· UFC 141: What We Learned
The UFC ended the year in style with a slew of intriguing match-ups on Friday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The results from UFC 141 will certainly have implications on title fights or the title pictures in general in 2012, as many fighters staked their claim within their respective divisions. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s ask the all-important question one more time in 2011: What did we learn?
Diaz Notched The Most Significant Win Of His Career
Since he won "The Ultimate Fighter 5," Nate Diaz has bounced around weight classes and gone a solid but ho-hum 9-5 inside the Octagon. But his performance Friday night proved he might be ready to challenge for the lightweight title in 2012.
Diaz supposedly returned to lightweight for good in September, and he made quick work of Takanori Gomi at UFC 135. Though impressive, Gomi has had middling results in the UFC—and that’s putting it kindly. But in Donald Cerrone, Diaz was facing a fighter who had been on an absolute tear, winning four fights in 2011 alone as he arrived in the UFC from the WEC. Though Diaz was unable to finish Cerrone, the way he dominated him en route to a unanimous decision with scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 was impressive and unexpected.
Diaz outboxed Cerrone for the bulk of the bout. In fact, Cerrone’s mouth was bleeding and agape after the first round. Though he mounted some offense in the second round by sprinkling in heavy leg kicks that often swept Diaz to the mat, he could never mount a sustained attack, and seemed bothered by Diaz’s volume of strikes and length advantage.
Cerrone looked overwhelmed in his fifth Octagon outing of the year. Of course, it was Diaz’s fourth fight of 2011, so Cerrone can’t really use this year’s mileage as an excuse. With an iron jaw that takes shot after shot, accurate but constant strikes that seem to wear down opponents and a world-class Brazilian jiu-jitsu pedigree under Cesar Gracie, Diaz has rounded himself into a complete fighter.
While it’s true that wrestlers have plagued him in the past, Diaz has improved so much on his feet that if he can avoid the takedown he will now be a nightmare within the lightweight division. He hasn’t been able to put together a three-fight win streak in two years, but in his next bout he’ll get that chance. If he can cobble together a couple more wins he might be fighting for titles, just like his big brother Nick is at welterweight. And this is one writer who thinks Diaz’s style would give current UFC lightweight titleholder Frankie Edgar fits. Diaz just has to stay focused to get that opportunity.
No One Had A Worse Ending To 2011 Than Fitch Did
Jon Fitch has been living in no-man’s land for quite some time. A relatively sturdy fighter with an incredible Octagon record, he had not fought for the title since his lopsided unanimous decision defeat to Georges St-Pierre in 2008 – even though he had not lost since then. There’s a variety of reasons for this, ranging from an inability to provide exciting fights (like an occasional finish), a refusal to fight any of his American Kickboxing Academy stablemates (like Josh Koscheck) and the arrival of other talented welterweights (like Jake Shields). But after UFC 141, Fitch’s title aspirations will certainly be on hold for a while.
Upstart Johny Hendricks laid waste to Fitch in 12 seconds Friday night, which was certainly the card’s most shocking result. Coming into UFC 141 Fitch only had one loss in his last 23 bouts, and had not been finished in nine years. In the blink of an eye that latter streak was gone. It was certainly a terrible way to cap the year for Fitch, who after the KO continued to grapple with referee Steve Mazzagatti, unaware that the fight had been stopped.
For Hendricks, the triumph was a signature win that left him 3-0 in 2011. With only one loss on his record he will hope to take an even bigger leap at welterweight—even if the rest of the division will now be wary of his powerful left hand. That secret weapon is no longer so secret after flattening a well-respected fighter like Fitch.
But like many fights, the story here is Fitch losing rather than Hendricks winning. The fighter has butted heads with UFC management in the past, so losing in such a devastating—and swift—manner will certainly have him sliding far down the welterweight ladder. Unfortunately for Fitch, a loss like the one he incurred Friday night is how you go from contender to gatekeeper overnight.
No One Had A Worse Year In MMA Than Lesnar Did
Sure, Lesnar only fought once in 2011. But having only one bout this year doesn’t change the fact that he had a horrible 2011. That’s just the way it goes when you’re deemed irrelevant in the promotion’s premiere division. The savage first-round beating he received at the hands of Cain Velasquez in the fall of 2010 started his slow demise, and last night Alistair Overeem, in his UFC debut, dispatched the former champion easily in the first frame as well. In 2011 Lesnar was slowed down by serious health problems and the development (and influx) of pure mixed martial artists just as athletic—and gigantic—as he is.
Overeem made his case for a heavyweight title shot by dismantling Lesnar on the feet. After landing knees to Lesnar’s midsection, a kick to the liver dropped the behemoth against the fence. Overeem followed up with a bevy of punches that forced referee Mario Yamasaki to halt the bout only 2:26 into round one. After the bout Lesnar announced his plans to retire, ending his four-year foray into mixed martial arts.
Count this writer as someone initially dismayed by the former pro wrestler’s early Octagon success. This viewpoint came simply from the fact that you never want to see a green fighter waltz into the cage and use a size and strength advantage to overwhelm fighters who have better technique and greater experience. Though Lesnar showed uncanny speed for a man his size, once he decided to take fights to the ground where he could maul his opponents, his path to the heavyweight championship seemed predestined, even for such a neophyte.
Maybe the David within us all doesn’t like to see Goliath triumph. But over time an appreciation for Lesnar grew for a variety of reasons. First, every time he stepped inside the cage it was obvious he had improved, specifically with his submission defense. And he returned to fight—twice—after bouts with diverticulitis, a condition that not only threatened his fight career but also his life. Though his career ended at UFC 141 in ignominious fashion against a far superior fighter, he must be applauded for stepping into the Octagon after having almost a foot of his colon removed in May.
But Lesnar’s legacy is bringing new fans to the sport due to his crossover appeal, and for ultimately making the division better. For years the UFC shoved inferior heavyweight match-ups down fans’ throats, pretending that the big guys provided marquee bouts even as hardcore fans knew better. The arrival of Lesnar, rightly or wrongly, turned the division into must-see TV. Polarizing fighters have that effect, especially when they’re a big draw like Lesnar was.
Like every formerly “invincible” champion, Lesnar was not so much a riddle to be solved as he was an incredible athlete with a ridiculously large frame to be countered. Look around the division now at the likes of new arrival Overeem, current champ Junior Dos Santos, and former champ Cain Velasquez, and the UFC has an exciting and athletic merry-go-round of heavyweight match-ups to make in 2012. Even Frank Mir has upped his game (and weight-lifting regimen) in response to Lesnar’s brief period of success. So it’s only fair we give Lesnar kudos for helping to make the division relevant again as he rides off into the sunset, hopefully with a focus on finding a renewed health.
The MMA Tipping Point Is Upon Us
We didn’t necessarily learn that from UFC 141, but we have learned it from 2011 as a whole. With a flurry of events at the end of the year, the UFC is poised to explode in 2012. While the sport of MMA has hovered around the mainstream consciousness for the past couple of years, it’s now legitimately set to stampede onto the sports scene next year with a revamped format for its popular television show "The Ultimate Fighter" and more events slated to air on network TV. The tipping point has arrived.
As referenced above, the heavyweight division, especially with the arrival of Overeem, has never been better. Overeem will probably get the first crack at champ Dos Santos in what will be one of the most highly anticipated bouts of 2012. Seeing how Velasquez will bounce back after he lost his title to Dos Santos in November, what Mir has in store after his bone-breaking display at UFC 140 and how Shane Carwin can recover from back surgery are three other intertwined storylines to keep an eye on in the new year.
There are some legitimate grudge matches that have a likelihood of happening in 2012 as well. If Rashad Evans gets by Phil Davis at UFC On Fox 2 at the end of January, then he’ll almost certainly face light heavyweight champion Jon Jones next. The former training partners seem to have developed a true hostility for one another, which will hopefully develop into a classic championship bout. At that same event Chael Sonnen squares off against Mark Munoz, and if the trash-talker extraordinaire can defeat Munoz it will set up Chael Sonnen-Anderson Silva II. Though we may need earplugs for the hype that would precede such a bout, it will certainly be worth the wait to see if Sonnen can have the same type of success he had previously against the champion before falling prey to an eleventh hour submission. Right now, Sonnen might be the only middleweight on the planet that can halt Silva’s reign.
Anticipated bouts aside, it’s been interesting to witness the sport’s evolution from fringe curiosity to mainstream acceptance. Though there will always be doubters (and hypocritical NFL fans bemoaning the violence), it’s hard to imagine the sport’s momentum slowing down. Just a year ago you wouldn’t have seen UFC 141’s full fight results streaming across ESPN’s constant sports ticker; now something like that is just a given. From October through December, the UFC had three events every month, and that trend will continue in January.
Of course, a higher number of events not only brings with it a higher level of awareness, but it also brings about more questions. Will more events ultimately lead to market oversaturation? Will more and more eyes on the sport lead to a backlash? Will more fights lead to more injury-ravaged cards like we had in 2011? These are all valid questions. But we’ll have to wait and see what we learn in 2012, won’t we?
