Blake’s Take on UFC 123: Rampage Ekes One Out While BJ Rolls Over Hughes

Added on Nov 23, 2010 by Brian Blake in

UFC & MMA

This past Saturday night Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills played host to UFC 123: Rampage vs. Machida. In the main event Quinton Jackson battled Lyoto Machida to determine who would work their way back into the light heavyweight title picture. The lead in for that fight was a rubbermatch between former UFC champions BJ Penn and Matt Hughes. While there were moments of excitement and periods of agony, overall, the 16,000+ fans that turned out to witness the event walked away satisfied with the night.

Machida Gets Burned By Scoring System

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson will tell you himself that he may have received an early Christmas present when two of the ringside judges scored his bout with Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida in his favor.

In all actuality, Rampage did do enough in the first two rounds to conceivably earn the nod in both. Yet, Machida worked over Rampage well enough to make up for the first two rounds combined. Obviously, fighting isn’t scored that way. At the end of the day Rampage won a split decision taking two round to Machida’s one.

Despite both Rampage and Machida calling for an immediate rematch, the idea was nixed by UFC top dog Dana White following the bout. Odds are that Rampage will wind up fighting one of the winners of the upcoming Bader/Jones or Griffin/Franklin fights.

BJ Looked Amazing…for 21 Seconds

No, that wasn’t a typo. That’s all it took for Hilo, Hawaii’s BJ Penn to dispose of fellow UFC legend Matt Hughes. Both fighters had previously split a pair of bouts with eachother. Penn needed just 21 seconds to bring an end to the trilogy, marking his first win in nearly a year while snapping a three fight win streak for Hughes.

After a couple early exchanges in the first round Penn landed a solid right hand sending Hughes down to the canvas. Penn immediately pounced on his landing some additional shots before the fight was waved off.

Following the fight, Hughes admitted to not knowing where to go from here, while it was announced that Penn will continue his latest welterweight journey in Australia where he is expected to take on Jon Fitch at UFC 127.

Maiquel Falcão Wins Fight, Not Fans

If bonuses were doled out for least exciting fight of the night, Saturday’s bout between middleweights Gerald Harris and Maiquel Falcão would have taken the prize. The fight started off at a slow pace and the crowd immediately showered the fighters with a chorus of boos.

Unfortunately for the fans in attendance and the ones that shelled out their hard earned cash for the pay per view telecast, the bout turned out to be more of a 3 round stare down rather than a professional prize fight.

With under two minutes left in the first round Falcão dropped Harris to the mat and ended up taking his back and locking in a choke with just seconds left. Fortunately for Harris and not the fans, he was saved by the bell after coming dangerously close to tapping out. Subsequently, it has been determined that the timekeeper threw Harris a bone by calling the round 7 or so seconds early.

In the end Falcão would up earning a unanimous decision in his UFC debut, unfortunately gaining zero fans in the process. Following the bout, White voiced his displeasure letting the fighters know that if they wish to have a future in the UFC they’re going to have to step up their attack and then awarded them Fight of the Night. Ok, not really, but the part about White chiding the fighters was true.

Phil Davis Proves to be Innovative in Submission Win

Light heavyweight Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis further demonstrated that he’s having no trouble in combining Brazilian jiu-jitsu to his amateur wrestling pedigree when he submitted Tim Boetsch midway through the second round of their televised affair.

I, much like the rest of everyone watching, wasn’t exactly sure what it was that Davis used to submit Boetsch as it looked to be some form of a kimura. Whatever it was it proved to be effective as Boetsch was forced to tap out twice before the bout was called off. Following the fight cageside announcer Joe Rogan dubbed the lock the “Mr. Wonderful” after Davis himself. Sounds about right to me.

On top of having a move named after him, Davis was awarded the night’s Submission of the Night honor by Dana White.

The Night Starts Off With a Bang

Odds are that when Joe Lauzon steps into the octagon he’s going to walk out of it having earned some sort of fight bonus. So it really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that his lightweight tilt with Australia’s George Sotiropoulos in the televised opener garnered the Fight of the Night honor.

The American Lauzon was able to best Sotiropoulos after the first round, but the Aussie changed the tide of the fight and began to punish Lauzon in a wildly entertaining affair. Sotiropoulos would ultimately take control of Lauzon while on the ground and sink in a kimura forcing an early end to an exciting affair at the 2:43 mark of the second stanza.

With the win Sotiropoulos moves to 7-0 in the UFC and is expected to face Denis Siver in the aforementioned UFC 127 in his homeland of Australia.