Let The Debate Begin: Consistency

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Fedor Emelianenko beat a former UFC heavyweight champion. Georges St. Pierre easily disposed of someone that was at his level. Josh Barnett dominated and then beat an opponent, but was a little boring along the way. Lyoto Machida beat another light heavyweight he wasn’t supposed to.

In a sport whose parity is on par with any of the big four sports’ the stories are not always about title changes and upsets. The end of January saw Affliction: Day of Reckoning and UFC 94 prove my point. At the top of both cards stood matches that did beg for something wild and unpredictable to happen, but for the most part everything went according to plan.

Andrei Arlovski had the MMA world shocked for three minutes as he scored the most effective offense on Fedor Emelianenko since the death of Pride. Arlovski was able to control the ring and fulfilled boxing trainer Freddie Roach’s prediction for those three minutes as Fedor’s stance finally became a negative and he looked sloppy in his movement and striking attempts. That was before the big right that finished Arlovski. While people gave Arlovski plenty of credit for his pre-flying knee performance, it’s not the first time that Fedor’s been rattled in a fight, a fact lost in all the hype. Fujita’s near knockout punch in ’03 had more on it than any of Arlovski’s punches in the fight, Randleman suplexed Fedor on his head, and Lindland helped open a gusher on Fedor’s forehead; in all three fights, these things happened within the first three minutes and every time Fedor won, and in quick fashion. Sounds like Déjà vu in Anaheim? It should.

The main knock on Josh Barnett is that he can be boring at times. Both of his fights for Affliction, his fight with Monson in WVR, and his 2006 fight with Nakamura in Pride would all indicate that Barnett can be a boring mat fighter. However, what is lost there is the fact that Barnett won all of the above-mentioned fights. Barnett has five career losses spread amongst three people—Pedro Rizzo, Mirko Cro Cop (three times), and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira—and has quite the résumé when it comes to the people he’s beaten. Fighters like Yuki Kondo, Rene Rooze, Semmy Schilt, Mark Hunt, Bobby Hoffman, Dan Severn, Gan McGee, and Aleksander Emelianenko have all fallen to Barnett as well as Nogueira whose win against Barnett came in their rematch. And of course there was the controversial fight with Couture back in ’02 that saw Barnett win the UFC heavyweight title—the youngest to win the title—with a positive steroid test cost him the title and sent him packing for Japan.

Lyoto Machida has always been an interesting story as he has a way of beating UFC fighters and UFC alums, but gets no respect in UFC. An article after his recent knockout of Thiago Silva said that Machida had now “made it” in UFC. My personal belief is that he arrived after dismantling Sokoudjou in a fight most believed Sokoudjou would win in the open three minutes, instead Machida schooled him on the ground and submitted him in round two exposing Sokoudjou’s inexperience. Against Ortiz, Dana White more than likely wanted Machida to win out of spite for Tito and the way his departure had gone down in the press. However, instead of rewarding the undefeated fighter for beating the departed Ortiz, he gets stuck with the Silva fight in October before Silva has to opt out due to injury and Machida’s year is done. Doesn’t seem right? I think so and have written as such, but Machida’s biggest negative turns out to be something that is out of his power as an undefeated fighter with an unorthodox style: he can’t draw the big numbers.

A man with an unorthodox style who can draw big numbers is Georges St. Pierre. The end of January saw the end of GSP’s climb to prominence climaxing with a fourth round TKO of B.J. Penn in the biggest fight of both men’s careers. Not only was it the biggest of both men’s careers just because of the fact that it was a rematch and the two were at the top of their game and it was champion vs. champion, but also because of all the hype and all the build that was put into this fight put it a step above Couture/Lesnar simply because Lesnar’s previous career and Couture’s legend status were the biggest things pushing that fight; in this case, it was the fighter’s themselves that were the target of the hype and it never faltered until the two touched gloves. GSP’s win over Penn—I’m only acknowledging the claims of improper Vaseline use by one of GSP’s corner men just because they were made—is one that put GSP over the top as the below 205-lb. fighter who will be the biggest star for this promotion, that much has been guaranteed now. The fact that all of St. Pierre’s recent fights have done big numbers was fine enough, but for this fighter to go into all of those fights and not only win in a dominating fashion, but give the fans a show while doing it. The fights with Serra (both times), Hughes (the last two), Koshcheck, Fitch, and now Penn have all been on PPV’s that have drawn more than 350,000 buys. Yes GSP’s fight wasn’t the main draw on all of these cards (Lesnar/Herring was the bigger draw for the Fitch fight and Couture/Gonzaga for the UFC heavy. title was the bigger draw for GSP’s fight with Koshcheck), but that shouldn’t take away from the fact that this guy is money.

So what’s next for these guys to do in the fashion we’ve come to expect of them? Well, Fedor/Barnett should be the fight that Affliction is spending every waking hour trying to make happen as it is their only real drawing card in the heavyweight division and in reality the only big drawing card they have as no other match that Affliction can put together would draw what Fedor/Barnett would unless Tito was involved. Because Barnett and Fedor are friends outside of fighting it’s always been hard for this one to happen as Barnett has faced Fedor’s brother once in the past beating him in the opening round of Pride’s 2006 openweight Grand Prix. I’ve already written that this fight should happen and still believe that, as the heavyweight title outside of UFC would depend on this fight. For Machida, it has to be a title shot. I don’t care if Rampage beats Jardine in March, I don’t care if he can’t draw or isn’t fun to watch every night, the fact remains that Lyoto Machida is unbeaten (something very tough to remain in this sport), is 6-0 in his current run in UFC, and has beaten UFC fighters, current and alums, in ten of fourteen wins. Yeah, Rampage/Evans would draw more than Machida/Evans, but put the Rampage/Griffin rematch below it or wait for a potential Rampage/Machida title fight. UFC has enough talent, specifically marketable talent, at the moment that an Evans/Machida title fight could headline a card and be successful if there were two other big matches below it or one superfight right below it (for a similar approach see UFC 97 with Shogun/Liddell going right under the Silva/Leites middleweight title fight). For GSP, the sky’s the limit, but it looks like Thiago Alves might as well rename himself “The Sky” for the moment. With the possibility of Anderson Silva/GSP taking place that much more likely after GSP convincing win over Penn, others and myself were a bit intrigued when all of the post-fight moments with GSP were spent hyping a title fight with Alves, the legit #1 contender in the welterweight division. While Silva/GSP would be huge, it appears that GSP is content with being dominant in the weight division he has helped keep on the map after the decline of Matt Hughes, something Thiago Alves also helped make clear last summer when he earned his title shot with a dominating win over Hughes. Do I think Alves will beat GSP? No, despite the fact that I think Alves has a great shot, but I also said that Fitch had a great shot and that Penn had a great shot, and look how those fights turned out.

In the end, the divisions may be deeper than they’ve ever been at any point in MMA history, the upsets may be more rampant than they’ve ever been, and the sport is beginning to fully make itself mainstream, but some things can remain the same. And while people do like to see twists and turns and shockers, people will always enjoy seeing somebody dominate the action. That is what guys like Fedor and GSP and Machida and Barnett bring to MMA, the last vestiges of consistency left in a sport that has almost become too competitive for its own good.