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By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist
Largely due to one fight in particular, UFC 162 will go down as one of the most talked-about events of this decade, if not MMA history. But one punch wasn't the only newsworthy happening at this weekend's event. Here's a look at the good, the bad, and the rest of what happened on Saturday.
Thumbs Up: to making a statement. Several fighters came out on Saturday night and let everyone know where they stand in their respective divisions. Chief among them was Cub Swanson. Swanson has run his streak to five straight wins. The number in and of itself is impressive, given the state of the featherweight division right now, but it becomes even more impressive when you consider that he's won four of those fights by knockout. Not to mention the fact that the fighters Swanson has beaten had a combined featherweight record of 12-3 when they fought. This is the best by far that Swanson has looked in his career, and given his style and his current run, it's hard to imagine that he's more than one fight away from a title shot. And if that one fight comes against Frankie Edgar, it will be one of the more can't-miss fights of the year, regardless of when it takes place.
Thumbs Down: to Rafaello Oliveira's leg kick defense. Mike Goldberg pounded into the ground the fact that only five fighters in the history of the UFC have won fights via leg kick TKO. There's also a reason that Barboza became the only fighter in UFC history to have a fight stopped twice because of leg kicks (of course, that's just his UFC fights – Barboza has actually had three leg kick TKOs). When you fight a guy who has done that, you come in ready to defend kicks to the leg. It was apparent right off the bat that Barboza was going after Oliveira's legs, and if you're not ready for leg kicks when you fight Edson Barboza, you don't have much of a chance.
Thumbs Up: to Brian Melancon, who looked spectacular against a fighter in Seth Baczynski who was not only working with a significant size advantage, but also happens to be a very good fighter. Baczynski isn't exactly the next title contender, but he had won six straight before falling to Mike Pierce in his last fight, including being the last man to beat the streaking Matt Brown. Melancon, whose biggest brush with notoriety has come via Strikeforce undercards, came in and made it look easy against him. It may not be the best arrangement in the world, but the fact is that it falls to the fighters who fight on the Facebook prelims to go out and make an impression. Melancon took the ball and ran with it.
Thumbs Down: to bad all-around games. To describe Roger Gracie's striking game as "plodding" might be generous. It's certainly commendable that Tim Kennedy was able to hang on the ground for as long as he did against Gracie, but his inability to take advantage of Gracie's rudimentary striking game didn't do him any favors in the eyes of the fans either. That doesn't likely speak to Kennedy's potential to hang with the best fighters in the world (he mentioned the infamous UFC jitters in the post-fight press conference, as debuting fighters with big expectations are wont to do), and it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Kennedy will find himself in the cage against a top middleweight to see what he's really capable of in his next outing. Gracie, meanwhile, joins the ranks of other highly-touted one-dimensional fighters who never fail to disappoint. This won't be his last fight in the UFC, but if he comes out there and lays another egg next time, don't be surprised to see Gracie on the outs sooner rather than later. It will be interesting to see if debuting grappling phenom Robert Drysdale fares any better when it's his turn.
Thumbs Up: to redemption fights. Frankie Edgar was coming off of three losses, albeit three close, five-round decision losses, but losses just the same coming into his fight with Charles Oliveira. Edgar beat Oliveira decisively despite a nice spirited effort by the 23-year-old Brazilian. It was a much-needed win for the former Lightweight Champion, and an important step for him to work his way back into title contention. Given the state of the featherweight division right now, it's hard to see anyone rematching Jose Aldo for the title so soon after challenging for it, but it works in Edgar's favor that he was as competitive against Aldo as anyone the champ has faced to date.
Thumbs Up: to the featherweight division in general. The division is starting to come into its own and is turning into one of the more compelling weight classes in the sport. It's similar to the welterweight division right now in that you could put a group of names into a hat and pull two out at a time, and you'd come up with compelling fights on every draw – even with rematches. Chad Mendes, Edgar, Ricardo Lamas, Swanson, Chan Sung Jung, Clay Guida, Nik Lentz, Dustin Poirier, Erik Koch, and the list goes on. This is a best-case scenario for a weight class.
Thumbs Down: to Chris Leben's UFC future. Andrew Craig isn't exactly a pushover, but despite what one judge's incomprehensible scorecard said, Craig steamrolled Leben. Leben has been through a lot, and I have a hard time seeing a visibly sentimental Dana White at the post-fight press conference cutting the TUF Season One alum. But Leben has looked progressively worse in losing four of his last five fights, even though he wasn't stopped in his last two losses.
Thumbs Up: to Mark Munoz in his own redemption fight. Munoz dealt with well-publicized weight and depression issues after his loss to Chris Weidman last July, but you would never know it by the way he performed against Tim Boetsch. UFC fighters, especially those at the upper end of the division, don't get a chance to rest, and Boetsch was no easy opponent to get Munoz back into the groove. But the "Filipino Wrecking Machine" didn't miss a beat in turning in progressively more decisive rounds on the way to victory.
Thumbs Up: to Chris Weidman for taking advantage of a situation we've seen a number of times now, which usually signaled the end of a title challenger's hopes against Anderson Silva. There may have been a few people watching on Saturday who said, “Uh…Silva probably shouldn't be messing around against Weidman,” but the vast majority of fans who had seen this routine before thought something along the lines of, “Silva is about to end this thing.” But Weidman was able to back Silva up far enough that he couldn't get out of the way of a left hand that signaled the beginning of the end of his unprecedented reign as champion. Good for Weidman.
Thumbs Down: to the Silva bashing. The narrative for many people coming out of this fight was that Silva played with the wrong guy, it was disrespectful, and he got what he deserved. That's all nonsense. Ask any fighter what percentage of fighting is mental. I'll bet that the number they give you will be closer to 100 than it will be to 50. The whole reason behind what Anderson Silva did (and has done in numerous other fights) is to get into his opponent's head. And usually it works. We've seen it time after time. Silva invites his opponent to hit him. The opponent swings and misses. Silva counters. He eventually lands a strike that puts his opponent down, and that's all she wrote. The other point to mention is that it's not as if Weidman was lighting Silva up leading into the finish. Silva didn't get tagged and then continue to dance around. Weidman got in one clean shot. Unfortunately for the former champ, that was all he needed.
Thumbs Up: to Anderson Silva's legacy. In the end, this will be nothing more than a blip on the radar when we look back and consider the career of Anderson Silva. His story isn't finished yet, and he very well could come back and start another run after the rematch with Weidman. He could also forgo a rematch and go on a path of destruction in super fights. Hopefully he chooses to rematch Weidman even if he's not interested in being champion again, just so that we can see what happens when Silva knows that Weidman can hurt him. But even if Silva rematches Weidman and loses again, what does that mean for the legacy of the man we've called the greatest of all time? It means nothing. It means that Anderson Silva, like so many before him and so many who will come after, couldn't win them all. Saturday night didn't seem to show that Silva got old, but Father Time comes for everyone eventually, and the Weidman fight could have been the tip of that iceberg. Time will tell, but whatever happens, Anderson Silva will remain, until further notice, the greatest fighter this sport has ever seen.
Questions? Comments? Hit me up on Twitter - @shawnennis, shoot me an email – ennistorch(at)gmail.com, or leave a comment below.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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