UFC 195: A Fight for the Ages

It’s hard for me to get overwhelmingly angry about UFC 195. The common consensus is that the challenger in the main event welterweight title fight, Carlos Condit, should’ve won and been crowned the new champion. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Robbie Lawler ultimately retained the title in a close split decision. It was an insane fight with tons of athleticism, skill and just pure grit on display for five rounds. After 25 minutes, you saw two men leaving it all inside the cage and giving it everything they have. The end with both men leaning up against the cage was quite the moment. While I think Condit should’ve won, in a way, I didn’t want to see either men lose after such a performance.

This fight was an undoubted classic and should go down in the history book as one of the greatest welterweight contests ever. In the future, I’d have no problem with this fight being a possible Hall of Fame entry for the fight wing. It might be selfish, to be say either guy truly “lost” seems somewhat cruel. I did score rounds 1, 3 and 4 for Condit. However, Lawler’s gutsy performance in the final round where he seemed to finally wake up and let his hands go was outstanding to watch. Not to mention, Condit taking all that punishment and managing to survive and still try to fire back.

Is there a major problem with MMA judging and scoring? Undoubtedly. It just seems like there isn’t a strong consensus on how fights are scored. The 10-point must system also seems to be a counter-intuitive way to score an MMA fight when there are so many intricate aspects beyond the striking. There’s the ground game, but then sometimes judges over-score the value of a takedown and whoever is on top. That’s the case even if someone is on the bottom possibly doing damage and going for strong submission attempts. Now, I’m not sure the Pride FC score the entire fight style of judging would’ve helped Carlos Condit here either. If the fight was scored that way, an argument could’ve been made in favor of Lawler winning the entire fight based off his performance in the final round.

While I did score the fight in favor of Condit, I wouldn’t consider this and out and out robbery. This was a 3-2 fight, and the decision all came down to round three. Now many agree this is a round that should’ve gone to Condit due to Lawler’s inactivity for most of the round. Even watching the fight live, I thought it was a round judges would probably have trouble scoring live. Why? It was a round that was contested on the feet, and there weren’t any big moments like the first two rounds. No one got knocked down, and there wasn’t an effective stamp on the round by either guy to reinforce there was no doubt who won.

No matter what happens, I believe both Lawler and Condit deserve a lot of credit for their performance. Fans and commentators wanted to see this fight for a reason. It had the potential to be one of the most knockdown, drag out MMA wars the sport has ever seen, and it did not disappoint. Sometimes great fights or match-ups get lined up on paper, and the reality is never as exciting as the prospective fantasy of what you built up the fight to be in your head. One good example of this is Urijah Faber vs. Frankie Edgar. Lawler vs. Condit actually delivered to the hype of what we all believed it could be.

Condit and Lawler truly put it all on the line in a fight that no fight fan should ever forget. If this truly was Condit’s last fight, he cannot be thanked enough for such great performances throughout his career. I really hope the UFC and ZUFFA brass do right by him and send a nice check. The buzz for this card was not all that big until after the fight was over, so I can’t imagine it doing very big PPV numbers. Regardless, I can’t find myself raging about the scores when both guys put in such amazing performances.