UFC 115 Results: Great Fights But Much Ado About Nothing?

UFC 115 has come and gone.  It was a massively entertaining night of fights!  It's also a very disappointing sort of fight card.   

Almost every fight on the UFC 115 main card was built around many examples of the same thing: A hope and a prayer that former legendary fighter X, Y and Z would pull a dramatic 180 degree turn and resurrect their all but dead UFC careers. 

The only fight with any foreseeable title implications tonight was Kampmann vs. Thiago and that's a bit of a long shot. 

So not only was there no title fights on the card, there wasn't a single fight with immediate title implications.

Disappointment aside, what did we learn tonight? 

In the Prelims, we learned:

Mike Pyle will live to fight another day in the UFC.  He added one more submission to his insanely high-rate of career submission victories.  Of his 20 wins, 17 of them are submission victories.  His opponent, Jessie Lennox is likely facing a pink slip from the UFC for racking up two undercard losses in a row.

Hello Claude Patrick, and welcome to the UFC!  Goodbye Ricardo Funch, it's been nice knowing you!  Patrick won his debut fight.  Funch had already lost his debut and now he's 0-2 in the UFC. 

James Wilks returns to his winning ways while Peter Sobotta has yet to find his winning ways in the UFC, with his second loss in a row.  That's probably all she wrote for Sobotta's UFC career. 

David Loiseau can win fights, just not fights in the UFC.  This makes four losses in a row for David in the UFC.  Mario Miranda brought his underwhelming UFC record of 1-1 to this fight.  Clearly he really needed this win.  Mario got that much needed win and won it in impressive fashion.

Mac Danzig just can't catch a break for anything.  Apparently, you can submit without actually submitting.  Yve Lavigne strikes again!  All that may be true, but I think Matt Wiman would have beaten him anyways.  We'll never know for certain though.

Evan Dunnam is a scary, scary dude.  He outclassed Tyson Griffin from top to bottom, and I think we're looking at a future title contender in Evan.  Oh yes and it turns out they still let mentally retarded people work as judges in this sport.  One judge gave the fight to Tyson when Evan Dunnam clearly won the fight.  Maybe they got the names mixed up on the score card? 

Title implications for the entire undercard: Evan Dunnam just stepped on the first rung of the ladder and is poised for the long climb toward a title shot.  Dunnam is a long shot as yet, and there were no other title implications on this underdcard. 

Carlos Condit vs. Rory MacDonald:  

Condit continues to fail to live up to his hype.  This time around, "The Natural Born Killer" got dominated by MacDonald for the first two rounds.  Before the third round, his corner told him he needed to go get a stoppage victory and Carlos went and got it, netting questionable stoppage win. 

What we have not seen form Carlos Condit is the level of extreme domination that we expected to see from him when he came to the UFC.  But controversy notwithstanding, he got the W tonight.  It would be nice to see the fighter that answered the bell for round three show up for an entire fight.

Rory MacDonald clearly has a ton of potential.  This kid's going to do very well in this sport.  Anyone could see that much.  A better gym might be just the thing to get him there.

Title implications: Zero.

Ben Rothwell vs. Gilbert Yvel:  

Firstly, we should take a moment to be perfectly honest on what this fight meant.  This fight was a contest to determine which guy would probably get dropped from the UFC and which would get to stick around and be promoted to divisional gatekeeper.  Ben Rothwell took whatever Yvel managed to hit him with and kept on going.  Rothwell showed up and fought for three rounds.  Yvel had only one true bright spot in this entire fight, and it was short lived.  Congratulations to Ben Rothwell on your new job as a Heavyweight gatekeeper.

Title implications: Zero. 

Paulo Thiago vs. Martin Kampmann:

This was an important fight for both men.  We already knew that this was a contest of power with little technique vs. technique with mediocre power in the striking match up.  Martin Kampmann did a brilliant job of avoiding Thiago's power, while consistently delivering pin-point strikes to the Brazilian's face, legs and body. 

But did you know that Martin Kampmann can beat legitimate and dangerous Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belts in a ground submissions fight?  The real story in this fight was the ground game of Martin Kampmann.  Very impressive Martin! 

Title imlications: Martin Kampmann just put himself back on the short list of Welterweight title contenders, while Paulo Thiago just got dropped from that list.  Kampmann is still likely two quality wins away though. 

Mirko "Cro-Cop" Filipović vs. Pat Barry:

A classic battle of pure strikers -- in a division dominated by powerful wrestlers who  also happen to be powerful strikers. 

Cro-Cop looked terrible in round one.  Then as the fight continued on, it was as if Mirko Filipović gradually woke up and started fighting like the phenom he once was.  The win came in impressive fashion, exploiting the gaping hole in Pat Barry's MMA game -- the ground game.

Now let's come back down to earth and look at the facts.  Pat Barry came in with a 2-1 record in the UFC and not a single big win in his MMA career.  No, sorry folks.  Antoni Hardonk doesn't count.  Not even a little bit.  Cro-Cop just beat a mid-level figher with a very short resume.  If Mirko Cro-Cop is truly "back" then he'd have put this kid away in the first round. 

Title implications: Zero.

Chuck Liddell vs. Rich Franklin:

The money fighter for this card was Chuck Liddell, and unlike several other dwindling fighters, he proved beyond all doubt that he really needs to retire.  Chuck Liddell has just successfully demonstrated two things tonight:

1.) He's got all the skills that made him famous and made him one of the greatest legends in the history of the sport. Vicious power, and a great overall MMA skill set.  His striking was extremely impressive and he surprised absolutely everyone by taking down Rich Franklin.  He's the same exciting and entertaining fighter of old, in terms of skills and abilities.

2.) His glass jaw is worse than anyone imagined. Rich is not well known for his knockout power -- he does have extremely under-rated striking power, but nobody would classify him as an elite knockout artist. On top of that, it was not a power shot that put Chuck out. I promise you, Rich Franklin is capable of hitting a lot harder than the punch that ended the fight.

Chuck still has a lot of skills but his glass jaw is a major liability to his health.  On top of that, he's proven that just about anyone in the UFC can KO him, so if he continues on, it's likely to repeat.  The word is out: Just keep connecting with Chuck's jaw and he's sure to drop sooner or later -- just avoid his power, keep landing shots and you'll get him eventually.

This fight probably didn't do the job.  That's well and good -- and I'm glad to hear it.  But it's only a matter of time before one of these knockouts permanently messes up Chuck Liddell.  I for one don't want to see that happen.

I was blown away to realize that Rich ended the fight in spite of the fact that he had a broken arm. That's absolutely incredible! Rich Franklin demonstrated is that he's very, very tough guy who knows how to come up with an effective game plan. He also countered Chuck's striking pretty effectively -- but I don't think he anticipated that Chuck would unload such powerful and effective kicks -- one of which broke his arm of course. 

Title implications: Probably zero.  At least it should be zero.  Yet knocking out Chuck Liddell has been enough for both Rashad Evans and Shogun Rua to get an immediate title shot.  But it should not be enough.  Not with three knockout losses in a row for Liddell. 

This win proves that Rich Franklin is still very relevant in the UFC at whatever weight he chooses to fight at.  But it doesn't make him a title contender.  Knocking out Chuck Liddell just isn't a big deal anymore.  Everybody's doing it!

Overall, it was an exciting night of fights.  I enjoyed it very much!  Sadly, there was a complete lack of fights that will have any significant bearing on the future of any of the UFC's five weight divisions.