that will have far more long term impact for the sport than any individual results. Essentially this card consists of a bunch of foreigners who speak iffy English and have very little mainstream exposure, plus Jake Shields, Mayhem Miller and Brett Rogers- of whom only Miller may mean something as a draw off of his MTV exposure. I’d like to say the origin and language skills of the fighters won’t matter, but they almost certainly will. Showtime has had a Countdown-ish show and CBS did run some ads during football and perhaps that along with the ever popular Russian Superman gimmick will help draw in some UFC only or more casual fans, but if it doesn’t there’s no reason to think this show will do much better than the Elite XC on CBS show without Kimbo or Carano did. That’s simply not a sustainable rating for a network television show- there’s just not enough hardcores yet.

It’s a real crossroads for Strikeforce: with a serious network deal- and a thousand other things falling into place from here- they still have the potential to be a strong and important #2 promotion in America and Canada; without it, it’s hard to see them ever generating the interest and revenues required to be a top-level player purely off of Showtime exposure. My hunch is that the rating will come in in the gray zone, probably good enough to justify a second show but not good enough to make the future secure. That in itself would be a form of defeat for Strikeforce, as with such a limited roster there’s only so many loaded shows (which is what this is for them) they can put on and even hope to draw reasonably well with. The Gegard Mousasi situation demonstrates this most clearly- he’s already squashed Babalu, so if he beats Sokoudjou, who’s left? Mohammad Lawal isn’t anywhere near ready as a star, Dan Henderson’s signing hasn’t been confirmed, Robbie Lawler, Nick Diaz and Jake Shields are too small to be taken seriously, and no one wants to see Matt Lindland in that position. Strikeforce needs to knock this one out of the park because if not, they could end up locked into a financially dangerous Fedor deal without much hope of expanding their revenue streams to pay for it. The name “Strikeforce” needs to get over here.

Anyway, the fights:

Fedor vs. Rogers

I just finished reading a book of ancient Mediterranean history, which took note of the Graeco-Roman habit of sacrificing an animal- or in rare cases humans- to appease a wrathful deity. Not sure why that’s coming to mind, but there you go.

Seriously: Rogers CAN win, but it would probably be the greatest MMA upset of all time. Rogers has size, and he hits hard, and he’s younger; that’s the end of his advantages. Fedor is more skilled, more athletic, more talented, more experienced, might even hit harder, etc. etc. There’s just not much more to say about it; Fedor’s in a completely different talent bracket, and unless Rogers gets a very quick fluke KO he’s almost certainly screwed. Fedor by 1st round submission.

Shields vs. Miller

Ah, Jake Shields, a fighter with standup so iffy that it’s gone past rudimentary all the way to vestigial, as though he’s evolving backwards into the Royce Gracie of 1994. He’s a fine fighter, he’s clearly the more talented of these two, he’s defeated the far higher level of competition, he’s undefeated since 2004, he’s…so goddamn unconvincing. It’s entirely possible that I underrate him because I’m tired of reading message boards full of “ZOMG SHeidls wull ta p GSp” posts, but every time he fights I’m strongly tempted to pick the other guy. Miller winning would be a huge upset; yet I can’t shake the sense that all he has to do to win is keep it standing for 60% of the fight. Of course, the same thing was true of Paul Daley and Robbie Lawler, except more so. I’m going to take Shields, by boring decision, but I won’t be shocked if he loses.

Sokoudjou vs. Mousasi

I like the fight simply because Sokoudjou is a recognizable and quasi-legitimate guy to challenge for the title- certainly as legit as you could get for this show- off of his two signature wins, and if Mousasi annihilates him the way he did Babalu it’ll be the best thing possible for getting Mousasi over as a star, which Strikeforce simply must do. I can’t think of anything Sokoudjou has shown in his two recent wins against Bob Sapp and Jan Nortje which suggest that he’s a different fighter than the one who lost to Babalu, Machida, Luiz Cane, etc. which is to say he’s still decent but no where near good enough to beat Mousasi barring a total fluke. Much like the main event it’s two different talent classes. Sokoudjou hits really fucking hard; but he gasses quickly and seems to mentally break and get discouraged, turning passive, and his striking tends towards the rudimentary and telegraphed. His ground defense is not so hot. Mousasi doesn’t for the moment appear to have many clear holes in his game per se, and I suspect he’ll be patient, gas out the bigger man and then take him to the mat for the 2nd round RNC.

Bigfoot Silva vs. Werdum

One sign of good matchmaking for a promotion like Strikeforce whose big shows usually feature the same talent is that there’s a fight on the undercard which is designed to throw up a challenger to the winner of the main event. I’m not sure either of these guys against Fedor is a big draw, but hey- they’re doing it the right way at least. So far as the fight goes I don’t buy Giant Silva and I never have, and I probably buy him even less after he got busted for horse steroids and had to hide out in Japan for a year. His career best win is a split decision over the husk of Ricco Rodriguez, he moves with the grace and quickness of a disoriented whale, he’s really got not much but size working for him. Werdum is just much better, quicker and more skilled on the ground if it goes there, and as long as he stays defensively responsible he should be able to pick Silva apart standing and possibly shoot in to take him down as a counter. Silva’s chance is to time Werdum and throw a big counter himself (something like a right hand over a leg kick), but despite his size I’m not even sure he hits all that hard; it might have to be a perfect shot. Werdum by decision is a pretty easy pick here.

All in all it’s not the most competitive card in the world but it should be fun, with several legitimately world-class talents on display. You could do a lot worse for a free show.

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Bonus sidenote: Glen Johnson is rematching Chad Dawson on HBO this weekend as well in the return match from their close and kinda-sorta-maybe controversial first fight which Dawson won. I’d pick Dawson as the easy choice in the rematch as the younger man who won the first fight and is now fighting in his home territory in Connecticut, but I’ll add- Dawson will have to knock Johnson out twice to get any respect here. Glen Johnson is a wonderful fighter, but he’s also one of the biggest complainers and whiners in the sport, and virtually no matter what happens I guarantee he’ll be back on Monday claiming he was rob-jobbed. It’s a pretty crucial fight for Dawson- despite some signature wins over Johnson, Tarver, Adamek etc. he’s not really broken through to star status and has been a negligible draw in many places, and Johnson is one of the very few legitimate opponents left for him at 175 who are realistically available. he needs to do something to capture the public’s attention, or he risks becoming the Kelly Pavlik of 175. He seems like a really nice guy, so I’m hoping he can avoid that fate.

The opener to the HBO telecast is Harry Joe Yorgey vs. Alfredo Angulo, and if you don’t know those guys all I can say is watch out- it won’t go the distance, and it’ll be a great fight.

…Awful

So Mike Tyson is talking comeback, Fernando Vargas is talking comeback, and now Mirko Crocop is scheduled to face Ben Rothwell at UFC 110. A plea to fight promoters: if you have to raise the dead to fill out your cards, reconsider.

Armageddon

Apparently BROCK! has mono, and won’t be fighting until March at the earliest. If you’re scoring at home that’s Lesnar out with mono, GSP out with a groin issue (overuse?), Machida out with hand surgery, Thiago Alves out wit a busted knee ligament, Dan Henderson gone with strong rumors of having signed with Strikeforce, Matt Hughes out with not wanting to fight, Rampage Jackson out with butthurt, Anderson Silva out with an elbow issue- probably, Wanderlei Silva out with new face, and a million undercard guys like Todd Duffee and Kurt Pellegrino out with various injuries and issues. The second quarter of next year is going to be packed and a ton of fun, but I have legitimately no idea how they’re going to fill all of these shows between now and March. There’s talk about Cain Velasquez and Big Nog in January; I’m not sure that’s a main event (though it is a great fight), but it may be the best thing they’ve got. It’ll be interesting to see how UFC’s popularity explosion handles a slack period like this, whether buyrates snap back in March/April or whether a few months of minimal hype and mainstream coverage cools off some of the more casual interest.

AHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHH

Specifically: “–War Machine (not Rhino, but the MMA goof) is now doing porn.”

No, just no, fuck no, never no. No.

…No Buys

I don’t envy Joe Silva.

A large chunk of this is on UFC for scheduling waaaaaaay too many shows, but still- this is an incredible rash of injuries of late. Each one exacerbates the problem as well, as the bargaining power of anyone still healthy and willing to fight skyrockets and UFC ends up faced with the prospect of either caving and giving various concessions, or else holding out and being stuck with who-the-fuck-is-you in a serious slot. You think Dan Henderson’s laughing about now? Checking his messages every hour or so? Yeah, I think so.

I will say though, the recent announcement/leaking of Rumble Johnson vs. Kos Joshcheck is a hell of an idea, and I applaud them for that call- it’s a fun fight, a competitive one, either guy can win, it could make a star in Johnson if he wins, and if he doesn’t it makes Koscheck the obvious next challenge for GSP. When either guy winning is a positive and the fight itself is intriguing, that’s good matchmaking.

Noooo, They Be Stealin’ My Brocket (Plus: Cecil Peoples Sucks)

So Brock’s out of UFC 106, leaving Forrest vs. Moai as the main event. Not much analysis to this one; it sucks, but it means that one way or another the early months of next year will be heavily loaded with Brock vs. Carwin (Jan. 2 is the reported new date), Silva vs. Vitor, the return of GSP eventually, the return of Rampage probably, Shogun vs. Machida II, etc. We’ll know more about what it means if the rumors of them trying to find a new fight to add to 106 turn out to be true- personally if I were them I’d leave it alone as the main plus Finch vs. Alves is still a good card to my mind, but hey- we shall see.

Side note: Cecil Peoples defends his Rua-Machida I card.

On the one hand, good for him for being willing to defend his card, if these quotes are legitimate.

On the other hand, if these do turn out to be accurate, it’s such an ignorant, ridiculous, arrogant and thoroughly incompetent performance by him that he should be finally banned from judging the sport in all commissioned states as a result. He’s been notorious for years as the worst judge in the sport; for him to have so little understanding of what was happening in front of him is an indictment of the people who allow him to have a continuing voice in the sport (again: if the quotes are genuine). When you cut through the bullshit, you find two clear things here: that he’s all but stating that leg kicks are an illegitimate technique which can’t win a fight and therefore don’t really count as scoring blows (good luck finding that in the rules), and that Machida was somehow showing “octagon control” in that fight. The first claim is too ridiculous to need responding to.

For the second- look, I thought Andre Dirrell beat Carl Froch; I’m more than willing to respect the game of a mover who avoids strikes with footwork and forces the other guy to chase him (in my view) ineffectively. But Rua did more visible damage, more functional damage and out-landed Machida in every single round of that fight. Machida’s footwork was not making Rua miss, it wasn’t making him fight at a distance where he couldn’t be effective, it wasn’t setting up counter-shots which led to near finishes, it wasn’t allowing Machida to gas Shogun out or break him down- what precisely did it achieve? You move for a PURPOSE- the fact that you move, the other guy follows you, then you get your ass kicked at the new location is not octagon control in any meaningful sense. Rua solved Machida- he rendered Machida’s typical gameplan wholly ineffective by striking not at the head but at the lead leg and the body. That Machida continued to employ that gameplan despite being beaten isn’t evidence that it was working, it’s evidence that he needs to find a plan B if he wants to win the rematch.

In short: Cecil Peoples is ridiculous if he actually said this, and so far I have yet to see one legitimate card in favor of Machida which anyone has actually defended. Feel free to let me know if you see one. Moreover, there are elements of Peoples’ claim which represent one the basic fallacies of terrible judging, which I’ll deal with in a post later this week.

No, That Won’t Work Either

I cannot believe this needs to be said, but I have read several people defending that Iole column on the basis that Rua should have been looking for a stoppage and therefore the real issue was bad advice. This is stupid on several levels, of which here are a few:

1. Rua only “needs” to finish that fight if you agree with the judges’ scoring, and by that same scoring Rua fought more effectively in the later rounds after he was down on the score cards. If fighting effectively can be taken as a synonym for doing damage and striving to potentially finish a fight, than according to those judges Rua acted precisely the way he was advised not to do.

2. There’s two functional elements to the cornermen-are-at-fault thesis: the actual accuracy of the judges, and the degree to which the Rua corner should have been aware of the Judges take. There are thus 4 potential combinations of those factors. If the judges are correct and Rua’s corner should have known, then they are culpable; but in a fight where most polls show 80% of fans believing the judges were wrong, no one on press row had it for Machida, and Dana White believes the judging was bad enough to warrant an immediate rematch, this is an extremely difficult contention to defend. If the judges are incorrect and Rua’s corner should have known they would be, then you’re essentially saying that they should be able to read the minds of judges to know that they’re performing incompetently. Given the presence of Cecil Peoples I’ll give partial credit to this one, but for all three judges to be so wrong (or so out of line with the majority view) isn’t something which can be reasonably anticipated. If the judges were correct and Rua’s corner should not have known, the case is the same. If the judges were incorrect and Rua’s corner should not have known, then the fault again is with the judges.

Put more plainly, it’s not reasonable for the corner to anticipate judging so outside the mainstream view of the fight. One judge, maybe; all three, no. Based on the way almost everyone saw the fight, Rua WAS winning, and thus their advice was completely reasonable based on the evidence they had to hand and the reasonable inferences they could draw therefrom.

3. In additional support of the corner, the risk profile of attempting a finish at all costs vs. that of controlled aggression is not the same on several levels. Going for a finish and getting it would guarantee a win and make Rua a major star stateside; but getting KO’d would be a huge risk to his career, the chances of being so increase dramatically with going all-out for the KO, and the marginal fame value of KOing Machida vs. decisioning him isn’t that high given that in either case Rua would still be defeating an undefeated champion for a major title in a PPV headliner.

Give it up folks, that column is indefensible.

Some Justice

It’s apparently come out now that the next fight for Machida and Shogun is a rematch most likely, so at least there’s that to look forward to- it’s not an excuse for the judges cocking up the first one, but it’s at least a chance for Shogun to re-prove the point or for Machida to even accounts. I look forward to it. I wonder, though- if the rematch is made, will everyone who’s arguing tonight that Machida won have the balls to go ahead and argue that there shouldn’t be a rematch because Machida was clearly the victor? That should produce some amusement.

And incidentally, side note- when I say that people who argue a card is defensible should actually defend it, it’s not as though I’m asking for an impossible task; punchstat-style metrics certainly aren’t the be-all end all of evidence, but this is still highly suggestive. To spare you the click through- Rua out-landed Machida in every round, including 21-7 in the second round which all three judges gave to Machida. I’m not saying it’s insane to give Machida that round; 2 and 3 are the debatable ones to my mind. But at some point, when the numbers run that way and your card runs the other, you have to explain the discrepancy. All three judges should probably be in the CSAC offices bright and early Monday morning, doing so.