Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 11:33 PM 
Dana White recently announced that the UFC is going to begin implementing five round fights for main events that are non-title fights. I can see this being good news for fighters like Nate Diaz, who tends to turn it on in the latter stages of his fights. Other fighters, like BJ Penn and Roy Nelson seem to lose their steam in many of their fights toward the later rounds. With me being a fan of all things under the MMAjunkie.com banner, as well as an avid listener of Sherdog Radio’s Jordan Breen, I was excited when I saw that MMAjunkie.com staff columnist Steven Marrocco joined Jordan in “The Press Row”, which is a weekly segment where Jordan talks about different MMA topics with another member of the MMA media. That segment can be found here: http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Steven-Marrocco-Joins-Press-Row-33193
This week’s topic covered the UFC’s decision to implement five rounds for main event fights. It is no secret that Jordan has been in favor of the switch. He believes that a three round fight can take away the strategic element. If a fighter chooses to feel out and observe their opponent for even one round, they may be forced to win the remaining ten minutes of the fight. Steven on the other hand, is not in favor of the change. Although he thinks there would be fights that would benefit, he also believes that it spreads out the action and does not foster to fights like Griffin vs. Bonnar where both fighters were basically sprinting for three rounds. Had that fight been slated for 5 rounds, it is very possible that they may have come in with game plans that allowed them to last until the end of the fifth frame. Steven also noted that many times, #1 contender’s fights play out with fighters implementing safer game plans to give them a better chance at a title shot, which can end up producing boring fights. #1 contender’s fights often garnering main event status, which would mean that boring 3 round fights turn into boring 5 round fights.
I believe good arguments can be made for both sides. Before I decided which side of the fence I stood on, I wanted to find out how many fights would have actually been affected by the change. I went back and looked at every UFC event from January 1st, 2011 to this past weekend’s UFC 131. Within that time frame, there were eleven UFC events. Out of those eleven, I am only considering nine of them due to two events already including 5 round title fights. So of the nine events that would have been affected, six had main events that went to a three round decision while the remaining three fights ended with finishes. The six fights that went to three round decisions were:
UFC 127’s Penn vs. Fitch
UFC on Versus 3’s Sanchez vs. Kampmann
UFC Fight Night 24’s Nogueira vs. Davis
UFC 130’s Rampage vs. Hamill
The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale’s Pettis vs. Guida
UFC 131’s Dos Santos vs. Carwin
Although these six fights were the main events, Rampage vs. Hamill would have remained a three rounder due to it being bumped up to main event status once Maynard vs. Edgar fell through (which would have been a 5 round fight anyway). Another fight in question may be Guida vs. Pettis because The Ultimate Fighter Finale fight was the main event, but I would assume that the UFC would have switched the main event to Guida vs. Pettis had the “five round main events” been implemented beforehand. That all being said, I am going to consider those six fights for argument’s sake.
Looking at the six fights listed above, I believe that five round fights would have benefitted half of the fights. I think that Fitch would have finished Penn due to Penn’s decline in the 3rd round, Kampmann would have received the nod due to Sanchez’s face closing up, and Dos Santos would have finished Carwin assuming that Shane would have absorbed more strikes because of his lack of eyesight. The remaining three fights, in my opinion, would have continued on to being 5 round Decisions based on how the first 3 rounds played out (this is all speculation on my part).
So instead of there being six decisions, we would have only been subjected to three decisions. With the current state of MMA judging, I am going to say that that is a positive. We can point to both the Penn vs. Fitch fight, and the Sanchez vs. Kampmann fight as being met with controversial decisions handed down by the judges and another two rounds would have undoubtedly had an impact on that. I could also point to the Pettis vs. Guida result as being controversial as some thought that Pettis was the more active fighter from his back, but the judges scored the fight 30-27 for Guida which means that two more round would have not affected the result, baring a potential finish by Pettis. I like the idea of six decisions turning to three, and also clearing up two controversial results.
The downside to this hypothetical analysis, which was also a negative that Steven Marrocco pointed out, is that the other three decisions may have subjected the viewing audience to even more stale rounds to sit through. If the first three rounds were indicative of how another two rounds may have gone, then Guida, Davis, and Rampage would have gone on to win 5 round snoozers instead of just 3 round snoozers, which is not conducive to entertaining the casual MMA fan. We already see the boo-birds come out in the 1st round of many slow starting fights, and 5 round fights would extend fights that are often perceived to be boring.
Adding on to my last point, boring three round fights would only worsen if they were five round fights. My reasoning is due to the game-plans that may be implemented by coaches and fighters having to deal with fighting more rounds. I believe that coaches like Greg Jackson would alter game-plans to include a slower pace to the fight, much like a runner would have a slower pace when running a mile compared to a ½ mile. There may be more “staring showdowns” than “throwing bombs” which was also a point brought up by Steven Marrocco. Although he brings up a good point that I cannot disagree with, I also believe that that situation (or Dana White to be exact) will take care of itself. We have seen Dana White react harshly (crazy, huh) when fighters do not initiate action in a fight. Gerald Harris was given the pink slip after not producing in a loss to Maiquel Falcao despite Harris garnering a winning record in the UFC that also included a Knock Out of the Night. If fighters end up dancing around the cage ala Anderson Silva vs. Damien Maia, or lay and pray on top of their opponent ala John Fitch (in many fan’s eyes), I doubt the UFC will consider them for future Main Event fights. I also believe that if a fighter is slated to be the Main Event of a fight card, they obviously are toward the top of their division, or they have a history of putting on exciting fights. Obviously, there will be some exceptions where a fight that looked exciting on paper turns out to be a boring 5 round fight, but like I said….those situations will take care of themselves.
There are many ways to look at this situation and we can think of more pros and cons on each side of the argument. Could 5 round fights add to the wear and tear that fighters are subjected to? Would the two potentially extra rounds force fighters to come into the fight in better shape which may also add to better fights, and in turn prepare challengers for future title fights? Will this change have a large effect on the entertainment value which could either turn casual fans away from the sport, or will it make 3 round fights even more exciting? Will we see less televised fights due to longer main events or will YouTube and Facebook fights take care of that concern? All of these questions may or may not be answered in the future after we have some actual 5 round non-title fights to base our judgments on, but I do believe that the pros will end up out-weighing the cons.
Thank you for reading the Ph1sh Bowl! Leave a comment if you wish and Be Champions!
