Silva by knockout in the third. Silva taunts Brazilian audience for four rounds, spinning heel kick knockout in the fifth. Okami manhandles Silva for four rounds only to get submitted in the fifth, then comes to the press conference looking like a dropped avocado and tests positive for drugs. Something interesting will probably happen, but the really interesting outcome—the longest win streak in UFC history is broken by Yushin Okami—probably won’t.

Historically, this is the kind of fight that messes with Silva’s head. It was an overmatch against Patrick Côté that inaugurated his Weird Period, when his evasiveness in the ring seemed proportional to his disdain. His baffling fights against Thales Leites and Demian Maia—who was perhaps not the phenomenon we thought him at the time—led Dana White to talk of firing the middleweight champion. If Silva hadn’t done that amazing thing to Forrest Griffin, or pulled out the triangle against Sonnen, or knocked out Belfort in the first—okay, he’s awesome again.

Strange to say it, but the man who hasn’t lost since 2006 is unreliable. Against a strong opponent like Belfort or even a brawler like Griffin, he fights brilliantly. Against an inferior competitor like Maia or Côté, he fights smart, which is to say boring. One can argue, as Silva himself has, that his fights against those men approached perfection—struck rarely, steadily doling out leg kicks, never not in control. But one can also argue, as White did, that the perfect fight is weirdly less than what Silva is capable of. And of course it’s boring, as the middleweight champion’s inordinately large hate club will attest.

It seems like the best striker in the world is maybe kind of arrogant. He might also be crazy, given his insistence that Maia insulted him, or simply petulant, given his Weird Period refusal to engage weak opponents. Any of these traits would be interesting and possibly even good marketing, if only we could settle on one of them. But the lack of a clear indication in any direction makes Silva not seem intriguing but withholding—at least to us.

It is difficult for the American fan to gauge Silva’s personality. The mask of translated moon-man language he sits behind on US television is enormously frustrating, as the persistent rumor that he actually speaks English attests. And like those long passages of Portuguese that translate to “I want to make a good fight,” many of Silva’s fights are clearly statements—but statements of what?

That question is why I am looking forward to UFC 134. It’s not the vs. Okami part I like, but the in Brazil. For the first time since 2002, we will watch Silva fight in front of a home crowd—one that knows him not just as a fighter but as a personality, and one to whom he presumably feels some sentimental obligation. The champion who says he only wants to fight smart and avoid injury but clearly cares about putting on a show will perform in front of an audience that expects to see one. And as a big, aggressive wrestler, Yushin Okami is maybe the perfect Rorschach test.

If Silva has a weakness, it is his takedown defense. Chael Sonnen proved that. But if Silva has two weaknesses, the other is his sense of himself as a fighter. None of us thinks Okami has a snowball’s chance in Brazil, and chances are Silva doesn’t either. He will therefore be forced to choose, on Saturday night, between trying for another spectacular knockout in front of a fervid crowd or playing it safe against one of the few fighters to remind him how abruptly he could lose.

I submit that what he chooses will tell us much about who Anderson Silva is. Okami is the kind of opponent who put him in his Weird Period to begin with. Rio is the kind of place where a fighter who obviously wants to be watched might show us something amazing. Saturday night’s title defense promises to answer a question that, sooner or later, becomes fundamental to every fighter’s career. Which is stronger: Anderson Silva’s love of winning or his fear of losing?

Since we opened the store, a couple of you have asked about our name: "Why Commit?"

Because I had a miserable day yesterday -- which turned around after one of my best workouts to date. The one where it was evident that months of strength training and conditioning were paying off. 

That might seem crazy if you haven’t experienced the incredulous feeling of, “Holy shit, I can’t believe I just did that... what else can I do?"

Katie sent us this great photo while on vacation in Banff and Jasper National Parks. Rough life, Katie!  

I kid, I kid. In all seriousness, thanks for hiking around in our tee and sending us a snap. We really appreciate it.

Saturday’s bout between Rashad Evans and Tito Ortiz offers an interesting chance to watch the luckiest person on earth fight, well, Rashad Evans. The two men have followed circuitous paths to UFC 133. Ortiz was on the verge of being cut before his upset knockout of Ryan Bader last month. Meanwhile, Evans has dropped down the ladder of light-heavyweight opponents, pulled by the gravity of other fighters’ injuries. His fall from title shot to Tito is as unlucky as Ortiz’s rise, so that their fight takes on the quality of a match between a black cat and a broken mirror. One of these men has a surprising number of lives, and whatever we see in the other is likely to reflect poorly.

For Evans, Saturday’s bout is a placeholder at best. In spring of 2010, the UFC picked him to fight Shogun Rua for the light-heavyweight title. That bout was postponed a year while Rua recovered from knee surgery. Meanwhile, Evans injured his own knee in training, just weeks before his teammate Jon Jones defeated Ryan Bader at UFC 126. During the post-fight interview, Jones accepted an offer to fight Rua instead—alienating Evans and, of course, positioning himself to win the belt.

So Rashad would fight a younger, more terrifying champion who used to be his friend. He left the most successful camp in UFC history and began training at the newly-created Imperial Athletics. Then Jones injured his hand, and Evans’s title shot was downgraded to a three-round headliner against Phil “Oh, Right—Phil Davis” Davis. In July, Davis injured his knee. Suddenly, Rashad found himself three weeks out from a fight against an unknown opponent.

Enter Tito Ortiz, probably knocking his head against the light fixture. While Evans’s career was shredding itself like someone else’s meniscus, Tito was reminding press conferences that “my first UFC fight was in the UFC” and riding out his doomed contract to “put food in my children’s mouths and a house over their heads.” He would have seemed a likable idiot, if only he had been likable. Dana White stopped just short of predicting his death at the hands of Ryan Bader, but the opposite happened. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes accompanied by a porn star, Ortiz declared his comeback.

No one expects him to beat Rashad Evans. No one expected him to beat Ryan Bader, either, which gives us a sense of what a lose-lose situation Evans has fallen into. If Rashad wins, he beats a washed up fighter who took the bout on three weeks’ notice. And if he somehow doesn’t, he has gone from title contention to losing to a gatekeeper, through little fault of his own.

With any luck, this dilemma will make Rashad Evans murderously angry. His spat with Jones to the contrary, he is regarded as one of the nicer fighters in the UFC—a backhanded compliment that, along with his early string of decision wins, has significantly hurt his marketability. The apparent promotional disaster that is Evans versus Ortiz just may prove a windfall for Rashad’s brand, provided he goes out and knocks Tito’s head off.

By any reckoning, both men deserve it. But as the last year of Rashad’s life reminds us, deserve has little to do with the fight game. On Saturday, luck will step out of the cage along with everyone else so Evans and Ortiz can fight each other. It will be fair, finally, and the manifestly unfair events that brought them there will only make it sweeter.

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Dan Brooks writes about politics, consumer culture and lying at Combat! Blog.

As Commit Threads officially launches, founders Dan and Megan Fletcher reflect on their exercise tipping points. 

A couple weeks ago, our photographer Gene sent us a note telling us that our shirts had been given a stamp of approval by the younger generation. 

"My girlfriend and her daughter came over this morning... Maggie says this is her new favorite shirt." 

Looking good, Maggie! Thanks for sharing with us.

As Commit Threads officially launches this week, founders Dan and Megan Fletcher reflect on their exercise tipping points.

I played competitive sports since I was a tyke, starting with gymnastics and tumbling at age three; adding soccer when I was about 10. In junior high, I took up volleyball, ran track and continued tumbling and soccer until I went to college.

Oh, college. Sure, I hit the gym a couple times a quarter, but the most consistent exercise I got during college was trekking around Iowa City to class or work, and vigorously flagging cabs for rides home from the bar.

During my sophomore year, I actually gained weight. I’m (extra) petite and had never seen 100 pounds in my life. Suddenly, the numbers were creeping toward 120. While I don’t recall feeling particularly bad about my weight, I did rely on “fun in moderation” to thin back out by the time I graduated.

Relocating to Colorado in 2005 is what really got me moving. More specifically, it was a blizzard (See: the No Parking sign on my street) in Colorado that really got me moving. 

It was day two of being snowed in -- alone -- in my apartment, and after reading what felt like everything on the Internet, I decided to check out my building’s new fitness center. When was the last time I touched weights -- high school? Ugh. I tried the elliptical for 20 minutes instead. I was sweating, which I hadn’t felt in awhile, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel happier afterward. Less anxious.

And every day I did. I grew to look forward to the mental and physical release. If I came in the gym doors with anxiety and stress, it was usually gone by the time I left. I was slimmer, stronger and more confident -- and it was that confidence that helped me push myself and set new goals.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing a bit more about my training regimen now -- boy, has it changed since those days on the elliptical. But the thing is, I wouldn’t be where I am physically or mentally if I hadn’t taken that first step.

We all have to start somewhere. So throw on your favorite Commit Threads shirt and get out there. You’ll be so glad you did.

Adam from Phoenix sent us a great photo today, with an even better note:

"I can honestly say I have two new favorite t-shirts. The designs are excellent and the material is the most comfortable I have ever worn. I even had someone at the zoo today ask me about my shirt. Great work!"

You are far too kind, Adam. Thank you for being one of the first of what we hope will be many satisfied folks. You and the rhino are awesome. 

Those of us who enjoy finding historical parallels in everything are having a banner spring, since reading the last month of MMA news feels like opening a pack of baseball cards and finding a Honus Wagner. Maybe you heard this, but the UFC—or rather Zuffa, the UFC’s parent company—purchased Strikeforce, meaning that the two largest mixed martial arts promotions in the world are now the same corporate entity. Unless Bellator suddenly moves from MTV2 to Sunday afternoons on Fox, the sport of mixed martial arts is now majority-owned by Dana White and the Fertitta Brothers. Fight fans, welcome to Major League Baseball.

It is fitting, then, that the first big UFC card since Zuffa’s surprise move prominently features Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic. Both men are standouts from the glory days of Pride, the promotion that was the UFC’s Japanese counterpart until Zuffa purchased it in 2007. It was the year after Cro Cop won the Pride 2006 Open Weight Grand Prix, and the prospect of seeing him in superfights against UFC stars—perhaps alongside 2005 Middleweight GP winner Rua—tantalized fight fans worldwide.

Perhaps you find yourself hard-pressed to name the current Pride middleweight champion. Despite Zuffa’s promise to run the UFC and Pride as separate promotions, the Japanese organization was gradually parted out. The best fighters found their way into the UFC along with Mark Hunt, and the years-old Pride vs. UFC argument was settled in decisive and often depressing ways.

Cro Cop, for example, became either a shadow of his former self or a reminder of how easy it is to overrate a heavyweight. He beat hell out of Mostapha Al-Turk, but he went 2-2 in his next four fights in the UFC, including a verbal submission to Junior Dos Santos and lackluster outings against Pat Barry and Frank Mir. Cro Cop looks old now, and the slow collapse of his arrogant sneer into a fatigued grimace seems like a metaphor for the fading of Pride into the sport’s collective memory.

Meanwhile, Shogun Rua is 29, once again a light-heavyweight champion—Pride’s middleweight division was 205 pounds—and a Vegas underdog to Jon Jones, aged twenty-three. It’s been ten months and a knee surgery since Rua’s knockout victory over Lyoto Machida, but every single opponent he fought on his way to the the UFC title was a former champion. He also won the Pride GP when Jones was in high school. When Rua complains that media predictions of Jones’s victory are “ridiculous,” it’s hard not to hear a little resentment toward a public that forgot the world’s second-largest MMA promotion so fast.

Does this sound familiar, Josh Barnett? Will you watch Cro Cop fight Brendan Schaub, rapidly-depreciating Fedor Emelianenko? Despite Dana White’s claim that all will be “business as usual” for the organization formerly run by Scott Coker, the history of Strikeforce is likely being presented as a tragedy in two acts this weekend. First come the promises of security and continuity, and then come the twentysomethings to kick you in the face.

The big question since UFC bought Strikeforce—is all this good for the sport?—is misguided. This is the sport, and if you prefer your legacies and institutions to remain intact, you might enjoy baseball. They experienced an inevitable consolidation into a single entity, too, and the question of whether that was good is now one for law school antitrust courses. Like the disappearance of the AFL and the ABA, the purchase and almost certain absorption of Strikeforce is a just-so story. There is no clear moral to it; it’s just what happened.

As depressing as that is for Cro Cop and Fabricio Werdum and potentially Shogun, I submit that it’s also what we like best about fighting. There is little morality in the cage, where what should happen is forced to yield to the unrelenting supremacy of what does. The heartbreak that comes with watching Cro Cop get his orbital bone broken by Dos Santos—or Brock Lesnar beating down Randy Couture, or Scott Coker becoming Dana White’s employee—is overwhelmed by the thrill of watching. Perhaps March is a wonderful month in the history of mixed martial arts. Perhaps it is an epochal disaster. Personally, I’m just glad to be here.

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Dan Brooks writes about politics, consumer culture and lying at Combat! blog.

Saturday’s majority draw between BJ Penn and Jon Fitch was disappointing on plenty of levels. There was the sheer anticlimax of the decision; if a tie is like kissing your sister, a split decision tie is like kissing one of your sisters while the other one petulantly announces she’d rather kiss somebody else. Watching Fitch send yet another fight to the judges on his breadlike rise to the number-one contender spot was disappointing, too. And there was the emotional disappointment of seeing the man who once seemed the permanent champion of the lightweight division, on brand-new training in a pretty-new weight class, looking just as tentative and distant as he did in his two outings against Frankie Edgar.

No one seemed more disappointed than BJ Penn himself. In the post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, Penn seemed oddly surprised by the decision—not because his terrifying jiu jitsu and heavy hands had failed to put Fitch away, but because he clearly thought he had lost. Worse, he looked chagrined that he hadn’t. It wasn’t long before the word “retire” made it out of his mouth, but in a particularly bizarre context: he had decided that if he lost this fight, he’d retire, and now he didn’t know what to do.

If you are like me, you took that opportunity to shout some unsolicited advice at your television. Penn has always taken his wins and losses emotionally—licking blood off his gloves, running out of the cage and later claiming it was because he had to use the bathroom, mumbling through interviews like a dejected child. The transporting emotions he feels after a fight are odd, not just because they appear to overwhelm him, but because he has seemed so curiously unmotivated throughout his career.

In 2000, at the age of 21, Penn became the first non-Brazilian to win the black belt division of the World Jiu Jitsu Championships. He had begun training only three years earlier. Typically, getting a black belt takes about a decade, and at the time Penn was believed to have earned his faster than anyone actively practicing.

Three years later, “The Prodigy” had become an ironic nickname. After ending the 2003 UFC lightweight tournament in a draw with Caol Uno—a maddeningly unsatisfying outcome that contributed to the UFC’s decision to discontinue the division—Penn developed a reputation for not doing the work. He had conditioning problems, particularly when he didn’t have to make 155. He insisted on training at his own camp in Hawaii at a time when other high-level fighters were grouping together in professional gyms. For every video of him jumping out of a swimming pool, there seemed to be another one of him joking about bong hits.

In short, you wondered how bad he wants it. BJ Penn clearly loves fighting people, but it’s hard to assess how much he likes being a fighter. Like many great natural talents—Brandon Vera and Rampage Jackson leap to mind—his ability to kick a moderate level of ass without pushing himself has started to work against him late in his career. There’s no question that he’s a high-level fighter. But at this point, what high-level fighters can he beat?

In this context, Saturday’s draw with Fitch seems oddly reminiscent of the 2003 draw with Uno. Both were frustrating partly because they occurred at such a high level. Penn wouldn’t have gone from Matt Hughes to a number-one contender match at welterweight if he hadn’t spent so many years dominating at lightweight, just as the Uno draw wouldn’t have been so disappointing if it hand’t been the final round in an exciting tournament. More importantly, though, both draws made future contests seem like chores. The sheer emotional letdown made any future fight feel more like an obligation than an interest.

It seems like BJ Penn is obligated to keep fighting, but he sure doesn’t look interested. The Penn we saw Saturday night looked tired: a man whose talent had taken him as far as it could, that night and in his career, and brought him to an unsatisfying conclusion. Perhaps, at age 32, he will change his life and become the welterweight Randy Couture. More likely, though, he will remain The Prodigy, an uncomfortable reminder of what talent can do.

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Dan Brooks writes about politics, consumer culture and lying at Combat! blog.

If Anderson Silva went on television Saturday night and explained, in perfect English, that he felt very sorry for what he did to Demian Maia and Patick Cote, and for cheapening Chael Sonnen’s victory by making excuses about his ribs, and then bowed respectfully to Vitor Belfort before knocking him out via spinning elbow 36 seconds later, but—but!—it was also revealed that he works regularly as a background dancer in Brazilian hip hop videos: would UFC fans embrace him?

I know you’ve asked yourself this before. I also know you know what the term “UFC fans” means, because you like Anderson Silva, too. You are an aficionado of mixed martial arts, which UFC fans call “ultimate fighting.” They hate the way Anderson Silva does ultimate fighting—because it is not enough like NASCAR or something—but you know better. For the purposes of this discussion, a UFC fan is anyone who saw the Tony Fryklund knockout after you.

UFC fans dislike Anderson Silva because, at least in his last few iterations, “all he does is dance around.” It should be noted that during the Dancing Around Era—which begins with the collapse of Patrick Coté’s knee—Silva went 5-0, won three stoppages, broke the UFC record for consecutive wins and title defenses, and erased Forrest Griffin’s memory of childhood. But UFC fans don’t care about that, because Anderson Silva has a bad attitude.

He also seems like maybe some kind of metrosexual. Let’s pretend it’s 2003 and we still use that word. When you watch his beautifully symmetrical face speaking nonsense words while some other voice explains that he is excite to make a good fight, you get the feeling that he is not a UFC fan, either. He is the best striker in the history of the sport, so he follows it, but he’s not the kind of guy who really gets into ultimate fighting. The UFC fans recognize this, and so they boo his title defenses.

That must drive Silva crazy, because he is obviously such a showman. Anyone who watched him do his 54 Blocks routine against Leites or taunt Meia saw a man who views fighting as a performance. Silva’s dance of punctuated aggression is as much a show as Forrest Griffin’s aw-shucks brawling or BJ Penn’s mildly retarded bloodlust.

The difference is that it’s a show we cannot easily relate to. You can imagine yourself in Forrest Griffin’s body, flinging your arms and legs at your opponent while you test your ability to emit blood and absorb head trauma. It seems like a matter of practice. But what Silva does is alien. His weird, hairless body moves around not just in a way that you couldn’t replicate with your own, but in a way that you couldn’t replicate with a video game controller. He seems to perceive time differently. Whatever it is, he is emphatically Not Like Us.

I submit that UFC fans hate Anderson Silva not because of his bad attitude, but because his bad attitude reminds them that hardly anyone can do ultimate fighting. If you horse around with Demian Maia, you will tear your meniscus at the exact moment he punches through your mouth. The obvious inaccessibility of Silva’s speed, sense of angles, and terrifyingly range-independent power spoils the most pleasant illusion of mixed martial arts, which is that we could all do it if we just trained enough.

We could not. When Silva says in the post-fight press conference that Maia insulted him by making a fairly innocuous comment about trying to catch him in a leg lock, it feels like he is insulting us. These people should not pretend to be like me, he seems to say, and you people aren’t even like them.

Watching his last five fights, the truth of that claim is inescapable. Silva is so different from his opponents that he isn’t even always fighting at the same time they are. By extension, he is yet more different from us, and seeing him in a pink shirt and architect glasses when everyone else—fighter and fan alike—is wearing Affliction only makes it worse.

The question, then, is whether UFC fans would rather see the sport’s best fighters or their own best selves. Silva has richly rewarded our hopes for the development of the sport and the staying power of a champion, but he has exacted a stiff cost in our fantasies. He is the anti-Tank Abbot, reminding us every time he drops his hands that it’s not just about being tough or wanting it more. Whether that is what has made him one of the UFC’s biggest heels or whether it’s his so-called bad attitude will not be answered until Saturday night. I personally can’t wait for UFC 126, and I assume that everything will happen as I described.

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Dan Brooks writes about politics, consumer culture and lying at Combat! blog.

The line between two eras of mixed martial arts runs straight through Phil Baroni. Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing to run through him lately. Baroni’s loss to Brad Tavares at UFC 125 brought his record to 13–13, got him cut from the UFC, and likely signaled the end of his fighting career. At age 34, “The New York Bad Ass” is the type of fighter that MMA has passed by. That’s a shame, because he has also been a pioneer in the new style of self-promotion.

Baroni was always better at winning fans than winning fights. In 2002, he knocked out former UFC champion Dave Menne in 17 seconds, leapt onto the cage and declared himself “the best eva,” creating an internet meme that runs through the Sherdog forums to this day. He lost his next four fights. The former bodybuilder went to Japan and enjoyed what appeared to be a career renaissance in Pride, only to return to the United States, lose to Frank Shamrock and test positive for steroids.

He had one-punch power but no stamina. He knocked out Ryo Chonan, Yuki Kondo and Minowaman in the first round, but lost to Amir Sadollah. His stints in the UFC ended in four- and three-fight loss streaks, respectively, yet Baroni remains one of the most beloved figures in MMA—particularly around my house. Why?

Part of it is that he is exactly what anyone unfamiliar would expect a Phil Baroni to be: the accent, the gym-rat physique, that infuriating chinstrap beard. He knew it, and he parlayed that awareness into a persona that was equal parts comical ego and actual ego. His entrances owed much to that other genius of semiserious arrogance, Rick Flair. He rarely had a kind word for his opponents—or for several theoretical “pussies” who might tap to a choke or couldn’t take a punch from the guard—yet he was somehow likable. In short, he was an incredibly savvy showman.

And yet he remained a frustratingly un-savvy fighter. He trained at Hammer House, home of fellow scary guys who emphasized physique over technique Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman. In the eyes of its detractors, Hammer House was the name given to Coleman’s front porch. Yet Baroni stuck with them even as he watched his teammates succumb to the same problems that threatened his own career: consistent stamina trouble, allegations of steroid abuse, and a refusal to improve technically, even as the sport passed them by.

Unlike Coleman and Randleman, Baroni never won a title. He arrived a little too late, and remained an old-school toughman as the middle- and welterweight divisions slowly filled with versatile technicians. The wrestlers he once beat outstruck him. The boxers he used to KO picked him apart with muay thai or waited him out until he gassed. After his loss to Sadollah, he very publicly moved to Phuket, Thailand to train with kickboxing guru Kru Yod. But it was too little too late, and at the end of his career, Baroni is remembered as a fighter who stubbornly refused to evolve.

That’s ironic, in a sad sort of way, because his showmanship was so far ahead. Before Brock Lesnar ruled the heavyweight division as a heel, before Genki Sudo was a pop singer, Phil Baroni realized that fight fans would pay extra for personality. His tongue-in-cheek entrances and affected persona provided the template for fighters like Alan Belcher and Sean McCorkle, who convinced the UFC to put them on pay-per-view cards largely on the strength of their performances before the bell.

Of course, Belcher and McCorkle both lost on the big show. There are two things a young fighter can learn from Phil Baroni. The first is that a little showmanship goes a long way, and fans of mixed martial arts have more in common with fans of pro wrestling than they’d like to admit. The second is that these days, being likable and tough is not enough. That’s a testament to the evolution of the sport, and it’s a good thing overall. In the case of Phil Baroni, though, it seems a little sad. There were moments when he was the best eva. It seems that time passes even eva by.

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Dan Brooks writes about politics, consumer culture and lying at Combat! blog.

The most interesting moment in Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s questionable decision victory over Lyoto Machida at UFC 123 came after the winner was announced. In the look of astonishment on Jackson’s face—somehow both humble and crowing at the same time, funny, and eminently likable—fans briefly saw the Rampage that the UFC wants us to see.

His radiance was dimmed only slightly by the context: coming off a fight he barely won, if at all, relieved to exercise his charm for a few moments while no one was trying to punch him in the face. And he was charming. His offer of a rematch, gracious and self-effacing, came as naturally as his surprise at having actually won. Saturday night, Rampage Jackson seemed to recover his groove.

Not in the fight, of course. The fight found him stymied by Lyoto Machida’s unhealthy fixation on range, just like everybody else, and for fifteen minutes Quinton Jackson managed to look like everybody else. The Pride legend remained submerged. At one point during round three, he appeared to be on the verge of slamming his way out of an arm bar, but then Machida just sort of stood up—possibly because he could hear Ricardo Arona screaming “just stand up!” at the television in Brazil. Otherwise, Jackson looked like he has lately: quick, well-conditioned, and powerful enough to overcome all but an increasing number of UFC light heavyweights.

That’s a problem, obviously. Yet it seemed mitigated by the improvement Rampage showed in all areas not bounded by a chain link fence. After two difficult years—bookended by troubles with the law and a season on The Ultimate Fighter taken as an opportunity to rekindle America’s love affair with Rashad Evans—Rampage remembered his vaunted showmanship.

He got a little pushy at the weigh-in but backed right off. He mad-dogged Machida all weekend, but after the fight he congratulated the jiu jitsu black belt on whipping his ass. Here was the Rampage Pride fans fell in love with, adjusted for statesmanship. He fought okay, and he talked super good. So it can be said conclusively that at UFC 123, Rampage accomplished three things:  

1. eked out a decision victory over Lyoto Machida,

2. was fun and likable on television, 

3. and improved the trajectory of his life.

Yet which caused which and what trajectory remain frustratingly mysterious. Like him or not, Quinton Jackson did not appear to have gotten better at fighting. Those of us who lack the expertise and the heart to say he has worsened still see the division improving around him. What we learned Saturday about Quinton Jackson the fighter is that he has kept his feet in a rushing stream, and that is the best that we can say certainly.

Yet Rampage Jackson the showman is again so delightful. Herein lies the paradox. By all assessments, Jackson got his career back on track at UFC 123. Why, then, as he was shaking his head and marveling at Lyoto Machida’s ability to whip ass, did I feel so worried about him?

Perhaps it’s because the greatest threat to Quinton Jackson was never Lyoto Machida. It was the A-Team movie, and Rampage’s decision to sort of stop fighting for a while so he could focus on his ability to convincingly say that he did not want to fly on a plane. Such choices are why Saturday night was a watershed moment in his career.

They’re also why his watershed moment was a number-one contender match. Quinton Jackson the fighter has reached a point where whether he can beat Machida, Evans or Griffin is a matter worth paying money to settle. Rampage is not what he was in Pride. He is 32 years old, and he just dug deep to win a split decision to become a contender.

He showed improvement as a fighter, but that seemed like a failure in comparison with his improvement as an entertainer. After everything that got us worried about Quinton Jackson’s fighting career in the first place, the comparison cuts two ways. The good news from UFC 123 is that Rampage stopped being such a jerk to everybody, but that’s not the news we were waiting to hear.

The news is which way Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, aging power fighter in the sport’s most competitive division with a possible entertainment career, is headed right now. Is he headed Chuck Liddell, or is he headed Randy Couture? One way, and we maybe recover one of the sport’s most entertaining fighters. The other, and we watch another fighter’s sports career crumble into entertainment. I’d like to say a split decision and an impressive display of sportsmanship told us something last weekend, but I just don’t know.

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Dan Brooks writes about politics, consumer culture and lying at Combat! blog.

Those of us who love MMA could find no more satisfying ending to UFC 121 than Brock Lesnar’s scrambling, panicked defeat at the hands of Cain Velasquez. In one supremely violent round, Velasquez gave the lie to one of the sport’s most unpleasant narratives: that Lesnar was too big, too strong and too naturally gifted to be unseated as heavyweight champion. Watching the crowd erupt in Anaheim, it was hard not to feel that Velasquez didn’t just beat Lesnar; he solved him.

The sound you heard coming from Southern California on Saturday night was 30,000 people cheering and one man sighing very deeply. That man was Dana White, who shared the fans’ excitement but probably also a measure of the former champion’s disappointment. White didn’t lose a belt, but he did lose perhaps the greatest heel in the young history of the sport.

The Lesnar Problem is familiar to any long-time fan of MMA. There’s no denying that the erstwhile champion is one of the most physically gifted heavyweights ever. Before the bout of colitis that sidelined him last year, he cut weight to make 265, yet he appeared to contain almost no body fat below his head. His quickness and agility are unmatched by any athlete near his size. Even Shane Carwin, himself an eerily fast big man, looked slow by comparison.

In short, Lesnar is a freak. They told us so the first time he stepped into the Octagon, and they repeated it during his rise to the title, which I would describe as suspiciously meteoric. In a division stacked with undefeated prospects and proven veterans, Lesnar lost his debut—via heel hook, which is the cut stoppage of submission grappling—and then went on to become champion with a record of 4–1.

It was frustratingly easy to see why. While Joe Rogan shouted at us about Lesnar’s terrifying production of ATP, we sat home and thought about his drawing power. The former WWE star set pay-per-view records in his first UFC appearance and kept setting them thereafter. He was the first high-profile athlete to cross over, and he was the UFC’s first experiment in grooming a champion.

By most metrics, that experiment was enormously successful. Lesnar generated audiences and income that only the Fertitta brothers fully appreciate, and he did it in style. And unlike certain other MMA, um, investments of recent years—Kimbo Slice, say, or Bobby Lashley—he didn’t just impress new fans. He electrified aficionados as well.

“Electrified” is, of course, not the same as “pleased.” Partly as a result of his WWE experience and partly by what appear to be fundamental elements of his personality, Lesnar is a terrific heel. He publicly disdains the skill of his more experienced opponents, trains with a bunch of fatter, dumber versions of himself in his own gym in Minnesota, and generally makes a mockery of the technique-over-size theory that makes mixed martial arts a sport in the first place.

More importantly for long-term fans, though, he is a symbol of all that is frightening in the explosive growth of MMA. His being a former pro wrestler seemed only too perfect. As the UFC’s first deliberately created champion, he represented the possibility that the show might overtake the sport.

Watching him wear the belt while Velasquez, Junior dos Santos and other more demonstrably talented heavyweights languished in perennial contender status was infuriating, and it made every Lesnar bout a referendum on what was true in the UFC versus what we only wanted to believe. His deliberate arrogance made it worse, which is to say it made it better. In his fusion of natural ability, promotional hype and personal dicketry, he was the serious MMA fan’s worst nightmare.

In short, Brock Lesnar is the perfect heel. Or at least he was, before Velasquez’s precise striking and manifestly superior composure made him just another contender. Like many MMA fans, I was surprised by Saturday night’s championship fight, and I can’t say I’m sorry. There is a part of me, though, that feels just a little sympathy.

Lesnar got a shorter ride to the belt than a lot of heavyweights who arguably deserved it more. He paid us back in spades, though—by turning his considerable skills as a showman against himself, by making us hate him, by giving us someone to root against in every championship bout. He is no Randy Couture, but he has been no Tim Sylvia, either.

Now that he is just another fighter in a stacked division, forced to fight his way up instead of glower down, Lesnar the hell isn’t quite as much fun. Seeing him with a cut face and no belt around his waist is satisfying, but it’s also weirdly poignant. It is the sight of a man who might have given us just a little more than he got.

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Dan Brooks writes about politics, consumer culture and lying at Combat! blog.

The chorus of boos Sean Sherk heard after his split decision victory over Evan Dunham at UFC 119—a win largely attributable to his takedown near the end of the fight—was the sound of MMA’s wrestling problem.

The same event saw Frank Mir press Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic against the cage like a waffle iron for three rounds before knocking him out and briefly stanching another flow of boos. After the fight, Mir remarked to reporters that his last year’s wrestling training had been almost entirely defensive.

From a fighter’s standpoint, that’s understandable. Two of Mir’s last three opponents were Shane Carwin and Brock Lesnar, powerful wrestlers whose strength and takedown ability neutralized whatever advantages Mir might have had. The third was Cheick Kongo—a man whose career has been hobbled by his inability to develop a wrestling defense of his own.

For fans, though, the power of wrestling is the power to stop the momentum of a fight. We all appreciate a good double, but the tactical advantages of the wrestler—who can restrain strikers with the threat of his shot, frustrate jiu jitsu players with his takedown defense, and disrupt counterstrikers by pushing them against the cage—often amount to a neutralization of what makes his opponent interesting.

Since UFC 1, influxes of new styles have shaped the development of mixed martial arts. After Royce Gracie was done making Brazilian jiu jitsu a necessary component of any fighter’s training, a new generation of fighters—including eventual champions Mark Coleman and Matt Hughes—introduced ground and pound to the ecosystem. A few years later, an influx of kickboxers and muay thai practitioners turned the Pride heavyweight division into a fireworks show.

With each infusion of fighters from other sports, MMA evolved. In the last few years, the one-dimensional fighter has slowly gone the way of the old-school toughman. But the wrestlers have been the last to go.

The UFC currently has two wrestler champions in Brock Lesnar and Frankie Edgar, and an argument can be made for Georges St. Pierre. The next welterweight and lightweight challengers, Josh Koscheck and Gray Maynard, are wrestlers as well.

Lesnar and GSP are valuable properties whom fans want to see, but the prospect of a wrestling- dominated UFC—and the likely series of decisions that goes along with that—can’t be any more thrilling to Dana White than it is to us. There may still be hope, though, and it comes from an unlikely place: boxing.

The hundreds of Americans who saw Strikeforce: Houston last month were treated to the unexpected sight of Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante knocking out Muhammed Lawal to win the organization’s light heavyweight championship. Lawal came in at a -525 to +350 favorite—a betting line that seemed absurd, in retrospect, given Feijao’s powerful boxing.

King Mo did not look himself that night. His shots, normally his primary means of controlling a fight, were either frustrated or bought at the price of several hard shots to the face. Feijao’s striking owed as much to boxing as to muay thai, and his power in the clinch thwarted Lawal’s takedowns even as it exacted a steady toll in body punches.

Cavalcante didn’t just win the title; he showed the MMA world that boxing may be technically suited to overcoming wrestlers in a way that muay thai and traditional kickboxing are not. Because the boxing stance is both wider and more mobile, it’s able to produce power while still accounting for the threat of a shot. And as Feijao demonstrated, the back strength that comes from extensive boxing training pays off in takedown defense, too.

Subsequent clashes between boxing and wrestling have been less auspicious. James Toney fought like a bag of wet leaves against Randy Couture, but that might be attributable more to his physique, attitude and reflexes than to the stylistic matchup. Marcus Davis, Chris Lytle and Melvin Guillard are all former pro boxers who have succeeded in UFC weight classes dominated by wrestlers.

As MMA gains popularity and pro boxing stagnates, we can only expect to see more boxing talent enter the sport. Whether it will have the impact of Brazilian jiu jitsu or muay thai remains to be seen, but fighters are always looking for that next evolutionary step. Particularly in the UFC’s wrestling-heavy ecosystem, boxing may be the best route up the food chain.

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Dan Brooks writes about politics, consumer culture and lying at Combat! blog.

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