UFC 77

None of the fights were particularly interesting this time around. I thought the Sylvia-Vera match-up would be much more technically interesting, but it boiled down to a much larger, longer opponent overwhelming a smaller guy. Perhaps it would have gone differently if Vera hadn't broken his hand and been reduced to swinging with his elbow on the left side.

Anderson Silva dispelled any doubt that he's simply a better fighter than Rich Franklin. I'm not sure who they bring in to challenge Silva. Dan Henderson might be the next choice given that he's already in the UFC. I'm not sure what the likelihood is of bringing in Paul Filho.

Maybe it's because it was in Cincinnati, but the whole vibe of this show was lower-key than most UFC pay-per-views. It seemed more like a Spike TV event. When the highlight of the night is the cut on Kaleb Starnes's forehead, you're not talking about a memorable event.

Why Did Boxing and Wrestling Evolve Differently?

I'm not nearly the historian of boxing and fighting in general that many fans of the sweet science seem to be. A question I've been trying to find an answer for recently is why boxing continued to be a more-or-less legitimate sporting competition while wresting became, well, the WWE. The simple answer is of course that amateur/Olympic wrestling is boring to watch while boxing can be exciting for the right match-up.

I'm not convinced of that though. First, people have proved to be willing to watch grappling in the context of MMA, and some forms of wrestling are major spectator events (think sumo). From what i've read professional wrestling was considered a legitimate fighting sport until around the 1920s, but was declining in popularity especially after the retirement of the legendary Frank Gotch. The answer to the decline seems to have been the rise of the theatrical style now honed to perfection in modern pro wrestling.

Even with the profusion of fight sport on TV these days it's hard to imagine a new professional wrestling organization that tries to have "real" matches, even if they incorporate judo and jiu jitsu techniques. Although some have argued that the popularity of MMA has increased peoples' awareness of pure boxing, I haven't seen evidence yet that this translates to more viewers for live and pay-per-view events.

UFC 76

Wow. I was not only wrong, but had Jardine followed up on his knockdown of Liddell in the second round, i'd have been wrong in reverse.

It's kind of hard to believe that not long ago Randy Couture was retired, Liddell was thought unbeatable, and Pride was considered by many to have the superior fighters. The idea that any fighter can win on any given night is what gives MMA much of its appeal, but i'm not sure if fans are going to want a situation where there is no dominant fighter at any weight class.

Personally, i thought that both Tavares/Griffin and Sanchez/Fitch were excellent fights even if they went to decision. But Griffing/Rua and Liddell/Jardine were only interesting in the "what the hell is going on here" way. That's the Rua that KO'd Quinton Jackson and outpointed Nogueira? Very unimpressive. And Liddell was pathetic. When he raised his arms at the end of the fight I was actually embarrassed for him.

TUF 6

I'm already bored with TUF 6. Even Matt Serra can't sell the idea that there's some sort of legitimate feud between him and Hughes. It cracks me up when Serra says about Hughes "He thinks I got lucky". Got news for you Mr. Serra. Everyone thinks you got lucky.

Here is the one really interesting thing that i learned from Episode 1 of TUF 6: Mac Danzig is the world's most bad-ass vegan. I hope he wins on that basis alone.

UFC 76 Predictions

One of the good things about the UFC is that the good fighters get matched up (sometimes, still waiting on Emelianenko/Couture). The bad thing about that is it's pretty easy to lose a couple of fights in a row, which can be tough on a fighter's career. That could be the theme for the night at UFC 76 though. Clearly, somebody will have consecutive losses in the Liddell/Jardine fight since both are coming off losses, and i think it's entirely possible that Sanchez loses to Fitch. Although Griffin won his last fight, he's in a similar boat. He might withstand a loss since he's incredibly popular and everybody seems to acknowledge that his opponent is simply better than he this time, but this would be three losses in five fights.

My predictions: Liddell by KO, Rua by submission, Sanchez by controversial decision. Of course, the only thing harder to predict than the future is a future MMA fight.

The only really interesting undercard fight is the Thiago Tavares/Tyson Griffin match up, since there's some speculation that the winner could fight BJ Penn for the lightweight title left open by Sean Sherk's suspension.

Carano Submits Evinger

The build-up to the Gina Carano-Tonya Evinger fight had just about every cliche imaginable, from Evinger's line about wanting to "make out" with Carano, to discussions on Internet forums about Carano's lack of seriousness because she wasn't making weight. In the end, it turned out to be a pretty good fight though (several sights are hosting video of the entire fight). The fight was almost entirely on the ground and Carano ended it with a rear naked choke.

Evinger, a former wrestler, took Carano to the ground with ease, and it looked for most of the first round that she might end the fight there. It doesn't appear that Evinger's grappling skills are any match for her wrestling though. Eventually Carano reversed positions, and managed to get a rear naked choke. I think it's significant that such a high-profile fight ended on the ground, since many women's MMA bouts look essentially like kick-boxing matches. Evinger clearly needs to work on grappling defense (Sherdog says that all of her losses have been by submission), but this was a quality fight on the part of both women.

UFC 75

I thought the Jackson-Henderson fight was excellent, though before the fight i would have picked Henderson to win. I was surprised at how comfortable Jackson was on the ground. Against Henderson, Jackson looked close to un-submittable. I hope we get to see him fight Rua again some day.

An interesting trend is that the more well-rounded the fighters in the UFC become, the more fights go to decision. I wonder how that will affect the popularity of MMA.

Mirko went from intimidating top-contender to irrelevant in two fights. That's got to be close to a record.

Women In MMA

On my personal blog I once wrote an entry about women who box and do other martial arts (in summary, i think that whether or not women fight is none of your damn business). At that time, there were quite a few high-profile female boxers (Laila Ali, Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker), but only a couple of women in MMA with any recognition at all. I think there is still significantly less support among men for the idea of women participating in MMA, but it's happening anyway. The premiere issue of Fight magazine not only has a profile on Gina Carano, but also lists her fight vs. Julie Kedzie at Elite XC in February as one of the "10 Fights That Made MMA".

I think that the resistance to women in fighting, especially MMA, comes more from the fighting fan base than from the fighters. Across the country there are plenty of gyms with women training, and plenty of willing trainers. In general, women who work hard and take the sport seriously are eventually treated with respect. There seems to be a fairly substantial base of female fans of sport fighting also, but i think the mainstream fan still tends to be young to middle-age males for whom being a fight spectator is some sort of manhood ritual in itself. Recently, when Dana White announced that it was hard for him to bring Fedor Emelianenko into the UFC because the mainstream fan didn't know who he was, i was surprised. But he may be right. The casual fan may want the fighters to just bleed. Apparently there's an audience for the so-called "tough man" competitions, which are ugly, unskilled brawls.

Of course, White himself is on the record as a non-fan of female fighting, and there's a significant percentage of educated fans who simply don't want to see women fight for whatever reason. One of the oft-stated reasons is because the women are less technically skilled or less physically gifted than their male counterparts. I'm not sure either is true. The depth of talent is certainly less, but one of the good things about sport fighting is that it matches up opponents of similar size. The skill evident in womens' boxing matches and even the kick-boxing style of something like the World Combat League has increased dramatically in recent years. I think this evolution will happen even faster in MMA, if only because grappling and wrestling are such technical sports.

Some percentage of fans, both sophisticated and otherwise, simply don't want to see women get beat up, even by other women. I can understand that. Men at least seem to be able to treat violence against other men more abstractly, so that a broken nose or a submission is simply part of the game. But as i said in my entry on boxing, i think the desire to fight is a human urge, not just a male urge. As the skill level elevates and the passion for competing becomes evident, i think male fans will get past that instinct.

I'm a bit skeptical of this story about how MMA techniques are making their way into street fighting (link from Fight Opinion). Although they're not very specific, they apparently are referring to ground fighting and submission arts. I suppose that somebody might be able to pick up the guillotine or rear choke without too much training, but my personal experience is that most of submission grappling and wrestling is fairly tough to learn, and the vast majority of people who practice it are not interested in being street bullies. I think most trained fighters also understand that street fighting, potentially against multiple opponents and/or weapons is a different world.