Definitely agree with this. All main events should be 5 rounds IMO.

I thought Rampage had him during that third round fury. No idea why he didn't press the action after they both got back up and Evans was clearly wobbling around.

Have they already done pressers?

replay made it look like most of the shots missed. Even the one that knocked Rashad down didn't seem to hit him flush but was just kind of awkward. He did land one good one when he was down tho

Rashad's wrestling dominance in this fight definitely surprised me. It basically won him the fight. The standing battle he won but not by much imo, but his ability to completely and utterly control Ramapge on the fence and his ability to get takedowns got him a title shot.

Rashad vs Shogun is going to be a verrrrrrrrrry interesting style matchup. Shogun is probably better on the feet but this Rashad looks like a great TD fighter and Shogun is very vulnerable to TDs.

Jesus I feel so bad for Duffee. He was winning nearly every second of that fight. I guess that's what can happen when 250 pound guys are throwing down. Get hit in the right spot by anyone and you're going to go down. Man, what an awful way to lose.

I really hate where MMA is headed. Ideally, fighters are to always be trying to score a KO/SUB and a decision is rendered when neither of the fighters can get one after 15 minutes. What's becoming more and more common is that fighters are game planning to win a decision. Now I'm not blaming the fighter/camp or saying it isn't the right move, but it's definitely hurting my interest in the sport.

Dana needs to think of a way to incentivize more finishes, and somehow do it at the highest level and not just the fringe guys looking to make money.

Meh as long as there are only 3 rounds and the ruleset favours wrestling as much as it does expect it to keep heading in that direction.

Yeah I agree. Nothing really to blame besides the rules. I absolutely hate the 3-round 10 point must system. I mean boxing is 12 rounds so there's less variance in it. It's just a hugely flawed system. As long as it's easy to find a good stream then I don't care, but I don't think I'd pay for a non-mega card anytime soon.

The scoring system isn't so much the problem.

5 minute rounds disfavour jiu jitsu specialists, as does lack of gi, as does the "it's boring standup and wang", as does no knees to a downed opponent/no kicks to the head - which allow failed ****ty takedowns with no punishment, no upkicks if the guy on top of you is in guard...

The whole ruleset almost seems designed to favour wrestling, discourage submissions and turn the sport into a "let's both get really good wrestling so neither of us use it and turn fights into below average kickboxing".

If you allowed knees/soccer kicks you'd see wrestlers winrate plummet because every failed takedown would result in them getting a knee or foot in the head.

Rashad fought such a smart gameplan. Would love to see a rematch when Quinton doesn't have so much ring rust.

Shogun/Rashad is gonna be an interesting fight.

I hope they never allow soccer kicks, it just doesn't look good for a sport to kick somebody in the head when they are on the ground. Knees to a downed opponent are good because most knees would be short knees used to punish a stuffed takedown. The biggest problem is the cage itself, the cage favors wrestlers. Like last night when Rashad had Rampage pressed against the cage for the whole 2nd round, in a ring against the ropes they doesn't happen. Rampage also may have been able to trap Rashad in a corner and force him to exchange with him.

Interesting thing about the fight is if you really pay attention to the replay, Rampage didn't hurt Rashad with a punch, Rashad banged his head on Rampage's knee when he dropped down to go for a takedown. When he bangs his head you immediately see Rashad bounce back and that's when Rampage lands those punches that make it look like that's what rocked him. Rashad is very lucky Rampage was so fatigued that his accuracy in his punches were ****ty and he missed with 3 close range punches, any one of those punches land and Rashad would've been KO'd.

As for Rashad/Shogun although I thought Rampage would win this fight and I thought a Rampage/Shogun fight would be exciting I always felt if Rashad did win he'd beat Shogun. Rashad has turned into the 205lb version of GSP, he dominates his opponent with superior speed and explosiveness. Shoguns weakness is his TD defense, Rashad's strength is his takedowns. I honestly expect a boring 5 round fight where Rashad gets a bunch of takedowns controls positions but never really hurts Shogun. I hate the fact that when Rashad scores takedowns he's more concerned with controlling position than he is in throwing punches. Take John Hathaway for example, last night when he got Diego Sanchez he didn't care about improving his position and controlling Sanchez but instead he threw as many punches/elbows he could and kept the fight entertaining.

Knees from north/south can be just as devastating as soccer kicks to a downed opponent, though.

I miss Pride.

They should change that.

My solution would be any fight between 2 former champs is 5 rounds and any fight that guarantees the winner a title shot is 5 rounds.

The 3 rounders should be for the up and coming new guys, once you get towards the top of the ranks it should be 5.

I definitely agree. All main event or co-main event fights should be 5 rounds whether they're title fights or not.

Aren't they working on making 5 round non-title fights a possibility? Definitely would help things a lot.

This may be true but appearances mean a lot, soccer kicks look a lot more brutal than a knee from north south. Take for example Fujita vs. Kerr during the early days of UFC. Fujita landed like 30 knees from north/south and Kerr didn't go out and it didn't look too bad. Now Imagine if instead he landed 30 soccer kicks.

That would mean that Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz would've been 5 rounds when most people didn't want to see 5 seconds of that fight. I do think main events should be 5 rounds, I mean Mayweather/Mosley wasn't a title fight but it was 12 rounds this fight was in that same category.

Pretty sure 90% of people who order UFC events want to see Chuck/Tito and would want it to go 5 rounds. Just like 90% of people want to see John Cena in the WWE PPV main events. Not saying I agree with that, but the majority of casual fans do.

No they don't nobody thinks Chuck or Tito are contenders. You should've heard when Dana announced they would be the two coaches on TUF like everybody in the crowd groaned. Why would anybody be anxious to see two mid level fighters fight for a 3rd time when in the first 2 fights Chuck finished Tito and was never in any danger. On top of that both fighters are coming off losses and long layoffs, there's just no appeal.

So Rashad completely dominates the fight, he gets hit with a fluke knee when he shoots in, he still manages to avoid the majority of Rampage's punches immediately after the fluke knee, he then gets up off the ground and wins the round(on 2 of the judges scorecards)....and Rashad is "very lucky"?

Rashad gets a ridiculous lack of respect imo. The guy has one loss in 17 fights, and he has wins over Rampage, Thiago Silva, Bisping, Liddell, Griffin, etc. Yet a lot of people continue to say that "hes not that impressive" or "Hes definitely going to lose to Shogun now". His one loss came to a guy who a few months ago had a legit claim to best fighter in the world....other than that one loss, wtf else was he supposed to do in his 17 fights to finally get some respect?

Are you even serious? I'm saying if any of those punches landed while Rashad was down he would've got KO'd, it's that simple. I didn't say he was lucky to win the fight, he dominated for the most part, I said he was lucky those undefended punches missed. It's not like Rashad made Rampage miss with some good head movement, he barely knew what was going on and Rampage just whiffed.

Anybody who thinks he's definitely going to lose to Shogun is ******ed, matchups make fights and Rashad matches up very well with Shogun.

You completely misinterpreted what he said.

And before this fight, Rashad didn't have a whole lot of great accomplishments. He's a fighter (as I said before the fight) who has improved tremendously, and keeps improving, but he has a ton of shaky fights. Forrest was beating him for 12 minutes standing until he caught Forrest's kick, tumbled him over, and got a GNP TKO. Tito would have beat him if not for a questionable point deduction. Bisping nearly drew his fight with him.

That said, he's tremendously improved, and seems to be still improving. Part of the reason he had doubters before this fight was because for the early part of his career, he looked so limited. TUF champ Rashad was utterly one dimensional, and the razor-close Bisping and Tito fights afterwards didn't exactly help to make him look dominating. He showed improved stand up in the wins over Liddell and Silva, but the Forrest and Machida fights showed there were several ways to beat him standing also.

But now, with this Rampage fight, he really looks like he's put both aspects of his game together. His stand up looked good (not great, but pretty good). His TDs looked good. His ring generalship was very good. And he was able to mix his TDs and his striking really well. He's definitely still improving, and that makes him very dangerous. I think Shogun will have stylistic problems dealing with his wrestling ability. It'll be an interesting fight.

was so nice to see rashad beat that actor last night at the end of the fight he should have said go back to hollywood

I understand Rashad is an awesome fighter etc etc but he just comes off like a major d-bag