UFC 107 Reaction: Vindicated Edition

BJ Penn got smoked by Georges St. Pierre. But here's a newsflash that more and more are starting to realize: SIZE DOES MATTER! Is GSP a better fighter than “The Prodigy”? Not a chance. I'd go so far as to say that Penn is pound for pound ahead of “Rush” in the grand scheme of subjective P4P lore. It's not because he impressed at UFC 107 so much as he impresses in every fight he takes part in at the 155 lb. Lightweight limit.

For evidence, one needs to look no further than how he handled Kenny Florian in his previous title defense. Kenny Florian is another of those guys who gets very little credit for just how good he really is. Nobody has done what he has against Joe Daddy and Clay Guida and he took BJ to the 4th round, perhaps stealing a round for himself in the affair. Diego Sanchez didn't even come close and “The Nightmare” appeared larger than an already swollen 155er in Penn. I won't say BJ's size is the culprit for his destruction of Florian since he didn't really use “size tactics” to garner that victory. But he did take apart a man that I believe is the 2nd or 3rd best lightweight that calls Earth his home. And you'd have a difficult time convincing me that KenFlo wouldn't dismantle Shinya Aoki with relative ease.

Okay, to put this jumble into perspective, GSP destroyed BJ by using his size and athleticism to nullify the superior skills that BJ Penn brought to the table. Penn's size advantage is so miniscule that it hasn't been a factor in his 155 championship defenses. And Kenny Florian is on a fast track to another title shot is he keeps improving as drastically as we have seen over the last few years. It's a shame that Kenny was awarded his shot at BJ before he was ready. But that may be a mixed blessing since Florian is the type of guy to take adversity and use it to motivate him. A motivated and further improved “KenFlo” is a scary prospect, indeed.

Image courtesy mmajunkie.comAnother thing I'd like to touch on (which also ties into this light “size advantage” theme) is Frank “Are You Kidding Me?” Mir. Not only did he make good on a promise to bulk up, but he did so by first humbly accepting the reality that Brock Lesnar is NOT that good of a fighter. Bear with me. Lesnar's wrestling ability is top notch as far as big dudes are concerned but he hasn't shown that he is a BETR wrestler than a Shane Carwin or even Randy Couture. Yes I said it. Couture has shown off his wrestling ability time and time again, and done so by pretty much handling bigger guys with better skill. He gave Lesnar a hard time when he met him at the octagon's center before finally succumbing to the bullish power that Brock produces with his massive size.

Frank Mir's discovery of “size does matter” directly resulted in a demolition job of Cheick Kongo. The 245 lb. Version of Mir would not have made Kongo's airborne 540 look like Piston Honda of Mike Tyson's Punch Out fame. Maybe it still would have stunned him, but the outright cartoonish result was strength training at its best. Mir's skills are constantly downplayed, his blasting of Nogueira is a fine example of this. I still hold firm in my assumption that Big Nog would have suffered a similar fate, if a bit more prolonged without the Staphylococcus infection he endured in the weeks leading up to that bout. Mir's standup is at a high level, even if it isn't nearly a K-1 muay thai attack.It still surpasses many heavyweights and his ground game does too. His Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is good enough to nullify any heavyweight on the ground, except maybe a guy like Fabricio Werdum. Call me a nuthugger, I am being objective as I can here. Look for Mir to clean out the UFC heavyweight division in the next couple of years.

A few more summary reactions...Jon Fitch FINALLY showed shades of a top notch muay thai game. He has been quietly shaping himself into one of the best standup fighters in the welterweight world by way of extreme amounts of standup training. His combinations against Pierce were quick and effective, though not overpowering. When this guy learns to stop going for take-downs at bad times and mixes that striking with his wrestling properly, he'll give Georges St. Pierre fits. He still lacks that “it” factor that puts it all together in a coherent and dominant manner.

Rousimar Palhares is becoming everything I thought he'd be when Demian Maia was getting the unfair amount of attention that he got. Palhares has a granite chin and sloppy but effective striking (especially his kicks which actually have shades of proper technique) but he lost his buzz by losing to...Dan Henderson? He took Hendo the distance and even managed to TAKE HIM DOWN a time or two. Palhares has more than just one tool, something that puts him ahead of Maia in my mind. I still hold firm to my belief that Palhares will tool Maia when they finally meet, hopefully that day is soon.

Image courtesy MMA WeeklyPaul Buentello gets no respect. Not only did I score the fight in his favor (9-10, 10-8, 10-9 = 29-27) but he has more or less destroyed every opponent he has faced for SIX YEARS (except Overeem and Arlovskim both at the top of their game) but his record in that span is 13-2 on my scorecard (12-3 officially). You don't put that kind of resume together without some level of talent. For my scoring in his favor, I personally view leg kicks like takedowns. They are an extremely effective tool but without some sort of capitalizing on the effects, they are more or less null and void. Buentello effectively beat up Stefan Struve in round 3 and Struve failed to make anything happen despite turnign Buentello's leg to mincemeat. Heck, Buentello even continued to press forward and land combo after combo despite having that bum knee. 10-9 Buentello. Expect to see Buentello rip anyone in UFC's heavyweight division apart whose name isn't Carwin, Lesnar, Nogueira, or Mir.

Finally, it was good to see a full MMA event that didn't have an asterisk indicating poor judging. I disagree with Struve's win but I can see how it was scored that way. 29-28 or 28-28 is not a bad assessment of the outcome. But we want to see this become the standard in an event's judging, not the exception. Mike Fagan has a fantastic alternative to the current unified judging criteria. Check it out at Mike Fagan's Alternative Judging Criteria

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