It will hopefully be a wake up call for him.

How many wakeup calls does he get? How many does he need? When do we just start viewing him as the type of fighter who has a ton of potential but is perpetually less than the sum of his independent parts?

Randy gets a free bonus point from the judges for being Randy.

If Randy was on the other side of a bad/questionable decision, there’d be a much bigger outcry..

People will say I’m biased for saying this, but I honestly think you can make much much more of a case for the lyoto/shogun fight, than this one.. Not a robbery still, but I think it was a worse decision than 104’s..

Never mind the decision, UFC should do something with that fucking slippery mat they have inside the octagon. In the first few seconds when Vera was throwing combinations, he slipped before a knee attempt, fell out of the rhythm and wasted opportunity to finish the fight.

Seriously, it was probably a 29-28 win for Couture. I don’t understand what all the hub-bub is about.

Couture got both rounds for the mere fact that he controlled Vera in the clinch. It was boring to watch, and favortism was OBVIOUSLY shown to Couture’s style of fighting because, as we saw earlier in the night, clinching on the fence without action for more than 30 seconds resulted in breaks. Couture was given two minutes on more than three occasions of inactivity.

Do I care? Not really. Even with that gameplan, Couture won. He controlled Vera, and it’s up to Vera to do something.

In the end, who cares. It’s going to be tough to convince anyone that the performance was impressive, and you are going to have a hard time convincing me that I want to see Randy fight more. Yuck!

I’d like to respectfully take issue with the way that you all are scoring the fight under the unified rules.

The rules state to prioritize the following credentials in descending order of importance:

striking, grappling, control, aggression, and defense.

Using this framework, it’s nearly impossible not to score the first for Randy and the second for Vera. The real deciding factor is how the third round was scored, and whether or not Vera’s blast of strikes that knocked Randy down could account for a 10-8 round in the 2nd.

I write for The Garv.com, and spent quite a bit of time breaking down each round and applying the mechanics to the unified rules here:

http://thegarv.com/mma/dissection-by-dallas-detailed-documentation-of-the-mma-scoring-problem/

I would love any feedback from the Bloody Elbow staff or any SB nation readers on the quality and content of my analysis.

personally I think it’s time for a change. I’d like to see either more times or fights scored on cumulative bases rather than round (with an emphasis on damage)

Randy bullied Vera for most of the fight. The few times Vera was in control, he never capitalized. Randy’s gameplan was obvious – Vera has become a point-striker, so Randy would close the distance and make it ugly. This is exactly what happened. If Vera couldn’t figure this strategy out and counter it, then his loss.

If cutting weight and flying over seas was so easy then everybody would do it. I am tired of hearing people say Randy is boring he didnt do anything. Randy has not cut weight in almost over 3 year (last time was in ’06 his last fight with Chuck) and then flew over seas. Randy is not the guy to make excuses, but I guarantee the weight cut and jet lag had a bunch to do with his performance. Vera on the other hand doesnt seem to have the same killer instinct he once had if he did he would have won by TKO in the 2nd round, but he didnt capitalize when he hurt Randy.

Hey man, thanks for taking the time to read and comment. My CnP’d answer:

Regarding your comment on damage versus “total number of strikes”, the definition of “effective striking” under the unified rules is just that:

“(e) Effective striking is judged by determining the total number of legal heavy strikes landed by a contestant.”

FYI, I have a big issue with the way the unified rules direct the judges to score fights, so because I attempt to interpret them as the rules state does not by any means indicate that I think its the CORRECT method (quite the opposite in fact).

I’m also a huge proponent of more draws in MMA, or at least more occasions of 10-10 rounds. However, the reason I pinpointed the description for 10-10, 10-9, 10-8, and 10-7 rounds is because I think the vague descriptions (mostly for 10-7 and 10-8) cause a snowball effect and cloud the justification for 10-10 and 10-9. Again, I didn’t ignore the draw; I followed the trend that we’ve seen as a standard in MMA judging where it’s rarely awarded (and I definitely didn’t “rush” my analysis"… fucker took me all day!) ;)

I think we also agree that a proper definition of “effectiveness”, and not coincidentally, a proper definition of “total number of legal heavy strikes” needs to be provided, as well as a better definition of 10-8 and 10-7 rounds.

Finally, your point about Couture’s clinch work and Vera’s striking counterbalancing each other should be an impossibility under the rules, as striking and grappling are weighed the most, and clinch work without takedowns only applies to control, aggression, and defense, which are the lowest prioritized categories (although I realize that strikes from the clinch are factored, but only as effective striking).

Either way, thanks again for the intelligent response to my analysis. It’s much appreciated.

I thought it was a robbery until I thought of the fight as a standing version of the Shields/“Mahem” Miller fight from the week before.

Shields-Couture controlled 90% of the action caused very little damage.

 Miller-Vera nullified their opponents and landed almost all meaningful damage.

Just a thought.