UFC 104 has come and gone. We all know who had their hand raised in victory, but in the long run, who were the real winners and losers from thing night? With some of strange goings on of the night, even a few winners in the octagon may end up losing in the long run.
The biggest winners of the night had to be Chael Sonnen and Cain Velasquez.
Velasquez took a big step up in competition in facing the veteran Ben Rothwell, and made the most of it in earning a second round stoppage. While an 8-0 record with the biggest win being over Rothwell shouldn’t put him anywhere near a title fight yet, we are talking about the UFC so he has a shot. But with the next Heavyweight title fight featuring two fighters with a total of sixteen fights between them, anything is possible in that murky division.
Sonnen looked very impressive in his victory over Yushin Okami, a guy who had a 7-1 record in the UFC, with his only loss coming to Rich Franklin. The victory should give Sonnen some momentum, and put him in line for the chance to begin working his way up the contender ladder.
As for who didn’t fare so well, Anthony Johnson is at the top of the list. Despite scoring a first round TKO over Yoshiyuki Yoshida, Johnson missed weight by six pounds and therefore lost out on a good bit of cash. On top of forfeiting 20% of his purse, he was denied Knockout of the Night bonus of $60,000 since he hadn’t made weight.
Johnson should never have even been given the chance to fight Saturday night. To come in six pounds should simply not be accepted in this sport. Fighters are cutting weight to get down to the limit, and for a guy to miss by that much shows a blatant disregard for the rules. Why even have weight limits if guys are allowed to compete when they are so far over the agreed upon limit.
Clearly, the most disappointing result of the night was the decision win of Lyoto Machida over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. While the fight was competitive enough, and it did appear that Shogun did enough to win, the fact was he left it in the hands of the judges. As is becoming almost a regular occurrence after title fights, Dana White expressed his displeasure with both fighters for not pushing the action enough to settle things on their own.
Unfortunately, this is something that we are going to have to get used to in both title fights as well as non-title bouts between top tier talent. The explosive nature of Mixed Martial Arts means the slightest mistake can result in a quick knockout. And now that win/loss records are becoming as important as they are in boxing, fighters seem to be becoming less apt to fight with the reckless style that originally drew so many fans to MMA. In the UFC, a loss or two will not only result in being relegated to fighting on the undercard, it may also you run out of the promotion.
So what we are seeing are explosive fighters like Machida, Rua, and Anderson Silva fighting tactical fights in which they can’t find a single moment in a twenty-five minute fight to drop their guard and take a shot at a knockout. From the perspective of the fighters, it’s a smart move, not wanting to run the risk of getting caught. From the perspective of the fans, it means watching more defensive, tactical fights like we watched this past Saturday.
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