UFC 118: Edgar vs. Penn 2 Post-Fight Recap and Analysis

Bridge-jumping on Couture, even though you lost on Florian and Penn.

I lost on Penn as well but ended up way up thanks to Randy.

I’m a huge BJ fan but he clearly needs better gameplanning. He could have taken this fight if he focused on taking Frankie to the ground instead of trying to make it a boxing match.

which was surprisingly an excellent experience. The audience was respectful and understood the sport: lots of cheers for the submission attempts by Maia and reversals by Miranda throughout their 3 rounds, for example. Toney/Couture was received as the main event, although to be fair Couture was the hometown fighter (saw this in Seattle). We all got restless watching BJ shamble along and the card was a bit lackluster but I would definitely watch it in a theater again.

it was a great card cause i got to see bj get exposed and that to me is priceless!

well said that was money well spent, it almost made up for the disapointment after Sonnen lost.

2 of the top 3 or 4 lw lost on the same night. the newest rankings should be pretty interesting. i want to see edgar vs aldo or gomi i know they are not going to happen. looks like the new gaurd is takeing over lw.

Edgar, and Maynard both look like they came out healthy, why not make the match for UFC 123 in Nov with Rampage v Machida under it. That would get some good buzz.

There are still fights for BJ if he wants to take them. Gomi is there, Griffin, Miller, Dunham, Sotoropolis would all love a shot at him I’m sure. If Aoki, Alvarez, or Melendez ever comes to UFC, they would be good fights. A potential 3rd fight with Matt Hughes could be a possiblity. Or he could just fade away, and get put into the Hall of Fame in a few years.

Florian must have thought this was a title fight, the way he choked tonight. He didn’t look like a confident fighter, and tightened up. I still think he is a top 5 LW in the world, but he performs his best when the pressure isn’t cranked up (title shot, # 1 contender, TUF final) Thank god for Joe Lauzon, or the local fans would have had a real crappy night.

Nate Diaz is right in that zone of up and comers that I would rank between 10-20 in the UFC WW division, he would have interesting and meaningful matches with Johny Hendricks, Rick Story, Mike Pierce, Kim, Ellenburger, or veterans Mike Swick, and Diego Sanchez. He definitly looks better at 170, but we haven’t seen him against any of the wrestlers yet.

I’d like to see Maia vs Gerald Harris, I think that would be a fun fight.

Went 3 to 2 in fight predictions this go-round. I had Diaz, Maia, Florian, Couture, and Penn winning tonight.

Diaz/Davis was academic I suppose, though Davis looked better than I thought he would. I wonder how long Nate will stick at WW? Looks like not making the cut for LW is agreeing with him. At least so far. Not sure how he’ll do if he starts fighting some of the bigger boys in the division. Would like to see him fight the winner of Sanchez/Thiago next.

Maia looked good. I hope Miranda doesn’t get cut from this loss. Wouldn’t mind seeing Maia against the winner of Bisping/Akiyama.

Florian…by all rights I should have picked Maynard to win. We’ve seen how Kenny falters against strong wrestlers against Sherk. But I let his success against Guida sway me in the other direction, and the Sherk fight was long enough ago that you’d figure Kenny would have made adjustments with his TDD and BJJ. Guess not. Looks like there’s now a blueprint for people to deal with Florian if they’re strong wrestlers. Gray gets the next title shot, and I’m not sure who Kenny fights now.

Not much to say about Couture/Toney. If any fight went exactly as I thought it would, it was this one. I guess Couture waits for a fight at LHW now, and Toney probably just goes away.

Penn looks like he made zero adjustments between this fight and the last one, while Edgar looks like he improved on his strategy from the first fight. The first one was close enough to warrant an immediate rematch, but not so this time around. That was a clear 50-45 in favor of Edgar. Not sure what BJ does now. There are fights available for him at either LW or WW, like Gomi or Hughes. I have to imagine there’s not much interest in a third Edgar/Penn fight at this point so any title aspirations at LW for BJ might be over if Frankie can get past Maynard this time.

I thoguht I he looked bigger. When he got up to celebrate it looked like he put on some muscle through the shoulders. Good for him. His fight was the entertainment shower i needed after that Lentz garbage. I would keep Lentz buried on undercards forever or have him fight Guida so they can hug each other.

About this card is that it had the ultimately farcical “MMA vs. boxing” showdown between Couture and Toney, which of course turned out like we all thought it would (Props to Randy). The part I found interesting was what followed was Frankie Edgar putting on one of the best exhibitions of MMA boxing that I’ve seen. The way he was able to slip almost all of BJs power shots with head movement was extremely impressive. Edgar’s using the threat of the early takedowns he acheived to open BJ up for combinations later in the fight was great too. Finally, Frankie showed some of the best hand speed I’ve seen in MMA hands down, as he was able to beat BJ to the punch almost every exchange. Considering one of BJs best skills are hands that Freddie Roach once called “The best in MMA” (thanks Joe), the fact that Frankie schooled him in the standup says a ton for Frankie’s boxing skills. Unfortunately his next fight is a 180 degree style change in Maynard, so we’ll probably see much less of Frankie’s boxing and more of his wrestling. I just wanted to post something lauding Frankie’s skills/effort because all I seem to see are articles bashing BJs work ethic, saying all he had to do was want to win. Isn’t it just slightly possible that BJ got beat by a better fighter who’s still improving?