UFC 154: GSP vs. Condit Thriller Caps Off 2012's Most Disappointing Card

For a fight card to be disappointing, you have to expect a lot from it in the first place.

UFC 149 and UFC 147 were definitely poor cards, but they weren't disappointing ones. From the main event to the prelims, both of those events were riddled with unexpected injuries, last-minute replacements and various schedule changes—they were expected to be duds.

But the same can't be said for UFC 154 on Saturday night. It wasn't stacked with big-name fighters, yet it still had several matches that looked compelling on paper.

Unfortunately, several bouts turned out to be tedious chess matches, as several fighters picked and pecked their way to the judge's scorecards.

Normally exciting Matthew Riddle played a cautious game against John Maguire, fearful of getting submitted by the solid grappler.

Mark Hominick froze up after nearly knocking out Pablo Garza, then spent the rest of his decision-loss effort flailing for armbars and omoplata submissions.

Antonio Carvalho and Rodrigo Damm calmly threw leg kicks their whole fight, accidentally causing an exciting scramble for three seconds in Round 2.

Francis Carmont won a split decision against Tom Lawlor, mostly playing defense and actually getting booed by the feverishly loyal Canadian home crowd.

Over six hours of fighting, and roughly four hours of it was a bore.

Moreover, only four out of 12 fights at Montreal's Bell Centre ended in a finish—and one of those was a disqualification where Alessio Sakara seemingly pretended to forget that punches to the back of the head were illegal.

Once again, you can blame Dana White and Joe Silva for the boredom.

In an era where the UFC is stretched thin between Fox, FX, Fuel TV and PPV, the bulk of the card fell on two fights to save the entire night—a trend synonymous with boxing that we'll only see more and more as the years go on.

Canadian weren't so hot on ticket sales due to the top-heavy card, and it showed.

For most of the prelims, the Bell Centre was half-empty.

And for the people who were watching the prelim fights, the action was largely punctuated by heavy rounds of boos for inactivity or patient one-sided shutouts.

Don't get me wrong—GSP's win over Condit was thrilling, and Johny Hendricks amazed everyone by turning off Martin Kampmann's lights. But that's a lot of gruel to digest before getting to the actual meat of that long, starchy meal.

McKinley Noble is an MMA conspiracy theorist and FightFans Radio writer. His work has appeared in GamePro, Macworld and PC World. Talk with him on Twitter.