Lol, who knows? That left hook he kept throwing just kept missing. At the break I heard his cornerman tell him to follow with a right, but either it wasn’t working or Sean wasn’t listening. I wonder if he hurt his right hand, he kept shaking it out?
Yeah, a K1 fighter could take out most MMA guys in standup. Even Sherk scored a couple of times with leg kicks. But in the UFC, B.J. has the best hands at LW, maybe in LW period. He went toe-to-toe with Takonori Gomi, who is one of the best LW strikers, and I would even say he was getting the better of Gomi, before choking him out.
Quote:
UFC 84 by the numbers
By Rami Genauer/FightMetric.com
May 26, 12:47 pm EDT
Buzz Up PrintIf you watched UFC 84 then you saw some things that rarely happen. Let’s start with the main event.
BJ Penn vs. Sean Sherk
If you watched this fight, you saw what was probably the most effective use of the jab in MMA history. BJ Penn stood and used Sean Sherk’s face like a speed bag, connecting on 81 jabs from striking distance in three rounds. Of the hundreds of fights in FightMetric’s database – a representative sample of MMA fights as a whole – no fighter has ever landed more than 60 jabs in 15 minutes. This speaks more to Penn’s unique strategy than to anything else. No one else has ever sat back so patiently, picking away shot after shot. Most fighters who are able to land jabs at will open up and go in for the power strikes that put fighters away. Penn only saw fit to go for the kill with eight seconds left in the third round.
It’s hard to blame him for choosing what he did. Penn connected with the jab 70% of the time (81 of 115 attempts). The average accuracy rate is 35%, making Penn twice as accurate with his jab as the typical fighter. If you can make that work, you may as well stick with it.
Lyoto Machida vs. Tito Ortiz
If you watched this fight, you saw the extremely rare occurrence of an upper-echelon fighter scoring zero points in a full round. In the first round of the fight, Tito Ortiz attempted 18 strikes and two takedowns. He landed none of them. In fact, it took Ortiz a full eight minutes before he landed his first significant offensive technique. FightMetric awards points for effectiveness based on the historical quality of techniques landed. In the first round, Machida out-pointed Ortiz 41-0. In the second round, it was 62-2.
During this fight, you also saw the rare occurrence where a single body shot led to a knockdown, but didn’t lead to a knockout. As it stands, body shots rarely put guys down, but when they do, it’s usually curtains for the dropped fighter. Fans of the body shot will remember David Loiseau’s spinning back kick against Charles McCarthy and Melvin Guillard’s body punch against Gabe Ruediger. Both of those were immediately followed-up with hard strikes on the ground that resulted in a TKO. In this fight, Machida landed a hard knee to the liver that knocked Ortiz down. Credit Ortiz with the toughness to not only stave off the ensuing attack, but recover enough to nearly submit Machida less than two minutes later.
Rousimar Palhares vs. Ivan Salaverry
If you watched this fight, you saw a fighter achieve a perfect performance rating without throwing a single strike. FightMetric’s Total Performance Rating (TPR) is a statistic used to measure the quality of a fighter’s performance. Scored on a scale between 0-100, TPR provides an easy way to measure and compare performance in any fight, whether 30 seconds or 30 minutes long. Think of TPR for MMA fighters what the NFL’s Passer Rating is for quarterbacks.
Rousimar Palhares got a perfect rating of 100 by submitting Salaverry in under three minutes. In that time Palhares scored a takedown, passes to side, mount, and back, and then worked for a rear-naked choke and the fight-ending armbar. On a night where Wanderlei Silva let his fists lead him to perfection, it was interesting to watch a fighter with elite Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu be able to do the same.
Yoshiyuki Yoshida vs. Jon Koppenhaver
If you watched this fight, you saw a submission that few try and even fewer complete. Yoshiyuki Yoshida’s submission of Jon Koppenhaver was only the fourth successful anaconda choke in UFC history. The UFC did not have a successful anaconda choke for the first 12 years of its existence, until Randy Couture submitted Mike Van Arsdale at UFC 54. Yoshida now joins Couture, Renato “Babalu” Sobral, and Dustin Hazelett in this elite club.
Full TPR Data for UFC 84
In the list below, the first number next to the fighter’s name is his Total Performance Rating (TPR). The second number is the differential between his TPR and his opponent’s TPR. Rating differential is a good measure of how close the fight was.
Wanderlei Silva: 100, (+100)
Yoshiyuki Yoshida: 100, (+100)
Rousimar Palhares: 100, (+99)
Shane Carwin: 98, (+82)
Thiago Silva: 95, (+54)
BJ Penn: 91, (+66)
Goran Reljic: 84, (+34)
Rameau Sokoudjou: 72, (+59)
Lyoto Machida: 59, (+33)
Wilson Gouveia: 50, (-34)
Antonio Mendes: 41, (-54)
Tito Ortiz: 26, (-33)
Sean Sherk: 26, (-66)
Christian Wellisch: 16, (-82)
Kazuhiro Nakamura: 13, (-59)
Ivan Salaverry: 1, (-99)
Jon Koppenhaver: 0, (-100)
Keith Jardine: 0, (-100)
Interesting, no writeup on Wandy.
I don’t rate most UFC fighters in the stand up. They swing for the fences and hope for the best. Spider and Macida are the exception- that’s why they’re virtually unstoppable.
agreed. i think both tito and sherk came in with bad gameplans. sherk needed to pursue a takedown to wear bj out. when it got to the third round and bj wasnt gassed, it was pretty obvious that sherk was done. i felt tito needed to cut off the cage in take away machidas chances to get away. i think he may have been trying to lure him out, but he just got picked apart.
i think florian has more than a slim chance at beating bj, even though i would have bj as a favorite.
Other than sharp elbows Kenny doesn’t have that much striking power. On the ground we all know how good BJ is. It’s a bad much up for Kenny.
Dan Henderson made the same mistake against Spider. Ground and pound fighters need to know their limits.
Here’s mine:
GSP by TKO
LESNAR by ground n’ pound destruction
Ken-Flo via doctor stoppage, Huerta won’t give up but he may be too slow to avoid those razor-sharp elbows of Kenny’s.
If you had told me a few months ago this fight would have been happening I would have said you’re crazy. Was it just a year ago that it seemed like Silva had no competition at MW? My how things change in the UFC.
Here we are a year later and now there’s a few guys knocking at the door:
“Experts” say Thales a real good shot (I’m not convinced, but I’ve been wrong before, many times)
Demian Maia is a beast, who can best him on the ground? Can’t think of anybody really.
Marquardt is charging again
Hendo and Bisping are almost ready to square off, will the winner be ready for Silva? I’m sure Hendo wants another crack, he knows let a good opportunity slip away last time.
The Axe Murderer could drop to 185 after the Franklin fight, depending on the outcome, he must be considered. Maybe a rematch with Hendo?
Let’s not forget Okami, who was rumoured to be getting a title shot last year. Actually I’d like to see Maia face Okami before he gets a title shot.
And finally, Kenny Florian looks like he has a real shot against a wounded B.J., the heavyweight division is starting to look good (finally), and the LW’s are better than ever, crazy, but I love it.
Most of the UFC light heavy weights are running scared of the Karate kid Machida. Note how Rampage didnt want to fight v Machida. What fighter turns down a title shot??
Shogun needs Pride rules, spider v Machida. I am 90% sure Machida would win.
Yeah, Pride rules would help Shogun, though I still think he’s the only guy at 205 with a real shot at beating Machida right now. He’s got the talent, but physically he still looks a little soft to me. After Shogun who’s left? Page, Rashad, Chuck, Griffin? Ppffft. Nobody.
Maybe Hendo would have a chance, if he could get Machida to the ground and hold him, maybe. Hell maybe even Couture, he wants to fight Anderson, so why not Machida?
Under full pride rules Wanderlie & Shogun were devastating. You cant fall into guard because knee strikes and head stomps come into play, I really can’t stand it when UFC guys fall into guard when their Hurt. Much like the spider v Thales Leites!
Hendos better at MW. He made a strategic error by trying to strike with spider in their last match. If he did want to strike he would be much better off coming in on angles, but he stood right in front of spider and tried to land that big right hand, low % strategy. He does deserves a rematch, he is on 3 match winning streak
Maybe a Vera would be a good match up with Machida?
I am really wanting on Sanchez V BJ.
[b]“If Silva is to be believed, the risk is zero, because the fight will never happen. Silva and Machida are close friends and ‘The Spider’ has reportedly point-blank refused to entertain the idea of fighting his friend”.
[/b]
I took this from the UFC website. No spider v machida. I suspect Dana doesn’t want these guys to fight because if they do fight one of them will lose some of their mystic and crowd pull, its all coin.
Gerard Mousasi would make Lyoto work, too bad he is in Strikeforce.
Geghard looked great on Saturday, just all business that guy. He might end up in the UFC one day, but for now he wants LHW and HW glory. I think he wants Fedor eventually.
I don’t think he wants Fedor, they train together.
Shit, you are right. When he started talking about fighting at HW, I assumed he wanted to challenge ‘the man’. Too bad, I would have liked to see that fight.
Fedor Emelianenko is da man!
Should be a good set of fights this Saturday. UFC is counterprogramming of course. I’m really excited for Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller vs. Jake Shields. Miller is more well-rounded than Lawlor so I expect him to give Jake a much tougher fight. He might even pull off the upset.
In other news apparently Hendo is signed with Strikeforce or on the verge of signing. That sucks.