The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

I was fortunate enough to attend UFC 138 in person at the Birmingham LG arena. While the card had attracted a lot of criticism due to lack of big named fighters as well as some unfortunate cancellations of exciting match ups in the weeks leading up to it. It nonetheless delivered on the night with an action packed main card, filled with brutal knockdowns and quick submission finishes. The lack of familiar fighters provided an opportunity for new names to emerge in the much maligned British contingent of fighters in the UFC. The arrival of the two lower weight classes in the UFC, Featherweight and Bantamweight, meant that highly touted London born 135 pound Brad Pickett could finally make his mark on the worlds biggest MMA promotion.

The lack of big names was long since forgotten about as the lights went down for Pickett to make his entrance. Pickett had instantly been accepted by the patriotically biased crowd, who now hoped he would go on to achieve the accolade of being the first UFC champion to come from Britain. Pickett entered the ring to a comedy song called ‘Wallop’ by duo Chaz and Dave, a genre of music dubbed ‘rockney’, also wearing dungarees, a white vest and a trilby hat reading a copy of the daily telegraph it was unmistakably London entrance. Despite the event taking place in Birmingham the crowd welcome the distinct eccentric style of the unmistakably British fighter in a sport dominated by violent Brazilians and American wrestlers. The is great importance for the UFC to continue to create popular fighters in Britain, after fighters like Michael Bisping and Dan Hardy failing to make an impact at the very top of their divisions.

His opponent almost seemed like an afterthought, although his opponent Renan Barao was unbeaten in 27 fights their had been claims in the MMA media that his record was severely padded and his only fight in the UFC prior was a dull decision win. If Pickett would pick up a win on home soil he could be immediately be thrown into talk of title contention against current Bantamweight champion, the talented but tame Dominic Cruz.

However, as the UFC had experienced many times in their history as a promotion as well as their history on hosting shows on British soil, that the combat sports are highly unpredictable.  Pickett was impressively defeated inside the first round after being outclassed in every department. The circumstances were similar to Pride Superstar Mirko ‘CroCop’ Filipovic when he pretty much wrote the book on shocking upset defeats at UFC 70 in Manchester. Where his expected cakewalk to a heavyweight title shot was derailed by an irony steeped Gabriel Gonzaga head kick. So true to form, it was Barao who looked sensational out striking Pickett on the feet, keen to let his opponent control the centre of the ring as he moved in and out winning every exchange. A sensational flying knee stunned the durable Pickett before it was quickly followed up by a barrage of punches that sent the British fighter to the ground. The Brazilian instantly leapt on the back of Pickett and after a brief struggle secured a rear naked choke to end the fight.

A week later a similar upset would occur in the UFC’s inaugural debut on American network television. The event titled ‘UFC on Fox’ was to feature on one fight, a clash between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos for the promotions heavyweight title. Velasquez had rose to fame capturing the title from pay per view behemoth Brock Lesnar. Velasquez’s Mexican heritage was seen as a winning ticket for the UFC as along with it game the lucrative Mexican fight market. Now while Dos Santos was seen as a very talented fighter with destructive knockout power, which he had used to stop his first 5 UFC opponents and bludgeon the other two, he wasn’t seen as being able to provide an answer to the wrestling of Cain. Velasquez had also made a name for himself in knocking out opponents, taking out tough opponents such as the legend ‘Minatauro’ Nogueira and Brock Lesnar. Cain was seen to have multiple ways to win, where as Dos Santos was seen as too one dimensional. No one in the UFC had seen the overall game of Dos Santos due to his excellent takedown defence, which was still not seen as being enough to stop the relentless Velasquez.

The event had seen endless promotion in the weeks preceding it and was scheduled for 5 rounds in front of a largely pro Velasquez crowd in California. Once again the viewing public were shown just how unpredictable a sport mixed martial arts is when in just 64 seconds Dos Santos had obliterated the now former champion Velazquez with a devastating right hand and follow up punches. The fundamental mistake made by Velazquez in his boxing had cost him massively, an attempt to counter a Dos Santos’s jab with a lazy left hook left him open to and overhand right to the side of his head from which he was unable to recover. The most basic combination in boxing, the 1-2, had usurped the moniker of ‘baddest man on the planet’, previously owned before Cain by Brock Lesnar. While Velasquez had previously shown good head movement in his offensive punching, the decision to wait for a powerful puncher like Dos Santos to attack was what was responsible for his defeat.

It was the inability to deal with a right hand that had cost former champion Randy Couture his title to Brock Lesnar back in 2008, instead of dipping his head underneath the punch of Lesnar he instead dipped to his right which gave Brock enough time to angle the movement of his punch downwards just enough to catch Couture on the back of his head sending him to canvas in similar fashion to Velasquez. Likewise it had been an overhand right at the beginning of Couture title winning challenge to Tim Sylvia, where the 6 foot 8 Sylvia failed to deal with a right hand that sent him crashing to the floor which set the tone for the rest of the fight. However unlike these to previous fights the title now belonged to a man seen as being less marketable, and therefore less financially viable. UFC president Dana White was left to criticise the decision of Velasquez to try to stand with Dos Santos instead of going for takedowns on the on air broadcast, stating somewhat unprofessionally that Dos Santos is known for getting tired later in fights and this weakness should have been exploited by Velasquez.

Thus is the unfortunate side of fight promotion is that for every two men there is always one more marketable than the other, yet the unfortunately for the promoters the marketability of the two men isn’t what settles the fight.

The UFC has seen countless examples where the more popular fight has experienced a deflating loss or brutal knockout. The career of Chuck Liddell is a prime example, his rematch against Rampage Jackson was huge fight for the UFC. While both men had mainstream potential it was important for the promotion that because of their main demographic of viewers, which were white, that the Light Heavyweight Champion Liddell would win. Instead a quick first round knockout for Rampage rendered him the new champion, in a result that perhaps foreshadowed UFC’s debut of FOX.

The promotion then attempted to rebound their poster boy with a rematch against the notoriously questionable chin of Keith Jardine, who at the time was fresh of the heels of a first round knockout defeat. Surely Liddell’s power would be enough to put him back on winning ways. Needless to say that Jardine put on a great performance using his unorthodox style of kickboxing to frustrate Liddell, at one point scoring a knockdown on his way to a split decision victory. The UFC were so sure of a Liddell win at the time that they even named the event UFC 76: Knockout, such a fate testing event title would end in a show where there where no knockouts at all. The event also featured a surprise upset loss for Pride FC knockout machine Shogun Rua at the hands of Forrest Griffin. Years later a seemingly shot Shogun would be paired against Liddell at UFC 97, for what the UFC presumed would be an easy victory for Liddell over a big named fighter. Shogun was seen as past his prime having spent over a year away from fighting due to multiple knee surgeries and hadn’t look impressive in his comeback win over the then 44 year old Mark Coleman. The fight would be highly entertaining before Shogun rolled back the years and managed to drop Liddell with a lunging left hook which was then followed by brutal hammer fists for a TKO loss for Liddell. Shogun would go on to claim the Light Heavyweight title over two fights with Lyoto Machida, where as Liddell would take a break from fighting to go on ‘Dancing with the Stars’.

In the words of Scottish poet Robert Burns, and perhaps also the words of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, ‘The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men. Gang aft agley’.