UFC 144 Edgar v Henderson

Bigger Stronger Leaner
21

Fuck me sideways, they need to do something about that scoring system… Not saying Frankie got robbed, but there are about 100 and a million more ways to score that fight for either guy. I can’t say how I scored it because I was shitting myself throughout the fight (like pretty much every Frankie’s fight) but I think that the only clear round was round 5 in favor of Frankie. Round 2 was probably won by Bendo due to the knockdown, other than that I don’t know… I had Frankie winning the 1st, 3rd or 4th could be anyones round, I was expecting a closer score if not a win. With fights like these there is just too much emphasis on judges own personal preference. According to fightmetric Bendo outlanded Frankie by a very slim margin most of the rounds, but Frankie had a bunch of takedowns in there. Bendo did land harder shots though, and he seemed very fresh in the 5th, so I guess complaining about the decision after a fight like that would be just stupid without atleast watching the fight again. Not that I think Frankie doesn’t do great in LW, but I would love to see him fight Jose Aldo, don’t really care which division it takes place in but it has to be 5 rounds for the sakes of nothing but pure greatness that fight would be. Not quite sure about the titlepicture in 145, and giving a guy a titleshot after a loss isn’t always the most logical thing to do, but then again they’ve done it in the past and Dana thinks Frankie won so who knows. Still, amazing fight.

I was expecting Rampage to atleast try more. I don’t know if he really had a bad injury or what but other than taunting Bader, that one slam and a few solid combinations he looked pretty flat and not at all like he was trying to put on the best fight of the year… Great job by Bader fighting smart and taking the fight.

Sexy - Shields is another fight where judges may pretty much score what they feel like. Only clear round in my opinion was 3rd in favor of Shields, but rounds 1 and 2 could be in favor of either fighter.

Hunt is a best, awesome knockout! Nice kick by Pettis too. Feel really bad for Okami, those rights he was throwing were really messing up Boetsch and knowing what a solid chin Okami has (or used to have?) I wasn’t expecting that. Couldn’t do nothing but shake my head though when Rogan was screaming how he had never seen such a comeback in the history of UFC :stuck_out_tongue: .

Great card and didn’t let me down one bit. No clear robberies in there but still, this card really shows how they need to do something about that scoring system, maybe not cahnge it totally but atleast make it more clear and not so dependent on judges own personal opinion about which techniques should be superior in terms of scoring the fight.

22

First of all, Edgar v Henderson. FUCKING AWESOME. I was on the edge of my seat all the time. Was a bit surprised about the results but it was a close fight. That upkick on the second round was a shocker. I felt for Frankie. He has heart. He fought well but Bendo was stronger and more tactical last night.

Kongo… sigh as the French people say, ‘putain de merde!!’ I really don’t know what happened there. Props to Hunt for winning. Kongo was a mess.

Rampage looked like he didn’t want to be there. Fighting in Japan again should have been a great motivator. I expected him to do a little bit more, despite his injury. Goddamit, he didn’t make weight but could’ve at least fought like he meant it. I hated it that he lost so badly. That slam looked awesome though. Shame it all went haywire after that.

Shields vs Aki, honestly I actually thought Aki has won that fight.

Tim Boetsch… impressive comeback. He’s a beast.

23

Totally dissapointed with Rampage…I expected him to fair much better. Sexyama is proving he was all hype…he let me down as well. Glad Hendo won, felt bad for Frankie. And Kongo straight pissess me off…

24

Some great fights. I really just don’t like Shields’ style. He appears to throw a lot of weak strikes that land and do no damage. Especially those front left kicks. I just think people don’t bother to block his strikes because they do no damage. And if not for him rushing in trying to clinch after every strike, I think Akiyama would have beaten him. He basically did a good job of frustrating his opponent and keeping them from figuring out how to hit him. But it sucks to watch and looks bad. Not sure how long Shields can last at the top doing stuff like this.

Rampage was limping after his fight, so I’m guessing that injury was pretty bad and he just wasn’t showing it during the fight.

I always like watching Frankie Edgar. He has great footwork and head movement. Great at getting in and striking and getting out. I’d have to watch the fight again, but I thought Frankie won the 1st and 5th and Henderson won the 2nd. Not sure about the 3rd or 4th. Surprised 2 judges scored it 49-46 meaning Henderson won 4 rounds.

I got all the fights wrong. I thought Frankie, Rampage, and Akiyama would win.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
Totally dissapointed with Rampage…I expected him to fair much better. Sexyama is proving he was all hype…he let me down as well. Glad Hendo won, felt bad for Frankie. And Kongo straight pissess me off…[/quote]
Kongo just can’t strikes to the chin anymore. He’s likely to get knocked out every time he goes up against an experienced striker. He got lucky against Pat Barry.

25

that was a good card lets not forget about Show time Pettis with the knockout kick to the dome

The Henderson Edgar fight was great and i agree with the judges decision it seemed like everything Henderson threw or attempted t o submit made alot more impact on the fight then what Edgar did… i was happy to see Henderson throw a flying knee at the end of the fight… finally i was yelling the whole fight that he needed to throw that

And Regards to Robert A Baders leg kicks looked horrible but you saw him going for that knee though lol

26

He has all the tools to be an impressive fighter but lacks the execution. (Kongo)

27

[quote]yoitspmart wrote:
And Regards to Robert A Baders leg kicks looked horrible but you saw him going for that knee though lol[/quote]

I thought about this thread/your post watching the fight.

“Hey, he IS going after the leg, and he does not look all that good doing it.”

Regards,

Robert A

28

[quote]rundymc wrote:
Don’t agree with the Shields decision. Neither guy did a whole lot, but Sexy landed some good stuff, and actually hit a takedown or two. Can only remember Jake landing jabs that Akiyama walked through.
[/quote]

That fight could have been scored either way, but I agree with giving it to Shields. Akiyama did not do anything with his takedowns and simply was not active enough with his strikes. I would not say he was out-struck, as another poster pointed out Shields was not hurting him at all, but Akiyama has no one to blaim but himself, and maybe his dumb ass corner.

Shields was throwing and landing more strikes, although not hurting Akiyama.

Shields was being more aggressive (I gave Diaz the nod for aggression so I have to allow others to be swayed by it) with takedown attempts, although not seeing much success.

Akiyama was choosing not to throw more shots. He could have done something when he put Shields down. I understand not wanting to stay down with him, but even dumping him and then kicking his legs, or swarming when Shields stood up would have made them obviously “effective” takedowns. He just needed to do a little bit more, and he appeared capable of it. Instead he fought like it was scheduled for 8 rounds and managed to underwork in a fight he clearly could have controlled.

At the end of the fight I think Shields did his best and took whatever opportunities he could create and Akiyama begged off from doing the same.

Regards,

Robert A

29

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
He has all the tools to be an impressive fighter but lacks the execution. (Kongo)[/quote]

Do you really think so? I would say he SHOULD have all the tools, but he doesn’t really give any evidence of them when he fights.

If you didn’t know he was a veteran, based on his fight performances only, what would you guess was his level of experience boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, and grappling?

I wonder if he is one of those guys who looks fantastic in the gym but just seems to forget everything/fail to put things together on fight night? I don’t follow him all that much though.

Regards,

Robert A

30

[quote]Fistiecuffs wrote:
Fuck me sideways, they need to do something about that scoring system… Not saying Frankie got robbed, but there are about 100 and a million more ways to score that fight for either guy. I can’t say how I scored it because I was shitting myself throughout the fight (like pretty much every Frankie’s fight) but I think that the only clear round was round 5 in favor of Frankie. Round 2 was probably won by Bendo due to the knockdown, other than that I don’t know… I had Frankie winning the 1st, 3rd or 4th could be anyones round, I was expecting a closer score if not a win. With fights like these there is just too much emphasis on judges own personal preference. According to fightmetric Bendo outlanded Frankie by a very slim margin most of the rounds, but Frankie had a bunch of takedowns in there. Bendo did land harder shots though, and he seemed very fresh in the 5th, so I guess complaining about the decision after a fight like that would be just stupid without atleast watching the fight again. Not that I think Frankie doesn’t do great in LW, but I would love to see him fight Jose Aldo, don’t really care which division it takes place in but it has to be 5 rounds for the sakes of nothing but pure greatness that fight would be. Not quite sure about the titlepicture in 145, and giving a guy a titleshot after a loss isn’t always the most logical thing to do, but then again they’ve done it in the past and Dana thinks Frankie won so who knows. Still, amazing fight.

[/quote]

I agree with everything here, except I didn’t think it was that close.

-Frankie was on par with Bendo in landed strikes. Unfortunately little of what he threw seemed to cause damage, while Bendo threw some hard shit. The cut nose and swollen eye aside, by the 4th it was obvious to me that Frankie was getting worn out, and like you pointed out, Bendo was fresh.

-Frankie caught a lot of leg kicks, AFTER they landed. It looked good for a round until I realized this, lol. He also didn’t do much with the vast majority of them. I counted three good hooks that came off those.

-Frankie scored a lot of takedowns, but didn’t get anything on Bendo once he did. No big strikes, and (IIRC) zero positional control. As a BJJ guy it was cool to watch Bendo take advantage of the height discrepancy by shooting his hips up in the turtle, and the Saku kimura. On the flipside, Bendo thoroughly dominated whenever he attacked with his ground game, though granted there were only three instances (guillotine, and two at the end of the 4th and 5th).

So all in all, I thought Benson won clearly, displayed dominance, and executed more effective aggression. The only big point of debate is how much you value those takedowns.

31

[quote]Robert A wrote:

[quote]rundymc wrote:
Don’t agree with the Shields decision. Neither guy did a whole lot, but Sexy landed some good stuff, and actually hit a takedown or two. Can only remember Jake landing jabs that Akiyama walked through.
[/quote]

That fight could have been scored either way, but I agree with giving it to Shields. Akiyama did not do anything with his takedowns and simply was not active enough with his strikes. I would not say he was out-struck, as another poster pointed out Shields was not hurting him at all, but Akiyama has no one to blaim but himself, and maybe his dumb ass corner.

Shields was throwing and landing more strikes, although not hurting Akiyama.

Shields was being more aggressive (I gave Diaz the nod for aggression so I have to allow others to be swayed by it) with takedown attempts, although not seeing much success.

Akiyama was choosing not to throw more shots. He could have done something when he put Shields down. I understand not wanting to stay down with him, but even dumping him and then kicking his legs, or swarming when Shields stood up would have made them obviously “effective” takedowns. He just needed to do a little bit more, and he appeared capable of it. Instead he fought like it was scheduled for 8 rounds and managed to underwork in a fight he clearly could have controlled.

At the end of the fight I think Shields did his best and took whatever opportunities he could create and Akiyama begged off from doing the same.

Regards,

Robert A[/quote]

Good points. I guess I was only considering it one way, ie what did Shields do to win, when I also should have been asking what Aki did to win.

Sigh, makes it more disappointing now considering a little more activity would have netted him those first two rounds.

32

[quote]rundymc wrote:

[quote]Fistiecuffs wrote:
Fuck me sideways, they need to do something about that scoring system… Not saying Frankie got robbed, but there are about 100 and a million more ways to score that fight for either guy. I can’t say how I scored it because I was shitting myself throughout the fight (like pretty much every Frankie’s fight) but I think that the only clear round was round 5 in favor of Frankie. Round 2 was probably won by Bendo due to the knockdown, other than that I don’t know… I had Frankie winning the 1st, 3rd or 4th could be anyones round, I was expecting a closer score if not a win. With fights like these there is just too much emphasis on judges own personal preference. According to fightmetric Bendo outlanded Frankie by a very slim margin most of the rounds, but Frankie had a bunch of takedowns in there. Bendo did land harder shots though, and he seemed very fresh in the 5th, so I guess complaining about the decision after a fight like that would be just stupid without atleast watching the fight again. Not that I think Frankie doesn’t do great in LW, but I would love to see him fight Jose Aldo, don’t really care which division it takes place in but it has to be 5 rounds for the sakes of nothing but pure greatness that fight would be. Not quite sure about the titlepicture in 145, and giving a guy a titleshot after a loss isn’t always the most logical thing to do, but then again they’ve done it in the past and Dana thinks Frankie won so who knows. Still, amazing fight.

[/quote]

I agree with everything here, except I didn’t think it was that close.

-Frankie was on par with Bendo in landed strikes. Unfortunately little of what he threw seemed to cause damage, while Bendo threw some hard shit. The cut nose and swollen eye aside, by the 4th it was obvious to me that Frankie was getting worn out, and like you pointed out, Bendo was fresh.

-Frankie caught a lot of leg kicks, AFTER they landed. It looked good for a round until I realized this, lol. He also didn’t do much with the vast majority of them. I counted three good hooks that came off those.

-Frankie scored a lot of takedowns, but didn’t get anything on Bendo once he did. No big strikes, and (IIRC) zero positional control. As a BJJ guy it was cool to watch Bendo take advantage of the height discrepancy by shooting his hips up in the turtle, and the Saku kimura. On the flipside, Bendo thoroughly dominated whenever he attacked with his ground game, though granted there were only three instances (guillotine, and two at the end of the 4th and 5th).

So all in all, I thought Benson won clearly, displayed dominance, and executed more effective aggression. The only big point of debate is how much you value those takedowns.

[/quote]
When talking about scoring the fight I don’t think you should use it as an argument how banged up either guy is. True, it tells something that Bendo was still pretty much as fresh as when they started the fight in the begining of the 5th, but as far as I’m aware the rounds are suposted to be scored after the round is over, not after the fight and only what happens in that round should be taken in consideration.

With the fact that some guys get cut every fight and bleed a gallon of their blood on the mat every single fight and some fighters hardly get a scratch on their face if you smash their head with a sledgehammer for 10 hours straight it doesn’t prove much about the fight.

So I’m not saying that how much damage the other guy has done should have no impact, but the fighters face shouldn’t be the indicator of how much damage has been done, with the current ruleset the fight should be scored by what happens during every round and nothing else. Not that big of an issue in this fight though, since I think every ref was able to see that Bendo definitely landed harder without even looking at Frankies face or nose.

I assume the big reason why Frankie wasn’t able to do much after he caught those kicks (besides not enough training ofcourse) was the size difference. Every time he caught that kick he was so far away from Bendo he couldn’t really throw any of his own strikes and Bendo could’ve basically tagged him at will with punches if Frankie would’ve tried to close it up.

I was kind of looking for him to try sweep Bendo’s legs from under him there, but I guess he wasn’t just trained properly to do it against much bigger guy, and considering Bendo is also a taekwondo blackbelt its probably pretty hard to execute any of that stuff considering his balance.

After rewatching the fight, with the unified rules I think I could see a case of scoring this 48-48 draw, but I think it is pretty hard to say Frankie won more than 1st and 5th here. Not about to take either of those rounds away from him either though.

33

Agreed. I could see scoring the 1st, 5th and 3rd for Frankie FWIW. I remember watching the first three and thinking, “Frankie could actually win on points, but it’s going to be seriously controversial.” lol

34

my overwhelming hatred for franky edgar made this night exceptionally special for me. i dont give a shit if people want to argue that he could have won on the cards if scored differently. the guy doesnt seem to be able to get in a fight without taking a savage beating at some point in time and i thoroughly enjoy watching this!

any way i hope he and Benson do rematch so it can kill the nay Sayers

bader had a nice win over rampage the howling washed up moron

i hate shields he punches with know power and stands with his chin as the most forward point on his body im just waiting for it to get tagged and him to cry again

but enough beating around the bush the real news of this weekend!

Hector Lombard does it again in a smooth and devastating fashion when are we going to see him get a ufc top contender

35

[quote]westdale warrior wrote:

Hector Lombard does it again in a smooth and devastating fashion when are we going to see him get a ufc top contender

[/quote]

It’ be cool to see him get signed. He’d definitely bring some fresh excitement to the middleweight division. I’m not sure about him getting past the top contenders but meh, never say never. I’d love to see him fight Sonnen . That’d be quite interesting.

36

[quote]westdale warrior wrote:
my overwhelming hatred for franky edgar made this night exceptionally special for me. i dont give a shit if people want to argue that he could have won on the cards if scored differently. the guy doesnt seem to be able to get in a fight without taking a savage beating at some point in time and i thoroughly enjoy watching this!

any way i hope he and Benson do rematch so it can kill the nay Sayers

bader had a nice win over rampage the howling washed up moron

i hate shields he punches with know power and stands with his chin as the most forward point on his body im just waiting for it to get tagged and him to cry again

but enough beating around the bush the real news of this weekend!

Hector Lombard does it again in a smooth and devastating fashion when are we going to see him get a ufc top contender

[/quote]

He really only took a savage beating in the Maynard fights, he point fights in most of his bouts. I really have no clue how anyone would score that fight for Frankie though, I watched a series of gifs showing all the takedowns Frankie had and Ben stuffed them or immediately got back to his feet. The one takedown that Frankie secured he got upkicked and rocked, his punches also did nothing to Ben, there was the knockdown in the fifth but after Ben falls he points to his heel to say it was a slip.

37

sorry i should clarify when i said savage beating i more so meant the amount of visible accumulation of damage as opposed to a dominant one sided ass whooping like maynard (even if it was for only a short time)