Octagon Observations: UFC 121 aftermath

ANAHIEM, Calif. – An Octagon’s worth of observations after a memorable UFC 121 at the Honda Center

1. Branching out: Cain Velasquez’s victory over Brock Lesnar could be a watershed moment in the UFC’s attempt to grow mixed martial arts fan base. The company heavily marketed Velasquez’s Mexican heritage in the run-up to the fight. The fruits of this push were evident in the Honda Center crowd’s vociferous reaction to Velasquez’s victory. For sheer volume, the intensity level was matched only by Georges St. Pierre’s 2008 title victory over Matt Serra in his hometown of Montreal. With Oscar De La Hoya retired from boxing, the Marquez brothers heading to the back end of their magnificent careers and no obvious successor on the horizon, there is an opportunity for the UFC to make Velasquez the marquee player among Latino combat sports figures. What Velasquez lacks in charisma he makes up for with his heart and his courage as a heavyweight who is smaller that most of his foes – a trait that cuts across all ethnicities and creeds.

2. Brock’s next step: Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Lesnar’s career is how the MMA world has watched him develop under an intense spotlight. Each fight leads to a new set of questions about how the former champion, who only has seven fights under his belt, will respond. The question this time: What will be his reaction to getting his tail kicked for the first time? Lesnar marches to the beat of his own drummer and for all we know, he could end up deciding he’s made enough money and it is time to move on. But here’s guessing that a trilogy fight with Frank Mir, who Lesnar legitimately despises, is enough to get the former champ’s competitive juices flowing again.

3. Title worthy? So Jake Shields comes into the UFC, looks listless in claiming a split-decision victory over Martin Kampmann that many felt Kampmann won … and UFC president Dana White says he’s going ahead with his plan to give Shields a UFC welterweight title shot. Good luck selling that one, Dana.

4. Where does Diego go? Diego Sanchez appears to have made the right career move in returning to his roots with Greg Jackson’s camp, as his exciting win over Paulo Thiago at UFC 121 attests. Now, hopefully Jackson will get Sanchez to focus on committing to a single weight class. Sanchez has spoken of fighting at both 170 pounds and 155, but jumping between weight classes is more suited for a veteran who doesn’t figure into championship plans. Sanchez is still young enough to make another run at a championship, and the sooner he picks a path, the faster he’ll move forward.

5. The Tito show: Here’s the UFC’s dilemma with Tito Ortiz: Do you give the former UFC light heavyweight champion another fight or two to try to find his rhythm, or do you cut ties now, before his performance drops off a cliff? Ortiz has remained competitive in each of his past five fights, going to a decision in four of them. But he’s 0-4-1 in that stretch after his loss to Matt Hamill on Saturday, and his level of opposition has decreased with each successive fight. Ortiz has been valiant in battling through a series of injuries, but time is not on his side. The UFC may be better off releasing the former champ before his performances turn embarrassing.


6. Going, going, Gonzaga: Brendan Schaub notched the biggest win of his career Saturday night with his decision victory over Gabriel Gonzaga. But the match underscored how Gonzaga has become one of MMA’s biggest cases of squandered potential. Gonzaga possessed all the tools to become a great one, and he appeared well on his way after his legendary head-kick knockout of Mirko Cro Cop in 2007. But Gonzaga never left his small Western Massachusetts camp, never was pushed in the gym by elite heavyweights and never quite made it to the top. With three losses in his last four fights, Gonzaga is walking on thin ice.

7. Losing a step: Longtime fans consider it heresy to critique referee John McCarthy, ever, for any reason. But the icon of the sport had a bad night at UFC 121. In Tom Lawlor’s victory over Patrick Cote, McCarthy was the only person in the building who missed an egregious foul, as Cote blatantly grabbed the fence and used it to gain the leverage to get out of a Lawlor submission attempt. Then, in the Ortiz-Hamill fight, McCarthy was too slow in getting between Hamill and Ortiz at the end of Round 1. Hamill is deaf and can’t hear the horn to signal the end of the round; because McCarthy was late, Ortiz ate a punch to the head after the round ended. McCarthy’s place as a pivotal figure in MMA history is secure, but just like fighters, referees pass their peaks as well. Saturday night may have shown that McCarthy is losing a step.

8. Stout-hearted: If you buy a ticket to a UFC event and Sam Stout is on the card, it is a fair bet that you’ll get 15 minutes of good-to-great standup action. All seven of his UFC bouts in the past three years have gone the distance. Most of those fights have been back-and-forth standup slugfests, and he’s come away with Fight of the Night honors five times. His latest win came Saturday night, when was slightly better than Paul Taylor in a split-decision victory. The UFC seems content to keep Stout in an entertaining lower-card slot, but with three wins in his past four fights, it’s time to give the London, Ontario, native a crack at a high-level lightweight.

Pitt pulls out the stops to honor Rutgers' LeGrand

Among the widespread outpouring of support this week for paralyzed Rutgers lineman Eric LeGrand, Pittsburgh went the extra mile ahead of today's noon kickoff at Heinz Field, the Scarlet Knights' first game since LeGrand was paralyzed from the neck down on a kickoff in last week's overtime win over Army. The university set up a "Pitt is pulling for Eric LeGrand" banner on campus that collected thousands of signatures, and deployed Panther athletes in other sports to hand out stickers to fans of both sides with the same message. Rutgers players are wearing helmets with the word "Believe" written above the facemask

Is less symbolic gestures, the university has set up a trust fund in LeGrand's name, to which well-wishers can make donations here (as well as watch a fairly devastating video that was shot as a feel-good feature with LeGrand and his family earlier this year). A local business owned by a former Scarlet Knight mascot is also selling t-shirts to benefit LeGrand, available here.

Coach Greg Schiano said there was no update on LeGrand's condition on Wednesday, after the crucial 72-hour window following the injury had closed.

Brock gets Rocked!

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Cain Velasquez weathered an early storm from Brock Lesnar and proved why he has long been regarded as one of the top prospects in the sport, pounding Lesnar in a stunningly brutal and one-sided fight to win the UFC heavyweight championship at the Honda Center in the main event of UFC 121.

Velasquez hurt Lesnar with nearly every punch he threw and knocked him down several times. After the final knockdown, Velasquez pounded him with elbows and punches before referee Herb Dean stopped it at 1:40 of the first.

“He was better than me tonight,” Lesnar said


By Kevin Iole

Lesnar roared out of his corner and threw a knee, but Velasquez answered with a hard combination that opened a small gash under Lesnar’s left eye. After they grappled briefly, Lesnar took Velasquez down hard.

Velasquez, though, was calm and worked back to his feet quickly. After one more Lesnar takedown, he bounced up and began letting his hands go. He battered the retreating Lesnar all over the ring, pummeling him with hard shots until Dean halted it.

Jake Shields won his UFC debut, but struggled to get it, pulling off a split decision over Martin Kampmann. Shields seemed to be completely gassed by the middle of the second round and struggled to do much in the final seven or eight minutes.

But judges had it 30-27 and 29-28 for Shields and 29-28 for Kampmann, apparently qualifying Shields for a shot at the winner of the welterweight title bout at UFC 124 on Dec. 11 between champion Georges St. Pierre and Josh Koscheck. Y! Sports’ Kevin Iole, Dave Doyle and Dave Meltzer all had it 29-28 Kampmann.

Kampmann never let his hands go and that may have hurt him with the judges. But Shields was breathing hard, looking at the clock and appearing to try to stall over the final few minutes of the match.

Diego Sanchez was coming off a pair of bad losses, to then-lightweight champion B.J. Penn and to John Hathaway, and he seemed to be written off as a contender. But after a slow start against Paulo Thiago, it was vintage Sanchez the rest of the way.

In a high-action fight, Sanchez won the last two rounds on all three cards in a high-energy match to take a unanimous decision. Sanchez was flipped by Thiago in the second, got up and slammed Thiago hard. He dominated the fight after that point and won by scores of 30-26, 29-28 and 29-28.

“I was very humbled by the last two losses,” said Sanchez, who returned to train with Greg Jackson in Albuquerque, N.M. “My motto for this camp was ‘Just earn it.’ “

And earn it he did with a high-energy performance that had the large crowd roaring its approval.

Matt Hamill got an emotional victory over his former coach on “The Ultimate Fighter,” Tito Ortiz, scoring a unanimous decision that puts the future of the former UFC light heavyweight champion in question.

Ortiz is now 0-4-1 in his last five fights and 5-6-1 in his last 12 and appeared to run out of gas midway through the bout.

Ortiz had a solid first round and seemed in control, but Hamill took Ortiz down in the second and did a lot of damage. The third round was spent mostly with the men trading blows, with Hamill landing far more often and with much more authority. But with about 1:20 left, Hamill took Ortiz down and then beat on him for the remainder of the fight.

Ortiz’ was cut on the side of the head and below his right eye. Both of his eyes were badly swollen.

“I’m happy that this fight is over because I had a lot of pressure heading into it,” Hamill said. “I feel like I controlled the wrestling. That’s something I wanted to prove because Tito is such a good wrestler. I was able to control him and I still have a lot of work to do but a win over Tito is huge.”

Brendan Schaub made a big statement in the heavyweight division, winning a unanimous decision over Gabriel Gonzaga. All three judges had it 30-27 for Schaub, whose punches wobbled the big Brazilian on several occasions.

Schaub backed Gonzaga up for much of the fight and avoiding the ground, where Gonzaga would have been able to work his jiu-jitsu.

Court McGee started slowly in his middleweight fight with Ryan Jensen, but roared down the stretch and pulled out an arm triangle submission victory in the third round.

Jensen’s strikes controlled the first round, but McGee picked up the pace in the second. In the third, he landed a big right that decked Jensen and put him in position to secure the triangle.

“I landed that big overhand right because I set it up well,” McGee said. “He kept hitting me and hitting me and I was able to get his timing. I got to mount and that was it.”

Tom Lawlor put on the performance of his career in scoring a unanimous decision victory over Patrick Cote in a middleweight bout.

Lawlor took Cote down repeatedly, got in the guard and pounded on Cote, who was a better than a 2-to-1 favorite. Lawlor also mixed in submission attempts in his best overall performance in the UFC.

“I’m very excited about the win,” Lawlor said. “I executed my game plan. This is the first time I ever started with a game plan. I know he has a big right hand and I did a good job staying away from it. I was happy that I was able to get the takedown when I needed it. I feel like I did a good job of controlling the fight.”

Still, Lawlor wasn’t about to call out the top dogs in the middleweight division.

“I’d like to fight an 0-15 fighter next so I can get an easy win,” he said, smiling.

Daniel Roberts went for a guillotine choke, didn’t like what he had and moved into an anaconda choke, which he applied beautifully to submit Mike Guymon at 1:13 of the first round of their welterweight bout.

“I was expecting a three-round war and I was surprised when I got the choke,” Roberts said. “First, I had a guillotine and then I went for the anaconda. I was surprised that I caught him because he’s a ground guy, but I’ll gladly take the win. I knew it was tight, so I just kept squeezing.”

A lot of media were predicting that the lightweight bout between Sam Stout and Paul Taylor would be Fight of the Night, and it turned out to be a high-energy standup battle.

Taylor landed a series of hard kicks, while Stout punished Taylor with big right-hand strikes. Stout pulled out a split decision. Cecil Peoples had it 30-27 and Mike Beltran scored it 29-28, each for Stout. Larry Landless had Taylor, 29-28.

“When the judges said his name first my heart dropped, because usually in a split decision they say the winner’s name first,” Stout said. “I knew he wanted a war and that’s not what the game plan called for. I’m not one to shy away from a war, but I knew he was going to come straight at me and I didn’t want to get caught in those exchanges. In fact, the only time he caught me was when he sucked me into an exchange.”

Chris Camozzi rallied in the second half of the fight to reverse the early momentum that Dongi Yang built and pulled out a split decision. Cecil Peoples had it 29-28 for Yang, but Landless and Nelson Hamilton each scored it 29-28 for Camozzi.

“I was a little nervous when the judges were announcing the decision,” Camozzi said. “I was a little nervous; I wasn’t landing the combos that I wanted to. His distance was throwing me off. I stunned him with that left and I feel like that was the determining factor. I felt like he was gassing in the first round.

“I feel pretty healthy so I’m going to go home and train. There are a lot of middleweight fights coming up and I’ll be ready if the UFC needs a late replacement and I’ll be ready for my own fight.”

In the opening fight, Jon Madsen took Gilbert Yvel down, got into Yvel’s guard and pounded him out, forcing McCarthy to stop the fight. Madsen had been criticized by many for being boring, but he put on a good show this time out.

“This win was huge,” Madsen said. “I needed to make a statement to Joe Silva and the UFC that I can finish fights

Lesnar done first round

Shields wins

Sanchez wins

Hamill wins