« The IBF backs Lamont Peterson’s testosterone usage | Home | Dana White: It doesn’t matter who I think won the Henderson/Edgar fight »
UFC 150: Ben Henderson wins split decision over Frankie Edgar
By Zach Arnold | August 11, 2012
Event: UFC 150 (8/11 Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado)
TV: FX/PPV
Preliminary fights
- Bantamweights: Chico Camus (+160) defeated Dustin Pague after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Lightweights: Nik Lentz (-350, 7 to 2 favorite) defeated Eiji Mitsuoka in R1 in 3’45 by TKO.
- Bantamweights: Erik Perez (-115) defeated Ken Stone (-115) in R1 in 17 seconds by KO.
- Middleweights: Michael Kuiper (-115) defeated Jared Hamman (-115) in R2 in 2’16 by TKO.
- Featherweights: Dennis Bermudez (-300, 3 to 1 favorite) defeated Tommy Hayden in R1 in 4’43 by submission (choke).
Main card
- Lightweights: Max Holloway (-115) defeated Justin Lawrence (-115) in R2 in 4’49 by TKO.
- Middleweights: Yushin Okami (-600, 6 to 1 favorite) defeated Buddy Roberts in R2 in 3’09 by TKO.
- Middleweights: Jake Shields (-200, 2 to 1 favorite) defeated Ed Herman after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Lightweights: Donald Cerrone (-300, 3 to 1 favorite) defeated Melvin Guillard in R1 in 1’16 by KO.
- UFC Lightweight title match: Ben Henderson (-200, 2 to 1 favorite) defeated Frankie Edgar after 5R by split decision.
Event: UFC on Fox 4 (8/4 Staples Center in Los Angeles, California)
TV: Fox (8 PM EST/5 PM PST)
Preliminary fights
- Flyweights: John Moraga (+160) defeated Ulysses Gomez in R1 in 3’46 by KO.
- Featherweights: Manny Gamburyan (-160, 8 to 5 favorite) defeated Michihiro Omigawa after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Heavyweights: Phil De Fries (-200, 2 to 1 favorite) defeated Oli Thompson in R2 in 4’16 by submission (choke sleeper hold).
- Featherweights: Rani Yahya (+140) defeated Josh Grispi in R1 in 3’15 by submission (choke).
- Light Heavyweights: Phil Davis (-600, 6 to 1 favorite) went to a no-contest with Wagner Prado (+450)
- Featherweights: Nam Phan (+115) defeated Cole Miller after 3R by split decision.
Main card
- Welterweights: Mike Swick (-220, 11 to 5 favorite) defeated Damarques Johnson in R2 in 1’20 by KO.
- Lightweights: Joe Lauzon (-110) defeated Jamie Varner in R3 in 2’44 by submission (triangle choke).
- Light Heavyweights: Lyoto Machida (-350, 7 to 2 favorite) defeated Ryan Bader in R2 in 1’32 by KO.
- Light Heavyweights: Mauricio Shogun (-350, 7 to 2 favorite) defeated Brandon Vera (+300) in R4 in 4’05 by TKO.
Joe Silva told Brandon Vera afterwards, “That was a hell of a fight.”
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 49 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It is appalling that the UFC didn’t try to move up the Machida or Rua fight to 149. Amazing that the UFC cares more about their TV shows than their ppvs. I get it, they think there is a bigger audience on TV and that said audience can be parlayed into ppv buyers, but it entirely ignores the fact that by this point, anyone who has any interest in mma, has already seen UFC shows. Thus, when they put on a show with HORRID fights on paper (I’m not talking about how the fights themselves go, because that is not anything the UFC can control), and tell the public “buy this
shit“, buyer fatigue becomes more of an issue. UFC 149 was the worst card on paper in years; the buy rate was probably terrible, as it should have been. It is hard to measure the impact of such cards on the UFC’s long term success, but certainly putting on terrible ppv shows and high-quality TV shows creates perverse incentives for fans to hold out for free fights.I still can’t fathom why Rua vs. Vera is the main event instead of Machida vs. Bader. The latter is a much more appealing fight to the casual fan, and will likely be more competitive.
(Before you say it: yes, I know that Vera is a replacement. It’s still Vera.)
A comment that could not have been more wrong on both counts
At this point it is obvious that the current UFC roster cannot sustain the number of shows they are doing. They better not increase the number of shows next year. They need to allow Feather, Bantam, & Fly to mature and create stars and prospects that will better fill out the ~32 shows they are doing per year.
Oh, and the PPV’s need to be reduced. Anybody not inside the Zuffa Bubble can plainly see it.
They should probably cut back to maybe 12 PPVs a year but they would be mad to cut the number of shows they are running.
They should do more International cards next year, Sweden, Italy, UK, Australia and China’s best MMA cards this year will easily be UFC events. They could do similar cards next year and maybe add a few countries and I don’t think it would hurt the PPV cards.
**
I don’t know why I said Italy (perhaps because they say they are planning one) as they haven’t did a show in Italy but the point still stands.
Rua/Vera being for a title shot is in direct relation of there being too many “big” UFC shows. As a promoter, Dana White feels the need to hype up these FOX shows, despite the fact that they don’t have the quality of card to deserve it. So now we as fans are left with thi garbage of a bogus #1 contenders fight.
Dana White is starting to get lost in his own BS.
I don’t really understand the need to have a winner from this fight be for a title shot.
Machida-Bader and Rua-Vera are happening the same damn night. Just schedule the winners against each other 4 months down the line for a shot at Jones. I understand that doesn’t take injuries and things of that nature in to account, but c’mon. I’m a Vera fan, and this is utterly disgusting.
WTH?! All four of these guys have already lost to Jones in spectacular fashion – ALL OF THEM! This really only makes sense if Hendo wins and the only decent “draws” in terms of PPV would be a Rua rematch or Machida.
Is there any reason we can’t have the “most exciting winner” of the two fights go up against Alex Gustafsson for a title shot or something a little more outside the box that might make things a bit more interesting?
I’d love to see Rua drop down to 185, even if he wins. If he won and dropped to 185 there’s a fight for Anderson Silva I wouldn’t say no to.
Light Heavyweight is just very shallow right now. I think it always was, but we were tricked into thinking differently because small Heavyweights kept on coming down in order to give new life to the division.
If you look at the current Top 10…. 3 of them should really be fighting at Middleweight…. Henderson, Evans, & Shogun. Heck, there is even talk of Machida being able to make that weight limit as well.
When it really comes down to it…. When fighters have shed all of the fat, and then learn how to weight cut properly…. The number of guys above 185 is a small pool.
Perhaps in a few years if guys like Jimmo & Teixeira pay off. And if guys like Davis & Gustaffson get the experience they need. We might see the division get a little more stacked. But by then Rampage will be gone, Henderson retired, and maybe 1 or 2 guys finally drop to MW.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Rua drop down either.
Gustaffson has said recently he’d like time to develop right? Or am I just imagining that?
Jones has all the time in the world to fight the Gustaffsons/Davis\’ of the division. The window on potential rematches with all the veterans/stars that Jones has already beaten is shrinking; those fights need to be made as soon as possible. People complain, but I think they\’d all take Jones/Shogun 2 over Jones/Hopeless Prospect.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/mma/post/2012-07-30/ufcs-white-opens-light-heavy-title-shot-to-four-fighters/815100/1
Dana opened up his stance to whoever wins most impressively out of the 4 LHW competitors. Better idea.
Jones isn’t like most champs, he’s young and likes to stay busy (plus the UFC like him fighting more than 2 times a year for their PPV numbers)
I could see Jones being more healthy than the winner of both the Fox fights, should he beat Hendo.
I would think that Gustafsson not being a big name to casuals and someone who hasn’t beaten a top 5 fighter yet might hold him getting a title shot.
Vera ain’t a world-beater (why has always been a mystery, but it is basically because he is a terrible boxer and kicking is dangerous against wrestlers), but is generally hard to finish. Shogun ain’t what he was in Pride, given that he has had roughly 14 knee surgeries. Vera has better kicks than Shogun and is probably better at muay Thai overall than Shogun. Shogun has way more zip and pop in his hands though, and on the ground he has better subs than BV, although Vera has excellent takedown defense. If I were a betting man I would seriously consider taking Vera as a big underdog by himself or parlay him with Machida.
Machida is the 2nd best LHW in the world; he is the only guy to make JJ look bad for more than a few moments; he clearly won the first round of their fight (although, incredibly, 2 judges gave the round to JJ for whiffing on lots of punches and getting hit in the face), and he will likely massacre Bader, who is way outside his class in this fight. Machida eats wrestlers alive (unless they are JJ and can literally land 1 elbow that for all intents and purposes ends the fight via blinding his opponent, as happened to Lyoto), and I see him stopping Bader comfortably.
On paper what you’re saying vis Shogun vs. Vera is not incorrect, but in reality Vera is a fkin’ flake and shrinks in the limelight and/or against any sort of pressure fighting. It’s too bad for him he’s fighting one of the ultimate pressure fighters.
IMHO it’s pretty tough to say Machida is the 2nd best LHW in the world when it’s abundantly clear that JJ is better than he is and Shogun so obviously has his number.
I agree with you on Shogun v Vera–like I said, Vera will be a big underdog, and he deserves to be. He is a guy though, when he has put it together, has a really tough skill set. This is why fights aren’t fought on paper.
One fight I would like to see is Shogun vs Rashad. Jon Jones is too big for everyone, honestly. I think Machida is the only guy of the 4 fighting on the Fox show to pose a threat to JJ because of his footwork, speed, and takedown defense/overall craftiness.
In terms of Shogun having Machida’s number, I am one of the people who gave the first 3 rounds of their first fight to Machida for landing lots of hard punches to the head, which I score more than low kicks. In their second fight Machida had already scored 2 takedowns at the point in which Shogun KO’d him. It wasn’t like a blowout or something.
Won’t disagree and see where you are coming from for sure.
I have been BEGGING for Shogun vs. Rashad for years. I think Rua’s active guard will tire out Rashad and unlike lazy, poorly trained guys Rua will wreck Evans whereas guys like Rampage just stare at him with no wind left…
Yeah there are actually a lot of fights to make. I think Rashad vs Rua, Rashad v Anderson, Rua v Anderson, Anderson v JJ, Cormier v JJ, Dan Severn vs Forrest, Tito vs Ken Shamrock IV, etc could all be big fights.
On paper, Rua is clearly the 2nd best LHW in mma history. At his prime he would absolutely massacre Rashad, but I just have no idea how much he has left. Would be a great fight to see.
Good point on Rua – you never know which one will show up these days…unfortunately we’ll never see PRIDE Rua again, but he’s capable of putting on a great performance when he’s healthy and motivated.
Rua looked in really good shape at the weigh-ins. I think we’ll see “vintage” Shogun.
If by ‘vintage’ you meant ‘old’, then yes, we saw an old looking Rua. Dude has heart for days, but his cardio is atrocious. He is the oldest 30 I have ever seen. I suspect his awful cardio is a function of his rebuilt knees not being able to handle the pounding of doing road work.
Machida is a 7 to 2 favorite? I think Bader is going to win that one.
UFC 147 did 140,000 PPV Buys. That is not a typo. 140,000 PPV Buys. If this forces the UFC down to 1 PPV per month, I will be a happy MMA fan.
UFC 148 did between 900,000 and 1 Milllion Buys. Which are great numbers.
Ed. — UFC 147 was Wanderlei vs. Rich Franklin in Brazil. UFC 148 was Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen. UFC 149 was Urijah Faber vs. Renan Barao.
Seriously picking Bader? Based on what? Machida has embarrassed wrestlers; from Rashad to Tito to Rampage to Soko, he has made guys who are supposed to be outstanding takedown artists look terrible. Bader has no handspeed, no kicks, and got KO’d by Tito f’n Ortiz. What conceivable way do you see him winning the fight?
True. I also think Machida is mentally broken at this point and Bader is on the way up.
Hmm. I am not sure if Machida has ever struck me as mentally weak. This is a dude who has literally trained to be the most dangerous man on Earth since he was a child. He drinks his own piss every day for God’s sake.
Where do you see a skill advantage for Bader in this fight?
Machida just reverse punched your opinion.
Joe Rogan is one of the worst color/announcer/commentary guys ever…he just decides which “story” he wants to tell and pathetically runs with it whether or not it’s the actually story of the fight or not.
Vera/Shogun was a perfect example – Shogun clearly took him 3-0 and then finished him in the fourth, but Rogan pathetically tried to sell this as some cinderalla story win and you’d think Vera was on the verge of destroying him.
Rogan is
fuckingawful…AWFUL…Joe – crawl out of the UG and yourshittyradio/blog show and realize you knowSHITall about mma…you are afuckingjoke….so bad, dude…sofuckingpathetically bad. Get your 15th dan BJJ from a crackpot like Eddie Bravo,…you’re a total clown.What a surprise Shogun took someone down….Well, I just, never!!!! Shogun taking a guy down…clearly…I’ve never watched…ummm…ANY of his fights.
Rogan is a
fuckingquack.LOL! He seems to settle on a fight narration going in based on his personal biases/relationships and rides it to the bitter end, refusing to pivot when it starts going off the rails. It frequently bears little resemblance to what’s actually going on in the cage.
He is embarrassing.
Thats true.
But thats part of his regular guy appeal.
Thats what most people do.
In fact you could probably say the same thing aboot most talking heads in any form of media.
I dont watch other sports.
Are there really any perfectly neutral commentators?
But the issue is he’s the mouthpiece for the action of the sport and he’s supposed to be the intelligent and technical one of the two talking heads. When you’ve got Rogan leading the lovable retard Goldy down the garden path on this stuff it just goes downhill badly and quickly.
They were abysmal last night…another example the Lauzon-Varner fight – “Varner is GASSING! Look at him slow down already!” – Well, yes it was pretty obvious he couldn’t continue at the pace of an ADD child on sugar water for the whole fight, Joe.
I’m not disagreeing with you at all.
Honestly I dont really pay much attention to Goldy and Rogan, they’re just kind of backup singers to me.
They’re usually either saying something obvious or insignificant so I have developed the ability to tune them out.
And if I really want to see a close fight clearly I just turn the sound off.
Goldy and Rogan are for the twitter “MMA fans”,
and who cares what they think.
Pat Miletich has a pretty observe and describe based style and brings mountains of personal expertise to the job as well.
He is the best.
The Machida of last night would have wrecked the Rua of last night. While Rua dominated Vera from post to post, save for a few shining moments that in Joe Rogan’s mind lasted the entirety of the fight, he gassed early (again), looked sloppy and would have nothing for JJ or Machida for that matter. I re-watched the fight and perceptions are very strange things…most expected Rua to blow the doors off of Vera, and while he basically did, Vera showed some heart and tenacity that we rarely see from him and hung in tough for 3 rds…so now we’re seeing people act like Vera’s still relevant at LHW and that he was even in the fight.
Based on last night I’d have to say that I’ll have to retract my statement about Rua taking Rashad if that’s the Rua that shows up.
Rua has a habit of fighting to the level of his opponent.
Rua beat Lyoto twice, despite the judges and is perfectly capable of doing it again.
He would have looked better against Bader then he did against Vera IMO.
But to Lyoto’d credit he smokes anyone in front of him equally and to his best (except the jackson fight were he was shy after his first loss and KO).
I’m only surmising here, but it may have to do with Shoguns brother being kind of garbage that makes him take it easy on a weaker opponent.
I think it has more to do with Rua having the knees of a 90 year old man. He just can’t explode into techniques like he used to, and clearly won’t/can’t do the roadwork necessary to bring his cardio up to snuff. He has gotten progressively less athletic with each knee surgery, and now rivals Forrest Griffin as the slowest, least athletic guy in the LHW division.
On a related note, thank God Dana chose Machida for the title shot. Vera was landing elbows at will against Shogun. I imagine Jon Jones was sitting at home licking his chops at the prospect of what he could do to Rua.
“…and now rivals Forrest Griffin as the slowest, least athletic guy in the LHW division.”
Eh, I think you may be exaggerating quite a bit there.
But I admire your enthusiasm.
Well, I mean he did just school Vera in basically every facet of the game last night and continually beat him to the punch. So, I guess he’s like say, third slowest, least athletic at worst!
Dana will thank god until the possibility that Machida upsets Jones. Then he’ll cry. Because if Machida gets the title again, he is going to be the King of Defense forever and not make the mistake of leaving himself open again. And with buyrates already lousy, losing Jon Jones as a rising star for somebody lots of fans complain about endlessly will be a nightmare scenario.
But I think Jones will beat Machida again. You can’t dodge his Dhalsim limbs forever.
I think fans have accepted Machida and his style since he one-shotted Couture and Bader.
The only guys he hasn’t finished recently – Jones, Rampage, Rua. All pretty durable, top fighters.
http://lowkick.blitzcorner.com/UFC/ufc-150-henderson-vs-edgar-cerrone-vs-guillard-staff-predictions-16847
Check out our predictions.
I know people will claim robbery in the Edgar/Henderson fight, but it really wasn’t. Henderson hit him with more shots AND he hits him harder. Why does he hit him harder? Because he is a true Lightweight.
Edgar is a great fighter, but enough is enough. He needs to drop to Featherweight. Trying to judge his fights at Lightweight is nearly impossible because of his lack of power.
Lack of power? Tell Gray Maynard that.
Also I had Frankie winning rds 2, 4 and 5 and most people I have talked to did as well. Aside from Henderson’s leg kicks the bigger stronger man had nothing with his punching power and he throws his jabs with zero power behind them. Frankie out worked and out hustled Henderson especially in rounds 4 & 5 when it seemed Benson took his foot off the gas.
http://hosteddb.fightmetric.com/fights/index/3999
Benson didn’t hit him with more shots, and the only person dropped in the fight was Henderson. Frankie even wobbled him with a leg kick in round 5. The claim of his lack of power has no merit behind it, just ask Gray maynard and Mark Bocek.
Robbery is too strong a word to use for a close fight like this, but the wrong person won. The amount of people who disagree with the decision is pretty clear.
There’s people who disagree with nearly every JD. We went on a streak of “ROBBERY!!!!!!” claims for every UFC main that went to a draw for a while. People can spin “what judges should have scored for” to anything they want. Motion, harder strikes, more accurate strikes, takedowns, subs, ect. So you can spin any close JD fight ever to go your way. It means nothing. But that’s why such vague judging criterias in MMA sucks.
Oh, of course I’m not trying to say there isn’t However, when there’s a majority who disagree with a decision it should be taken into account right? Not just thrown in with every other close fight. IMO there’s no spin about winning every aspect of the fight, the only people “spinning” information are the ones throwing out there that Ben was hitting Frankie so much harder and was attempting to finish more than Edgar (both are inaccurate, again IMO).
I see where you’re coming from, but isn’t that a bit of a cop out at this point? Should we really accept that judging (in any combat sport) could go either way in a close fight?
I love Frankie Edgar. Watching him fight is just like watching a “Rocky” movie for real. And, if ANYONE was to beat Ben Henderson for the title, I’d want it to be him. And I can certainly see how some it as being a very close fight (I feel it was). But I wanna know who the hell was the judge that scored FOUR rounds for Edgar.
The guy was obviously having withdrawals from some type of narcotic.
MMafighting, prommanow, one on Sherdog, bloodyelbow, and I believe one or two other sites scored it 4-1 for Edgar. It all depends on how you scored rounds 3 and 4.
I personally scored it 3-1 with the third round being a draw.
Bottom line: fighting for a decision is just like any other fighting strategy, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So complaining it didn’t go your way is like saying “Man, I had all these good submission attempts, I got robbed that the round ended before I could get it on properly!”
There is no Edgar conspiracy, people. I’m sure UFC would rather he be champion over the weirdo with stupid angel wing tattoos.