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What is considered “a great fight” in MMA?

April 11th, 2007

I never intended to use this blog as a place to mouth off but I’ve been baffled at the comments I’ve heard following both Leonard Garcia vs Roger Huerta and Diego Sanchez vs Josh Koscheck, so I decided to make an exception.

Apparently, according to some pretty knowledgeable people (like Joe Rogan, Dana White and Mike Sloan), Huerta vs Garcia was absolutely incredible. I just can’t agree.

Rogan said something along the lines of “one of the greatest UFC fights ever”.
Sloan in the linked article above stated “If the fight between Roger Huerta and Leonard Garcia will not wind up being the fight of the year, then I will probably rob an adult bookstore just to witness whatever fight will top this classic.”

Well, I can think of 2 fights this year already that I would consider far more exciting and technically superior - Gomi vs Diaz and Tyson Griffin vs Frankie Edgar.

Furthermore, on a totally unrelated note, apparently the fight between Diego Sanchez and Josh Koshcheck was absolutely dreadful. Paraphrasing a number of comments I have heard, “Kos was just his usual fucking boring self doing just enough to win” - a comment usually followed by something to do with hating Kos himself.

So whilst I don’t care to argue that Kos vs Sanchez was a better fight than Huerta vs Garcia, what exactly makes a great fight nowadays and what defines one that sucks?

Garcia vs Huerta - a “great” fight? fight of the year?

In my eyes it was a decent fight but it certainly wasn’t a great one. I respect both fighters and think they put on a good show but I just didn’t really find it that interesting. It was a scrap… A scrap artificially manufactured to build Huerta as a contender and a face for the UFC’s march into Latin America.

Garcia was picked as an opponent for a reason - he has a good chin (no KO losses) but without the power or polished striking ability to pull off an upset and spoil the UFC’s marketing plans (9 wins, 1 by KO). To me, the manufactured nature of the bout further diminishes it’s “greatness”. It was designed to be a scrappy war with Huerta winning in dominating fashion and that’s exactly what happened.

As far as I am concerned, for a fight to be great you have to have all or most of the following -

1. A close and competitive fight.
This was a 3 round domination by Huerta. When Bruce Buffer stepped up to the mic, it was 30-27 all day long. With just that one point made, how is this possibly the fight of the year?

2. A display of extraordinary skill.
There was no extraordinary skill displayed. As much as I respect the fighters, I actually laughed out loud at one point during round 3 because of one particular punch thrown by Garcia. Someone I was talking to at the time described it as two drunks fighting because they both looked so gassed…. Infact both fighters looked pretty gassed after the first round.

3. A display of extraordinary determination.
Garcia showed heart but not to an extraordinary level. If getting punched a lot and not quitting was extraordinary, the top 5 fights of all time would all involve either Mark Hunt or Cabbage.

Added to this point, many won’t have noticed but Garcia told his corner after round one “he has no power”. I’ve seen people comment that they were “throwing bombs” for the entire fight. Well those bombs appear to contain very little in the way of explosives.

4. Unpredictability
Did something happen that you weren’t expecting? Did anyone expect Diaz to Gogoplata Gomi? Did anyone expect an unknown in Frankie Edgar to dominate future UFC lightweight contender, Tyson Griffin? Did anyone expect Roger Huerta to dominate Leonard Garcia for 3 rounds? Spot the odd one out?

Diego Sanchez vs Josh Koshcheck - “Absolutely awful”?

I have two beefs with the reaction to this fight. First of all I don’t think it was an awful fight and more importantly, if you’re going to call it a boring fight, I don’t think that’s Josh Koscheck’s fault!

Sure it wasn’t a brawl but is that all we want nowadays? Do you have to adopt a reckless gameplan to be appreciated? Essentially it wasn’t a brawl because a fighter had developed good technical striking. What a crime!

Sure it wasn’t a heart thumper but I found it really interesting. It showed where these two guys are at, what progression they have both made and I for one learnt a lot about both guys from the fight. People might not like Kos but that was a perfect performance. He dictated the fight from start to finish, controlled the distance perfectly and gave Diego absolutely no chance to land either a decent punch or a takedown. THAT IS A PERFECT FIGHT and for that Kos should be praised not admonished.

If you don’t like the way the fight went, blame Diego. Someone I talked to criticised Kos for not staying in the pocket and exchanging blows. I find that utterly rediculous. Why should he? Go watch GSP vs Hughes 2. GSP won that fight by controlling the distance in exactly the same way - bouncing in and out of range and throwing combos whilst never giving Hughes a chance to find his range and shoot.

GSP does it and he’s a legend, Kos does it and he’s boring. Kos didn’t put away Diego and GSP did finish Hughes but maybe Diego just has a better chin. At the end of the day, it’s exactly the same gameplan.

So what do we actually want as MMA fans?

Josh Koscheck has improved beyond recognition, so much so that Javier Mendez (his coach at AKA) believes his striking is technically superior to that of noted striker Mike Swick. Apparently the average MMA fan would rather he was just came in to slug without a gameplan.

Having said all this, I believe group mentality has played a big part in the slating that Kos has received. I live in the UK and was at my girlfriend’s parents house during UFC69, meaning I had to watch in virtual silence at 5am, so I didn’t wake the rest of the house.

I didn’t have any buddies shouting “God damn it, Kos sucks, I hate that guy”, nor could I couldnt hear the crowd booing. Watching the fight I was thinking “why doesn’t Diego do anything different” but I certainly wasn’t thinking “Hey, Kos is really dominating this fight, if I were him I’d definitely change my gameplan… maybe I’d go stand in the pocket and trade bombs!”

So what am I trying to say? Well I guess primarily I’m a little disappointed, in an MMA snob kind of way.

I’m disappointed that Kos is getting a load of heat for putting in a perfect performance.
I’m disappointed that Dana White and Joe Silva said the Kos vs Diego fight sucked, playing into the BRAWLING PWNS mentality.
I’m disappointed that they’ve gone back on their promise of a title shot for the winner, instead fast tracking good ol’ Zuffa favourite Matt Hughes into another title fight. Hughes beat Chris Lytle whilst Kos beat Diego Sanchez… Which is more impressive?
I’m also a little baffled that anyone would even consider a manufactured and gassed out slugfest between Huerta vs Garcia as a “great” fight, let alone fight of the year.

I believe Kos would beat Hughes standing and on the ground. I believe Kos would also give GSP a run for his money too. The UFC have already had one nightmare run with a UFC champ the fans hated and I don’t think they want to risk Kos doing the same thing as Sylvia. However much Kos deserves a shot, I think the UFC will keep him away from it as long as possible. That utterly devalues the title for me and leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Pride took a lot of heat for protecting their champs with non title fights (and rightly so), but at least they were honest with the protection of their desired champions. UFC are being far more subtle about it but the whole process is no less contrived.

There is one irony here however. The longer the UFC keep Kos away from a title shot, the better he will get and the more likely he is to win the title and subsequently hold on to it for a long time.

Summary

People claim to want the sport to evolve. People claim to want to see the best athletes coming in and getting paid a small fortune for their services. Yet when an elite athlete enters the sport, learns the skills faster than anyone thought possible and puts in a flawless performance, he is slated for it not only by the fans but also his employers. Furthermore, on the same card, two fighters gas after a round, throw endless arm punches, nearly falling over in the process and it’s fight of the year - praised by all and hailed by the UFC management.

Where is this sport going? What deserves praise? Apparently it isn’t immense improvement, it isn’t elite level conditioning and it isn’t superior gameplanning. A slugfest is always going to be entertaining but let’s give the tacticians and the elite athletes a bit of credit too because as the paychecks increase, we’ll be seeing a lot more of them!

Entry Filed under: MMA Opinions

18 Comments Add your own

1. FightOpinion.com - Your G&hellip | April 11th, 2007 at 11:59 pm

[…] MMA Game: What is considered “a great fight” in MMA? […]
2. Scott | April 12th, 2007 at 1:23 am

Exactly right! I enjoyed the Kos-Diego fight very much. How can you not enjoy seeing a fighter come in with a perfect game plan, execute it to perfection, keep his own emotions well controlled, and get the biggest win of his career. Beautiful! The sport is about more than brawling. If people can’t appreciate and enjoy watching the Kos performance I have to question if professional mma fighting is what they are really looking for. Perhaps they would be better off only watching underground nhb bare knuckle fights.

And yes, kos deserves a title fight but since he is not going to get it right away I would love to see him fight Karo or GSP. If he doesn’t get the title shot with one more win then in my eyes the integrity of the UFC belt is diminished
3. Dedwyre | April 12th, 2007 at 4:26 am

Sanchez/Koscheck was boring primarily because Diego wouldn’t do anything. But the reason that everyone bashes Koscheck for his performance is because he never tried to finish. He threw a lot of quick punches, but none had any knock down or knockout power. They were just keeping Diego from getting in close. Koscheck didn’t so much win the fight as he did keep Diego from winning. That type of fighting style is pretty much the same reason people dislike Tim Sylvia ever since his third fight with Arlovski; he doesn’t fight to win, he just fights to not lose.

I didn’t care for the Garcia/Huerta fight, because I was frustrated at the fact that it went to a decision. I really wanted to see the Herring/Imes fight from the undercard, and the more decisions there were, the less of a chance I would have at seeing it. Also, I was annoyed at the fact that both guys were throwing wild punches, but neither seemed to be able to connect properly to finish.
4. The Fight Critic | April 12th, 2007 at 6:55 am

Very well said, and I agree with most of what you said. I too was shocked at the reactions to the Huerta/Garcia match as fight of the year. It was a good fight but far from FOTY material.

I don’t think Koschek’s game plan was perfect in that, ideally you want to finish an opponent, not end up at a decision. So if he had been able to do some more damage to Diego in the fight or finish him, I think it would have been an even more laudable performance.

That said, 90% of the blame for a “boring” fight belongs to Diego. He was extremely defensive for the whole match. It was quite out of character for him as well, compared to his other recent matches. The only explanation I can come up with is that he was afraid to lose to Kos and thought it was really possible.
5. superhaloman | April 12th, 2007 at 11:52 am

Thank you for writing this, we are in agreement on all points. A one-sided fight is never great. An even but low-skilled fight is never great either, it can be entertaining, but not great…cough bonnar-griffin cough…

The people who think Kos-diego was a bad fight should blame diego. When your game is not working and you’re behind you need to change things up in the fight, kos would have been crazy to change anything.
6. cody | April 12th, 2007 at 5:49 pm

i agree so much with you on the kos sanchez fight its not even funny. i was gettin pissed the whole time when announcers were like “this sure isnt the shootout we though it would be” shut up!!!! if anyone knows anything about fighting they would respect how calculating kos was. damn people!

sanchez is great but he was lucky as hell against riggs and outgassed karo…give me a break
7. Zach | April 12th, 2007 at 9:04 pm

I think that you are all absolutely wrong about the diego-kos fight. How can this guy compare Kos to St pierre. There is absolutely no comparison, in this fight Kos was just sitting back waiting. St pierre was keeping the distance but he was still attacking from the distance against Hughes. It was a dreadful fight because neither fighter wanted to lose so neither of the fighters took a chance. Besides that you had two Wrestlers trying to box, that isn’t there forte, if they try to box with anyone else in the welterweight division they will get demolished. It should have been a ground and pound war and instead there was one lame take down at the very end of the first round. I dislike both fighters either way but I still thought it would be an exciting fight, instead it was one of the most boring fights I have ever seen. If anyone got excited by it then they really need to watch more MMA.
8. MrRiddum | April 12th, 2007 at 9:43 pm

Zach, I think you said it all when you say “I dislike both fighters either way”. You clearly don’t have an unbiassed opinion.

I’d like to know who you think could demolish Kos standing. I think there are better standup fighters than him but I don’t believe anyone would demolish him. What’s more, he chose to strike in this fight because that’s what he’s better than Diego at. If he fights someone who’s a better striker than him, he’ll take them down. Will you have a go at him for doing that too?

I didn’t get “excited” by the fight in the conventional way but I found it extremely interesting. Far more so than Huerta vs Garcia.
9. M.A.Campanelli | April 14th, 2007 at 11:28 pm

Well, to us a great fight is two evenly matched fighters who give it there all and fight the fight we know they can. Unfortunately the match upâ€™s are not always even and if they are intimidation sets in and it becomes a one sided fight, like it did with Kos and Diego. Before and up to the fight he (Diego) was talking the talk but, got discouraged and less aggressive than normal when he faced the new and improved Kos. We thought it would be a more aggressive fight on his end…

Truly ;
M.A.Campanelli
President/Gladiator-Gear
WWW.GLADIATOR-GEAR.COM

Click Here to Enter the Official Site of Gladiator Gear!
10. David Bridges | April 14th, 2007 at 11:36 pm

In my opinion, alot of the MMA fans are from the profesional wrestling mentality so they have no idea what a technical fight or fighter is all about. that was one of the things I liked about Pride was the fans, they show complete respect for the fighters, and win or lose you are cherred.
11. Blaze | April 15th, 2007 at 12:39 am

sanchez/koscheck was boring b/c neither fighter tried to finnish the other fighter. in MMA, there are so many ways to win a fight that the goal should always be to stop your opponent.

improved stand up or not, koscheck isn’t all that great on his feet throwing his hands. sure, he had quick feet and avoided the punches that diego threw but his technique was horrible. he was bent over at the waist, his chin was high and extended and he was dropping his hands…….what was it you said about perfect gameplans? 99.9% of MMA fighters are horrible boxers so why would we want to watch them in a boxing match? i’d rather watch old re-runs of the USA network’s “tuesday night fights”…..which was C level boxers at best.

don’t misunderstand me though, i don’t lay the entire blame on koscheck. i think diego is equally to blame. he didn’t do anything to win this fight either. both showed poorly and both showed that they are years away from title shots.
12. Mr. Steak | April 15th, 2007 at 8:31 am

A great fight is a chess matchâ€¦

Koscheck v Sanchaz wasnâ€™t even close. Neither did anything to put them at risk, nor anything to win. Respecting another fighterâ€™s skill is one thing, but you have to put yourself out there, and neither of them did that. Fighting to win a decision rather than a fight is sad. Both are to blame, itâ€™s a shame they both couldnâ€™t lose.

Some of the best MMA fights were chess matches, just constant back and forth action or techniques. Huerta vs Garcia wasnâ€™t the â€œbest fight everâ€ but it was still a battle. Huerta couldnâ€™t finish off Garcia, and Garcia battled back and at times came close to a submission. Sure, knockouts are fun to watch, but two evenly matched fighters going back and forth is like a dance of skill & technique. (Ex. Mirko vs Fedor) Sure you had a clear winner, but they both tried to WIN THE FIGHT, not aiming for a decision.
13. Doug | April 15th, 2007 at 7:10 pm

I have to disagree with you. I will say Kos had the perfect gameplan cause Diego looked confused the whole fight. However it seemed both fighters were fighting not to lose. Kos would get the better of the exchanges then backpedal when Diego would throw a punch. GSP dominated Hughes from good counter punching. Kos/Sanchez wasn’t an MMA match, it was a boxing match and a bad one at that. I wouldn’t call what Kos did was good techinical striking. I think that is evidenced by the only replay of a punch landing was a second round punch. Kos stuck to his gameplan an won, good for him.

As for Huerta/Garcia, it was an exciting fight. Yeah, Huerta dominated Garcia, but both fighters were going for knockouts. Think about great boxing fights like Ward/Gatti and Morales/Barrera. They are considered great fights cause the fighters went to war. They aren’t considered great techinical fights, but they are considered some of the most exciting fights and FOTY by many. Are you really going to say you would like to see Kos/Sanchez jab offs or a war like Huerta/Garcia?
14. MrRiddum | April 15th, 2007 at 9:27 pm

I feel I need to reitterate the point of this article again.

The point is not to say Kos vs Diego is better than Huerta vs Garcia. I have no problem with anyone preferring one over the other and im sure 99% would prefer the Huerta vs Garcia fight.

The point IS to say.

a. Huerta vs Garcia is no way fight of the year.
b. Kos vs Diego did not really, really suck.

As for which is prefered watching, yeah, actually I did prefer Kos vs Sanchez. It wasn’t as “exciting” a fight but I don’t really care about that.

Huerta vs Garcia meant absolutely nothing. I didn’t learn anything from it and neither really (I wouldn’t have thought) did either fighter. I don’t watch MMA to watch scrappy slugfests honestly… Kimbo is exciting. Felony Fights is exciting… but that’s not why I watch MMA. I watch MMA cos I want to see great skill and I want to see who’s the best MMA fighters in the world.

Kos vs Diego - I learnt a hell of a lot from this fight. I reckon I have a good idea how these guys both match up with the othe top contenders now and I find that really interesting. From a betting perspective, I like analysing these fights and hopefully I’ll have a better idea how to beat the bookies.
15. Performify | April 16th, 2007 at 10:51 pm

Great article. Kudos…
16. Zach | April 19th, 2007 at 9:50 pm

Well Mr Riddum I believe that even Matt Hughes could beat Kos in a stand up bout, everyone is giving credit for Kos becoming a good boxer, but when did we see it….. against a wrestler like Sanchez. Whoopdee doo. He didn’t even do that much and he has no power. It was a boring fight and I liked Huerta and Garcia match much more, and it wasn’t just a scrappy fight, yeah there were a lot of scrappy sessions where they were both just throwing blows, but Huerta did take Garcia to the ground and pounded him from on top. That is called ground and pound not scrappy. Yes it is definitely not the greatest fight of the year, that will be reserved for Liddell Rampage II…. hopefully
17. Zach | April 19th, 2007 at 9:52 pm

Oh… and Supposedly Kos vs St Pierre at UFC 74. And if Kos trys to stand with St Pierre he will get DEMOLISHED
18. MrRiddum | April 19th, 2007 at 11:15 pm

Hi Zach, thanks for taking time to contribute again. I still don’t agree with you though

Javier Mendez is the striking coach at AKA (and a former Kickboxing Champion) so if he says Koscheck has better technical striking than Mike Swick, I’ll believe him ahead of you… no offense.

I mean, look at my name bro - it’s MrRiddum… I love GSP, he’s my favourite fighter. But Kos will be his toughest test since BJ.

As for whether Kos will stand with GSP - that’s kinda what I’ve been talking about the whole time… HE WON’T! It’s called gameplanning! That’s my whole point! Kos stood with

Besides, if he did stand with GSP he wouldn’t get demolished anyway. In the same way you go “whupdeedoo” when Kos outstrikes Kos, I’ll say the same thing about GSP outstriking Hughes. It doesn’t mean shit except that Diego has actually KOd people standing and Hughes hasn’t.

GSP is probably the better striker but he has predominantly outstruck wrestlers. Serra, Hughes, Penn, Sherk, Trigg, Miller, Heiron, Parysian. That’s his last 8 opponents and only one of those guys is close to being a noted striker and he’s also considered a natural 155er.

Like I say, I love GSP, he’s my favourite fighter and a classy guy but he’s fought and outstruck mostly wrestlers and BJJ fighters…. infact if you gave those fighters a label, you wouldnt call any of them a striker - they’d all be BJJ or wrestling. The last striker he’s fought was Pete Spratt in 2003.

Anyway, we all have our fighters that we like and dislike, that’s what makes this all so much fun I’ll be looking forward to Kos vs GSP and whilst it might not be a crowd pleaser, I’ll be more excited throughout the fight than I ever will be in a fight like Huerta vs Garcia.