UFC 195 - Lawler vs Condit

[phantom13]

Robbie won the belt in controversial circumstances (i dont think he beat Hendricks but the decision stands) beat Rory in a slobberknocker (but again such a close fight) then beats Condit in a controversial decision. I still struggle to but him as the champion, probably unfair but thems the breaks kid.

 

[Crimson Azure]

Won't tire and can't be knocked out.

He is also very unorthodox with his striking and hard to read. Lawler is able to outlast his opponents and take more damage too, that won't happen with Condit.

I'm the opposite, I think this is a perfect match up for Condit.

I stand by my comments, Condit won that fight.

Another great night for the judges.

 

[War Machine]

Robbie won the belt in controversial circumstances (i dont think he beat Hendricks but the decision stands) beat Rory in a slobberknocker (but again such a close fight) then beats Condit in a controversial decision. I still struggle to but him as the champion, probably unfair but thems the breaks kid.

Agreed. I still don't.

I think he became a champion at the perfect time (GSP's departure). Hendricks has been questionable since the second Robbie fight (i think he won the first fight, lawler the second) - I think his performances since the stricter drug testing are interesting...

Rory is ready now, but his nose got smashed to pieces.

Condit had the knee injury.

Woodley isn't good enough.

Brown isn't good enough.

I think only Rory, Condit, and Lawler are good enough to be champions. It's a weak division IMO.

 

[War Machine]

While I'd like to see them go at it again, I'd feel bad for Woodley if they did. He was promised next shot, so to be passed over for a guy he's already beaten for a second time would have to suck.

It would but he's taken the easy approach and sat out instead of taking another fight. Risky approach, but he should have fought.

Don't rate the condit fight due to injury.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

It would but he's taken the easy approach and sat out instead of taking another fight. Risky approach, but he should have fought.

Don't rate the condit fight due to injury.

Hendricks pulled out the day before the fight if I'm rememberring correctly and the fight was scrapped. I think Benson put his hand up for the fight but was never really considered. Since then we've only had two PPV cards and most of the upper echelon of the division is either injured or booked for fights. Have there been any welterweight pull outs since then that he could have filled in for?

The ending to the Condit fight was unfortunate, but he was handling Carlos and was well on his way to a decision win.

 

[matty lloyd the champ]

48-47 Lawler for me.

2 and 5 for Robbie, 1 and 4 for Condit. 3rd was extremely close but I scored it for Robbie.

 

[War Machine]

Hendricks pulled out the day before the fight if I'm rememberring correctly and the fight was scrapped. I think Benson put his hand up for the fight but was never really considered. Since then we've only had two PPV cards and most of the upper echelon of the division is either injured or booked for fights. Have there been any welterweight pull outs since then that he could have filled in for?

The ending to the Condit fight was unfortunate, but he was handling Carlos and was well on his way to a decision win.

s**t, forgot about that. Still...he was made to look silly by Rory so * him.

 

[matty lloyd the champ]

Card was half decent in terms of action but the names just weren't that big. You could argue that the TJ vs Cruz card is even better and that is a Fox card.

Felt bad for Brandao having won the first two rounds only to fall to a submission. The Larkin fight was hard to score in my eyes. I always find it difficult to determine how significant leg kicks are compared to a strike to the head. Good leg kicks are a game changer obviously, (Aldo vs Uriah) but how do you compare strikes to the head or body to leg kicks?

 

[BradWCE]

First time watching the fight I thought Condit 48-47 was the best score, but I certainly didn't think giving it to Lawler was a robbery like others do. Another thing is that I always find it hard to label something a robbery when I'm so focused on enjoying the fight. That fight was so great that it would have been hard for anyone to focus really closely on judging it live.

It's even closer after rewatching the 3rd round for me. I don't know how accurate the fightmetric statistics are for round 3 because I'm not sure if Condit landed as many more strikes as they think he did. I'll probably watch the round again and count the strikes myself. A lot of Condit's strikes didn't have much on them or just glanced Lawler too. Close round that I'd still just give to Condit. 48-47 Condit is the best score IMO, but 48-47 Lawler is a perfectly reasonable scorecard.

All this talking about the judging has led to everyone focusing on the wrong thing. That fight was ******* awesome. I think my earlier post here was pretty spot on talking about if the fight went to decision. Lawler's striking style of a handful of high percentage strikes over and over vs Condit's varied attack with lower percentage strikes favours Lawler if it went to the scorecards. Condit's non-stop, high volume approach vs Lawler's portions of inactivity favoured Condit. I thought Lawler's advantages would play a bigger role than they did and that Condit's would be cancelled out more by Lawler. It turned out that they matched up closer than I expected and that led to a very close fight that was 3 rounds to 2 one way or the other.

Condit did a great job with his kicks which kept Lawler at a further range than Lawler would have liked. Lawler also seemed a bit too content to stay at that distance. When Lawler got inside on Condit and made Condit fight with him in the pocket he had lots of success. More of that would have been great for Lawler.

 

[BradWCE]

The Larkin fight was hard to score in my eyes. I always find it difficult to determine how significant leg kicks are compared to a strike to the head. Good leg kicks are a game changer obviously, (Aldo vs Uriah) but how do you compare strikes to the head or body to leg kicks?

It's certainly tough. Have you seen Machida vs Rua 1? That was a controversial decision and Cecil Peoples, one of the judges in the fight, said that leg kicks don't win fights. You should watch that fight if you haven't. It's a good technical striking contest and it's probably the best example in MMA of this sort of difficulty in scoring a fight.

I think it makes it tougher when it's leg kicks by one fighter vs head and body strikes by the other too. Power and volume is the best way to assess a fight when it's a striking contest and while it's more difficult with the different areas being attacked, I think it's still the best way to look at it.

I think I'm remembering this correctly. 1st round both of them were throwing with a lot of power and both landed about the same number of strikes. Larkin landed almost solely to Tumenov's legs and Tumenov landed almost all of his strikes to Larkin's head. I'd give that round to Tumenov. 2nd round was an even better round for Tumenov because he landed a lot of body shots as well as head strikes. Larkin mainly leg strikes again. Both threw with power again and it was Tumenov who landed more. Tumenov's round again and he won this one easier IMO. Last round I'd say Larkin because the leg kicks were really starting to take their toll and he landed more often than Tumenov did.

 

[Barry Roundhouse]

First time watching the fight I thought Condit 48-47 was the best score, but I certainly didn't think giving it to Lawler was a robbery like others do. Another thing is that I always find it hard to label something a robbery when I'm so focused on enjoying the fight. That fight was so great that it would have been hard for anyone to focus really closely on judging it live.

It's even closer after rewatching the 3rd round for me. I don't know how accurate the fightmetric statistics are for round 3 because I'm not sure if Condit landed as many more strikes as they think he did. I'll probably watch the round again and count the strikes myself. A lot of Condit's strikes didn't have much on them or just glanced Lawler too. Close round that I'd still just give to Condit. 48-47 Condit is the best score IMO, but 48-47 Lawler is a perfectly reasonable scorecard.

All this talking about the judging has led to everyone focusing on the wrong thing. That fight was ******* awesome. I think my earlier post here was pretty spot on talking about if the fight went to decision. Lawler's striking style of a handful of high percentage strikes over and over vs Condit's varied attack with lower percentage strikes favours Lawler if it went to the scorecards. Condit's non-stop, high volume approach vs Lawler's portions of inactivity favoured Condit. I thought Lawler's advantages would play a bigger role than they did and that Condit's would be cancelled out more by Lawler. It turned out that they matched up closer than I expected and that led to a very close fight that was 3 rounds to 2 one way or the other.

Condit did a great job with his kicks which kept Lawler at a further range than Lawler would have liked. Lawler also seemed a bit too content to stay at that distance. When Lawler got inside on Condit and made Condit fight with him in the pocket he had lots of success. More of that would have been great for Lawler.

completely agree. just finished re watching the fight and while I still have round 3 for Condit, I was amazed at how often the strikes that I'm sure we're being counted by fight metric either completely missed, or were barely glancing blows. robbie really only won a 30 second stretch of the 3rd round, Carlos around 3:30 and a minute of stalemate.

I just can't justify Robbies big bombs for that 30 secs out scoring condits volume and a few pretty hard kicks.

 

[BradWCE]

There were a few interesting scorecards turned in at this event.

Tanaka/Sotto was really close and I wasn't paying enough attention to score it. Noke probably deserved to win.

I thought judging in the Kish/Ansaroff fight was the worst. Two 30-27s for Kish? I had Ansaroff winning the first two rounds and one of them was a clear round I thought. 29-28 Kish I could see, but I'm sure she lost one round. I forget which round it was.

 

[bkozican]

Tanaka/Sotto was really close and I wasn't paying enough attention to score it.

No problem with that scorecard. Soto lost that fight

 

[BradWCE]

Watched round 3 again and slowed the video down at times to check whether some strikes landed or not. Now I'm more sure Condit should have got the round and the fight 48-47. Judges don't get to slow the action down or watch the round multiple times though. I could understand thinking that Lawler landed the bigger shots even if he wasn't as active at full speed, live and depending on where you're positioned at octagon side.

I think judging in MMA is pretty bad for the most part, but I can't get too worked up about this one. Really close fight that Condit probably should have won.

 

[phantom13]

Yeh Kish Ansaroff was bad.

On the Condit one i totally agree with BradWCE i had to rewatch it twice soley to try and score it, even the second time around i lost focus cause it was so good.

My main issue is that neither guy did a ton of damage, so for Robbie to "win" a round with half the strikes landed (let alone thrown) he needed to hurt Condit. Robbie wins round 2 because of the knockdown, he needed to do that in every round to win it based on how much more Condit did, at least in my opinion.

As i said before i would have given Condit round 5 before i would have given Robbie round 3 but its not by much.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

My main issue is that neither guy did a ton of damage, so for Robbie to "win" a round with half the strikes landed (let alone thrown) he needed to hurt Condit. Robbie wins round 2 because of the knockdown, he needed to do that in every round to win it based on how much more Condit did, at least in my opinion.

Agreed, although I didn't find the fight that difficult to score watching it live. Round 1 (Condit scored a flash knockdown and had more activity), round 2 (Lawler scored a solid knockdown), round 4 (Condit rocked and clearly outstruck Lawler) and round 5 (Lawler narrowly) was how I, all three judges and by the look of things on this board most people here scored them. Round 3 was the swing round, but most here seem to agree after a re-watch (which I also did) that Condit got the better of the round. Not a robbery in the traditional sense where I think Condit should have swept the scorecards, but certainly a fight I struggle to see going anyother way than 48-47 Condit.

 

[benchwarmer5]

Did Ortega fight with an erection to put his opponent off ?

 

[Gigantic]

Great video of Lawler turning into a beast in the last round of fights

 

[benchwarmer5]

Just finished watching the card
Lawler fights are so entertaining!! Condit is a serial killer, they both looked so good.

 

[Crimson Azure]

As i said before i would have given Condit round 5 before i would have given Robbie round 3 but its not by much.

Felt exactly the same.

Was anyone else not able to sit down for 10 minutes after the fight?

About a minute into round 5 I got up off the couch & couldn't sit down again for ages.

FOTY two days into 2016.

 

[War Machine]

I hate when people say Lawler has such good cardio. Look how impressive his 5th rounds are etc.

That's because for 2 rounds in every fight he walks around half asleep. Against Hendricks I wanted his coaches to slap him in between rounds to wake him up. It's clearly a tactic to conserve energy. Risky though because it could have cost him against Condit and Rory.

It's working for him, but he's not that unstoppable killer that many say he is.

 

[MMAPride Scott]

I hate when people say Lawler has such good cardio. Look how impressive his 5th rounds are etc.

That's because for 2 rounds in every fight he walks around half asleep. Against Hendricks I wanted his coaches to slap him in between rounds to wake him up. It's clearly a tactic to conserve energy. Risky though because it could have cost him against Condit and Rory.

It's working for him, but he's not that unstoppable killer that many say he is.

whats frustrating is he is missing early and seems like only a Ko could get him thorugh and yet he manages to get the nod on the score cards

 

[phantom13]

Exactly, and this idea that Robbie did more damage with his strikes than Condits is a fallacy too. Aside from the knockdown punch there were probably 4 or 5 strikes each that really rocked the opponent and they both had them.

 

[MMAPride Scott]

Exactly, and this idea that Robbie did more damage with his strikes than Condits is a fallacy too. Aside from the knockdown punch there were probably 4 or 5 strikes each that really rocked the opponent and they both had them.

I dont mind the notion of a a heavy strike to take influence but I shot that rocks the guys over a majority of the round just doesnt seem fair, a bit like the late take down. ok a knock down is alot more damage but thats how I felt round 2 played, I could see how Lawler was going to get the nod there but at the end i really felt how much weight does one shot deserve.

 

[Crimson Azure]

I dont mind the notion of a a heavy strike to take influence but I shot that rocks the guys over a majority of the round just doesnt seem fair, a bit like the late take down. ok a knock down is alot more damage but thats how I felt round 2 played, I could see how Lawler was going to get the nod there but at the end i really felt how much weight does one shot deserve.

In boxing it has immense weight, much Like an throw that could end in an ipon in judo. It becomes a singular point the can quantify an exchange that leads to victory.

However in MMA I tend to agree, it's so hard to weight a knockdown like other sports & the Condit knockdown in rd 2 was more a flash knockdown than an accumulation, but it's hard for a judge to differentiate when they seem to rely so much on the way boxing is judge.

It will be generational, the next bunch of judges to come through will be more acclimatised to MMA judging..... We hope.