Both defenses were triumphs.
Carlos Condit’s WEC Welterweight title defense against Hiromitsu Miura was a triumph of suspense and heart as both men spent the final round running on empty looking for that final something to put the other away; Georges St. Pierre’s UFC Welterweight title defense against Jon Fitch was just a triumph period where one man’s technical dominance did battle with another’s undeniable heart and produced a classic.
Fans of both promotions and both fighters have become accustomed to seeing these two champions roll over their opposition over the past few years. In Condit’s case, his last loss came just over two years ago and since then only one of his WEC fights had made it to round two until the Miura fight (that win putting his WEC record to 5-0). In the case of St. Pierre, most people understood that the Serra win was a fluke—something he proved in the rematch—and noting that, St. Pierre’s last really competitive fight before that was his fight with B.J. Penn in 2006 that saw St. Pierre win via decision. After that fight, St. Pierre has dominated Matt Hughes twice, lost to Matt Serra only to get that win back, dominated Josh Koscheck on the mat, and then there was Jon Fitch.
If there was a way for a streak of fifteen straight wins to end, this was the way for it to happen. When Wanderlei Silva lost his 18 fight unbeaten streak, it was to Mark Hunt in a near classic at Shockwave 2004. In Fitch’s case, this was a classic, but not for the reasons usually attributed to a fight being a classic. Most classics are defined as fights that are neck and neck the whole way—this was not the case in Minnesota. No, Jon Fitch was dominated in terms of takedowns, clean strikes landed, submission and other finish attempts, etc. What Fitch had going for him was his heart, his guts, and his determination not to go down as so many others have at the hands of St. Pierre. Within the first minute and a half of the fight, it looked to be over as St. Pierre began his usual domination of an opponent; then a funny thing happened: Fitch made it out of the round. After that it was no longer about when St. Pierre would put Fitch away, but if he could. And that’s what made the fight: St. Pierre’s constant ability to throw any kind of strike at Fitch while Fitch valiantly fought to dodge those strikes while landing back every now and again.
In terms of what’s next for both, that is an interesting question as Light Heavyweight is where it’s at in UFC and Condit is turning into an Anderson Silva-like figure in WEC’s welterweight division as he has taken out everyone that has been thrown at him since winning the title, and with the exception of Miura, they’ve all been in pretty quick and/or dominating fashion. St. Pierre on the other hand is likely set for a while with the prospect of a rematch with Penn looking very, very good (he did come in the ring for a face-to-face with GSP after the Fitch fight after all) and a likely rematch with Fitch down the road as long as Fitch can keep winning. For Condit, maybe he’s the answer to the Jake Shields riddle. Ever since winning at EliteXC’s last CBS show, Shields has been talking about fighting any 170-lb. fighter in the world throwing St. Pierre’s name out there as a possible opponent. But think about this for a moment: Carlos Condit has four losses as a pro, he has avenged one of those losses—against Carlo Prater, Jake Shields was one of the other three men to defeat Condit during his career; since Zuffa owns both UFC and WEC, it’s unlikely that a star from another (and I guess competing) promotion would get put on a UFC card, but it shouldn’t be completely out of the question to see Shields challenge Condit since he’s already beaten him and Condit looking to avenge another of his losses would be something for him to do as it might be slim pickings in WEC for Condit at the moment otherwise.
Now you knew Brock Lesnar was going to make his way into a column about UFC’s Minnesota debut. The other big story to come out of that show was Brock Lesnar’s dominant decision win over Heath Herring that saw Lesnar show the ground skills that were unavailable for viewing when he fought Frank Mir, and also that Lesnar literally sent Herring head over heels with an overhand punch seconds into the fight. A great win no doubt, but what most have to remember is that Lesnar’s MMA record now stands at 2 wins and 1 loss; that’s it, so any Nogueira dream match fantasizing should come to an end. With a win on the same show, Cheick Kongo seems to be the most likely opponent for Lesnar and there’s also the possibility that the Coleman fight will actually happen down the road or UFC could try pitting Lesnar against a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner again this time in the form of Fabricio Werdum or maybe Gabriel Gonzaga could even be a candidate for Lesnar down the road. It is interesting that while he won’t (or shouldn’t) be even in the talk for a title match anytime soon, Brock Lesnar is the only heavyweight with a large selection of possible opponents in the heavyweight division while anyone even close to earning a title shot has to pick and choose amongst the heavyweights that UFC has.
Finally, since I’m not doing the wrestling column this week, my “FUCK YOU!” for this week will have to be here, which is fine since it involves Dana White. In my last column, I praised Dana for his ability to make the most out of big matchups and see a moneymaking opportunity when it became visible. And then he goes and makes me have to start smashing him again. In case you don’t know what I’m referring to, an interview popped up online last week that had Dana mainly talking about two things: the PRIDE sale and Mirko Cro Cop. The dumbest things he said in the interview were that Cro Cop was simply a business move used to kill PRIDE for good, and that he had no expectation that Cro Cop was going to dominate UFC’s heavyweight division when they signed him. First of all, hindsight is 20/20. Second of all, wow. First of all, pretty much everyone—except for naïve PRIDE fans and gullible UFCbots—knew that PRIDE was dead when the Fertitta’s bought it and that whole thing about opening a second company to run PRIDE shows was basically a sham so they could say later that they at least tried. Here, Dana ignores all that and says what basically everybody knew: that UFC bought PRIDE to kill it. I’m not in an outrage about that, but about Dana being so un-strategic and just running his mouth about something that hasn’t been even an issue for more than a year; there’s two new MMA promotions in Japan (one with a sweet deal on American TV), and there are plenty of PRIDE guys in UFC including their heavyweight champion, so anyone who did care about PRIDE’s demise last year doesn’t anymore. And also, you didn’t expect Cro Cop to dominate the heavyweight division? Really? After he literally cut through Yoshida, Wanderlei, and Barnett like a hot knife through butter (Wandi and Barnett on the same night by the way), you didn’t pencil in Couture/Cro Cop the moment you signed him? Sorry Dana, not buying that one. Plus if that’s true, that means that he basically made the Cro Cop/Gonzaga fight as a way to set Randy up for Gonzaga and not Cro Cop. While some may think that sounds correct, I guarantee that Cro Cop/Couture for the title and the money that could rake in was on Dana’s mind that night right up until the moment Mirko went down. What this all comes down to is that it appears that winning just wasn’t enough for Dana. His friends bought out his only real competition automatically giving UFC the win in the phony war against PRIDE, but now he’s got to do a little jig on the grave. Dana, stick to current shit and get over PRIDE, most PRIDE fans have.
