UFC 143: Main Card Recap

I thought the events of last night deserved to marinate in my brain for 24 hours before I formulated any thoughts, thus the late (by net standards) recap but here goes:

UFC 143 ended up being a great night of technical mixed martial arts. It was promoted as though it was sure to be filled with violence and instead we saw technique and strategy, above all else, prevail. From the opening fight, which featured Ed Herman falling behind on the feet only to apply swift and deadly jiu jitsu technique once he hit the ground with Clifford Starks, through to Carlos Condit's masterful main event performance against Nick Diaz, the card was a perfect example of a common martial arts tenet: Attack your opponent where they are weakest.

Full recap of all five fights on the main card after the jump.

Ed Herman vs Clifford Starks
Herman won this by rear naked choke at 1:43 of the second round. He had lost the first round, after taking a handful straight right hands from Starks throughout the course of the round and generally finding little success with his own striking attack, which was largely a right hand uppercut. Joe Rogan pointed out that it was with that punch that he had knocked out Tim Credeur so perhaps Starks was ready for it. Either way, he struggled to land it. Following a clinch against the cage early in the second round, Herman used a neat outside leg sweep to take Starks to the mat, immediately moved to mount and when Starks rolled over Herman sank in the rear naked without much resistance. He was fairly measured in his post fight interview, hoping to get a big name fight in the middle weight division while at the same time acknowledging that he had been hurt a little by Starks in that first round. Unfortunately for Herman, I see Rousimar Palhares as being a real possibility for him if he wants a step up. Palhares needs another win to cement himself as a title contender and Herman is looking to break into the top 10, so the match makes sense for both parties. Oh yeah, they are on equal 3 fight win streaks. If Herman wanted to go the conservation route he might look at someone like Costa Philippou, who has two fights of his own but might not be the ground fighter that Herman is.

Renan Barao vs Scott Jorgensen
The first of four action filled decisions, Barao controlled the distance masterfully with kicks, both to the leg, body and head, forcing Jorgensen to shoot for take downs well outside of range, which Barao then defended. It was an excellent strategy against a wrestler and proved that you can incorporate kicks into your attack without being at risk of the take down. Barao worked his kicks into his combination's and only used threw them once he had Jorgensen moving backwards. I think Jorgensen was close to getting a take down once, in the first round. Every other attempt was easily stuffed by Barao, who will now get serious attention as the next title challenger at 135. Could he end up having another fight before meeting Cruz? Maybe the winner of Miguel Torres vs Michael McDonald but other than that I don't see many credible fights for him at this time.

Josh Koscheck vs Mike Pierce
While this fight was a fairly close one, it was probably the least "technical" in terms of the techniques and strategies used. Both Koscheck and Pierce have fairly basic stand up games, predicated on landing big power strikes, pretty typical wrestle-boxer stuff. I would say that Pierce had the heavier punches, as Koscheck didn't look comfortable with a couple of the shots he took. Koscheck looks remarkably uncomfortable with his stand up, still not fully confident in himself since the GSP fight. He barely threw his right hand, which could have been for a strategic purpose that I didn't grasp (facial protection, take down defense) and he won the fight almost surely because he landed a takedown in the third round, giving him two in the fight to Pierce's one. I had not realized that Koscheck was already 34, which I found a little surprising. I think he has one more run in him though and would like to see him take a high stakes fight with Jake Ellenberger, were he to defeat Sanchez, or Johny Hendricks.

Fabricio Werdum vs Roy Nelson
Werdum had the most surprising performance of the card, actually coming through on his promise to trust the striking that he showed against Alistair Overeem. I didn't think he would find success going that route against Roy Nelson, who has a granite chin and a big right hand but Werdum was far to tall and strong for Nelson. He overwhelmed him in the clinch in much the same manner that Frank Mir did, only Mir turned the dominance into takedowns, while Werdum struck Nelson repeatedly with knees and punches. I think Roy found out his true potential in the division: A high level gate-keeper, who will never beat the top 5 or 6 fighters in the division. I'd like to see Roy fight Shane Carwin when Carwin returns from injury to test this theory and to see where Carwin stands. As for Werdum, it would appear he is going to fight Mir in a title eliminator. I can't really see how any other fights make sense except for the winner of Mark Hunt/Chieck Kongo, but either of those men would likely be no big challenge for Werdum. The one thing working against Werdum is that he has lost to Junior Dos Santos and Alistair Overeem, so the desire to see him get a chance at the title isn't great right now.

Nick Diaz vs Carlos Condit
I wasn't incredibly surprised by Carlos Condit's choice of strategy against Nick Diaz. I had seen openings for both BJ Penn and Paul Daley to escape the bad situations they got themselves in against Diaz (on the cage, shelled up eating punches) and undoubtedly Greg Jackson and Condit had also seen them. I suspect that this was the way that GSP would defeat Nick Diaz, should he have been able to do so. Going to the ground with Diaz is almost sure to end in a submission, so staying on the feet and avoiding the Diaz trap by circling away from the cage is the best way to take him on. Georges would have used jabs to score, while Condit used kicks, mostly to the leg, to do his damage. I'll leave you with a couple of in-depth thoughts that I have on the way the fight played out and the way it was evaluated:

• This match-up is absolutely perfect for a potential trilogy. I highly doubt we're going to get one, since I take Nick Diaz at his word that he is going to retire, but if he stays on I hope we see an instant re-match. In fact, I'm shocked that the idea wasn't brought up far more often in the post fight discourse. Boxing has a lot of rematches, particularly when two highly ranked and evenly matched fighters fight to a close decision the way Diaz and Condit did. Would Diaz go to his ground game sooner? Would he be smart enough to figure out how to counter Condit's stand up strategy? Would Carlos open up much sooner and with more commitment with the knowledge that he can escape a bad position against Nick? It's not often MMa can take a page out of boxing's book but now is a great time for Dana to do it and make a re-match.
  
• The UFC Primetime and the countdown shows are great theatre but they are getting stale, especially when every fight is billed as a knock out waiting to happen. The reason the fight had so much controversy attached to it is because we were yet again sold a bill of goods that didn't match the produc description. No one told us Condit was going to use a tailored game plan to win. We were told he was going to challenge Nick in an epic striking match. Somehow the UFC needs to find a way to promote their fights without relying solely on the prospect of unconsciousness to make it seem attractive. After all, good MMA is so much more than that, as the fight showed. We just expected one thing and got another and that always leads to unhappiness in the ranks, even if what we got was better, in many ways, than what we were expecting.
• I see a few people praising Condit as putting on a performance for the ages. He did not. He fought with a very singular strategy that was predicated on avoiding exchanges with Diaz. He retreated constantly, which differs from Frank Edgar's in and out style that was used as a comparison in more than a few places, and any time Diaz attacked him Condit countered with the intention of moving away, not to do damage. I would describe his striking as disruptive more than dangerous and I thought it was telling that most fighters saw the fight for Diaz. Diaz came forward the whole time, thus rendering Condit's striking as fairly ineffective. All that being said, it was enough to win the judges nod. But let us not trip over ourselves to call Condit's fight one of the all time great displays.

And that does it for UFC 143. Thanks for reading!