Swinny
11-20-2012, 08:00 AM
Through the Past Darkly: Reflections on 'UFC 154: St-Pierre vs. Condit'
by Ben Fowlkes on Nov 19, 2012 at 2:00 pm ET
For all the things Georges St-Pierre does well, absorbing blows without showing damage isn't one of them. It's easy to forget that, because the man usually just doesn't get hit all that often. Most of the time he shows up to the post-fight press conference looking like, at worst, he'd stumbled into a prickly bush while cutting across someone's lawn on the way over here.
This time was different. By the time the third round of his title fight with Carlos Condit at UFC 154 had ended, St-Pierre's face had already begun to resemble a Rubik's Cube left out in the rain. He'd only been beaten on for a portion of that round, and still he got up with his suddenly misshapen face full of all the wrong kinds of vivid colors.
It was like his first fight with B.J. Penn, where he ate a couple of jabs and all at once went from male model to horror movie extra. It doesn't take much for that to happen to GSP. Fortunately, he doesn't take much in the way of punishment in most of his fights, so you almost forget about his natural tendency to swell up and bleed the minute he gets touched. It makes you wonder what he might look like by now if, instead of being the world's best welterweight, he was merely No. 3 or 4, and so had to take a beating every now and then. Let's just say he might not have that endorsement deal with the skin care line.
As far as his image is concerned, getting floored by that kick might have actually been a bonus for GSP in a weird, twisted way. It gave him the opportunity to prove he could fight through adversity, and countered accusations that all his fights are boring, one-sided affairs. There was nothing boring about seeing him battle back from that third-round blitz. After a nearly fight-ending barrage, the usual routine of takedowns followed by ground-and-pound seemed like far more of a triumph.
And Condit? He showed that he hadn't come just to be a roadblock standing between GSP and a superfight with Anderson Silva. He couldn't stop St-Pierre's takedowns, but right up until the final horn he was taking chances off his back and trying to make something happen. He may not have much to show for it now except an aching skull and another loss on his record, but at least he's in good company there. You can only feel so bad about getting beaten up by the very best.
As for the rest of the action from Montreal, read on ...
Deja vu all over again for Johny Hendricks
It was another quick knockout win for the former NCAA champion wrestler, and one that was eerily similar to his victory over Jon Fitch. As UFC president Dana White pointed out, Hendricks even laid Martin Kampmann out in almost the exact same spot as Fitch. Now that's precision.
But at the post-fight press conference, once again Hendricks expressed his willingness to wait as long as it took for a title shot. He didn't even seem too concerned about the money he might be missing out on while waiting for GSP's schedule to clear up, since, as he put it, "How often do you get a title shot?"
Of course, Hendricks hasn't gotten that shot yet, though it seems pretty obvious that he's got the best claim on it once the welterweight title goes back on the market. We just don't know yet when that will be.
By the way, for those of you wondering how Kampmann is doing following that lights-out left from Hendricks, I saw him on Sunday morning and you wouldn't even know he'd been in a fight. Probably not how he wanted to feel after this one, or at least not the path he wanted to take to get there, but at least it helped him avoid some strange looks at the airport in the morning.
So, anyone remember that rule about punches to the back of the head?
Things seemed to be going so well for Alessio Sakara. After trading bombs with Patrick Cote, he had his man hurt and needed only a few more well-placed shots to finish. Unfortunately, the hammer fists Sakara threw were the opposite of well-placed, as one after another seemed to find the back of Cote's head in a blatant disregard for the rules.
These weren't the questionable variety of back of the head strikes, either. They weren't the kind that accidentally stray just a little too far behind the ear and into that legal gray zone. No, these were punches to the exact center of the back of Cote's skull. If you were asked to put your finger on the most back-of-the-head portion in the entire back-of-the-head region, you'd probably end up pointing right at where Sakara's fist landed over and over again.
So yes, Sakara screwed up. I don't think he did it intentionally – heat of the moment and all that – but I also don't think he (or Cote, for that matter) got much assistance from referee Dan Miragliotta, who seemed content to watch the illegal blows pile up before finally being compelled to act. He didn't appear to offer much of a warning, nor did he get involved until it was already too late. At first, he seemed willing to ignore it altogether and let the bout stand as a TKO win for Sakara, but when it became apparent that the pro-Cote crowd in Montreal might burn him alive if he did, he ruled it a disqualification for Cote – which was also the wrong call.
If there's ever been a bout that deserved to be ruled a no contest, this was it. Here's one where we should throw up our hands, admit that the ref failed to do his job (and, as White pointed out, failed in a way that was very dangerous for one of the participants), and wipe it off the record books. Like my man Don Frye says, "Let's do it again, brother." Maybe with a different ref this time.
No victory party for Antonio Carvalho
The Canadian featherweight won his second straight fight in the UFC with a decision victory over Rodrigo Damm, but as he made his way backstage he looked about as happy as a man whose dog just got run over by a garbage truck. In interviews after the fight, he couldn't help but talk about how disappointed he was by his performance, how he felt like he couldn't get started, how he didn't feel much like a winner just then.
"There's something wrong with me, and it's not physical," Carvalho said at one point. "I've got to figure out what it is."
Like good friends and teammates should, his cornermen did everything in their power to lift his spirits. After Carvalho finished his interviews, they could be heard reminding him that he did in fact win the fight, and that it wasn't all his fault if the bout didn't end up as a thriller. Carvalho listened with his head down and didn't argue, but neither did he seem all that encouraged. The fans in his home country had sent him off with boos, and he'd heard them. He might have been a winner in the judges' eyes, but he wasn't going to pretend that he felt like one after that fight.
A lot of fun before the fight, not so much during or after
When asked how he scored the close bout between Tom Lawlor and Francis Carmont, White replied simply: "I didn't." That seems about right. Carmont took a split-decision victory, but even the Montreal crowd that began the fight firmly in the Frenchman's corner was booing him by the time his hand was raised.
I had the fight scored for Lawlor, but it was a close one and not at all a good one. I love Lawlor's antics before the fight. He really breaks up the monotony of the pre-fight routine, which is great. It's just that the fun doesn't always carry over into the fight itself, and that's when he's bound to get criticized for spending too much energy on all the non-fighting aspects of his fight career.
For the most part, that's unfair. It's not as if he's skipping training sessions to brainstorm ideas for obscure weigh-in references. Locating a pair of adult diapers for an open workout sumo demonstration is probably easier than you think in a city the size of Montreal. It's totally possible to do the fun pre-fight stuff and still bring it on fight night. It's just that Lawlor didn't, at least not this time. Even if he'd won the decision, he wouldn't have boosted his stock with that performance.
I'm not saying he should play it straight and serious, since I love it when a fighter brings a little humor to this sometimes too serious and overly macho business. At the same time, it's like when Akihiro Gono and his cornermen all came out to the cage doing a choreographed dance routine in sparkling evening gowns at UFC 94. Even the UFC president enjoyed that one, but, as White quipped after Gono went on to lose that fight to Jon Fitch via decision: "If you're going to come out in a dress, you probably better win."
by Ben Fowlkes on Nov 19, 2012 at 2:00 pm ET
For all the things Georges St-Pierre does well, absorbing blows without showing damage isn't one of them. It's easy to forget that, because the man usually just doesn't get hit all that often. Most of the time he shows up to the post-fight press conference looking like, at worst, he'd stumbled into a prickly bush while cutting across someone's lawn on the way over here.
This time was different. By the time the third round of his title fight with Carlos Condit at UFC 154 had ended, St-Pierre's face had already begun to resemble a Rubik's Cube left out in the rain. He'd only been beaten on for a portion of that round, and still he got up with his suddenly misshapen face full of all the wrong kinds of vivid colors.
It was like his first fight with B.J. Penn, where he ate a couple of jabs and all at once went from male model to horror movie extra. It doesn't take much for that to happen to GSP. Fortunately, he doesn't take much in the way of punishment in most of his fights, so you almost forget about his natural tendency to swell up and bleed the minute he gets touched. It makes you wonder what he might look like by now if, instead of being the world's best welterweight, he was merely No. 3 or 4, and so had to take a beating every now and then. Let's just say he might not have that endorsement deal with the skin care line.
As far as his image is concerned, getting floored by that kick might have actually been a bonus for GSP in a weird, twisted way. It gave him the opportunity to prove he could fight through adversity, and countered accusations that all his fights are boring, one-sided affairs. There was nothing boring about seeing him battle back from that third-round blitz. After a nearly fight-ending barrage, the usual routine of takedowns followed by ground-and-pound seemed like far more of a triumph.
And Condit? He showed that he hadn't come just to be a roadblock standing between GSP and a superfight with Anderson Silva. He couldn't stop St-Pierre's takedowns, but right up until the final horn he was taking chances off his back and trying to make something happen. He may not have much to show for it now except an aching skull and another loss on his record, but at least he's in good company there. You can only feel so bad about getting beaten up by the very best.
As for the rest of the action from Montreal, read on ...
Deja vu all over again for Johny Hendricks
It was another quick knockout win for the former NCAA champion wrestler, and one that was eerily similar to his victory over Jon Fitch. As UFC president Dana White pointed out, Hendricks even laid Martin Kampmann out in almost the exact same spot as Fitch. Now that's precision.
But at the post-fight press conference, once again Hendricks expressed his willingness to wait as long as it took for a title shot. He didn't even seem too concerned about the money he might be missing out on while waiting for GSP's schedule to clear up, since, as he put it, "How often do you get a title shot?"
Of course, Hendricks hasn't gotten that shot yet, though it seems pretty obvious that he's got the best claim on it once the welterweight title goes back on the market. We just don't know yet when that will be.
By the way, for those of you wondering how Kampmann is doing following that lights-out left from Hendricks, I saw him on Sunday morning and you wouldn't even know he'd been in a fight. Probably not how he wanted to feel after this one, or at least not the path he wanted to take to get there, but at least it helped him avoid some strange looks at the airport in the morning.
So, anyone remember that rule about punches to the back of the head?
Things seemed to be going so well for Alessio Sakara. After trading bombs with Patrick Cote, he had his man hurt and needed only a few more well-placed shots to finish. Unfortunately, the hammer fists Sakara threw were the opposite of well-placed, as one after another seemed to find the back of Cote's head in a blatant disregard for the rules.
These weren't the questionable variety of back of the head strikes, either. They weren't the kind that accidentally stray just a little too far behind the ear and into that legal gray zone. No, these were punches to the exact center of the back of Cote's skull. If you were asked to put your finger on the most back-of-the-head portion in the entire back-of-the-head region, you'd probably end up pointing right at where Sakara's fist landed over and over again.
So yes, Sakara screwed up. I don't think he did it intentionally – heat of the moment and all that – but I also don't think he (or Cote, for that matter) got much assistance from referee Dan Miragliotta, who seemed content to watch the illegal blows pile up before finally being compelled to act. He didn't appear to offer much of a warning, nor did he get involved until it was already too late. At first, he seemed willing to ignore it altogether and let the bout stand as a TKO win for Sakara, but when it became apparent that the pro-Cote crowd in Montreal might burn him alive if he did, he ruled it a disqualification for Cote – which was also the wrong call.
If there's ever been a bout that deserved to be ruled a no contest, this was it. Here's one where we should throw up our hands, admit that the ref failed to do his job (and, as White pointed out, failed in a way that was very dangerous for one of the participants), and wipe it off the record books. Like my man Don Frye says, "Let's do it again, brother." Maybe with a different ref this time.
No victory party for Antonio Carvalho
The Canadian featherweight won his second straight fight in the UFC with a decision victory over Rodrigo Damm, but as he made his way backstage he looked about as happy as a man whose dog just got run over by a garbage truck. In interviews after the fight, he couldn't help but talk about how disappointed he was by his performance, how he felt like he couldn't get started, how he didn't feel much like a winner just then.
"There's something wrong with me, and it's not physical," Carvalho said at one point. "I've got to figure out what it is."
Like good friends and teammates should, his cornermen did everything in their power to lift his spirits. After Carvalho finished his interviews, they could be heard reminding him that he did in fact win the fight, and that it wasn't all his fault if the bout didn't end up as a thriller. Carvalho listened with his head down and didn't argue, but neither did he seem all that encouraged. The fans in his home country had sent him off with boos, and he'd heard them. He might have been a winner in the judges' eyes, but he wasn't going to pretend that he felt like one after that fight.
A lot of fun before the fight, not so much during or after
When asked how he scored the close bout between Tom Lawlor and Francis Carmont, White replied simply: "I didn't." That seems about right. Carmont took a split-decision victory, but even the Montreal crowd that began the fight firmly in the Frenchman's corner was booing him by the time his hand was raised.
I had the fight scored for Lawlor, but it was a close one and not at all a good one. I love Lawlor's antics before the fight. He really breaks up the monotony of the pre-fight routine, which is great. It's just that the fun doesn't always carry over into the fight itself, and that's when he's bound to get criticized for spending too much energy on all the non-fighting aspects of his fight career.
For the most part, that's unfair. It's not as if he's skipping training sessions to brainstorm ideas for obscure weigh-in references. Locating a pair of adult diapers for an open workout sumo demonstration is probably easier than you think in a city the size of Montreal. It's totally possible to do the fun pre-fight stuff and still bring it on fight night. It's just that Lawlor didn't, at least not this time. Even if he'd won the decision, he wouldn't have boosted his stock with that performance.
I'm not saying he should play it straight and serious, since I love it when a fighter brings a little humor to this sometimes too serious and overly macho business. At the same time, it's like when Akihiro Gono and his cornermen all came out to the cage doing a choreographed dance routine in sparkling evening gowns at UFC 94. Even the UFC president enjoyed that one, but, as White quipped after Gono went on to lose that fight to Jon Fitch via decision: "If you're going to come out in a dress, you probably better win."