Martin Kampmann tried to wrestle Carlos Condit, and was successful for a single round. Problem was, he admitted to gassing himself out in the process. He trudged along through the rest of the non-championship rounds in a bog. By the time the fight dragged into the bonus rounds—the rounds soft-wired into most main events whether it’s a title fight or not, unless it’s predetermined not to be—he was kaput.
Would Condit have won if the fight had ended after round three? Probably. Would Kampmann have wrestled with Condit instead of doing what he does best, which is box, dirty box and kick box? That’s between him and Ray Sefo and the rest of his coaches and the country of Denmark.
But the idea that the fight was five rounds instead of three, something that Kampmann was foreign to and Condit wasn’t, played at least a minor role in the outcome due to Kampmann’s mishandling of the income. In retrospect, this was a huge advantage for Condit. And it was an onus that Kampmann wasn’t up for. His fight camp preparations for that sort of sustainability didn’t help him.
The bout ended up winning the "fight of the night" honors, which is great for Indianapolis, a city that still has the stench of UFC 119 hovering over it from when Frank Mir and Mirko Cro Cop waltzed to the music of boos. This was one of the better non-title main events that have been budgeted for five rounds. Kampmann still made a good showing. But it was also a little bit of a reminder that five-round fights are a difficult thing to prepare for.
The basic rundown of UFC Fight Night 27’s main event was this: Condit by experience in conservation.
Global takeover
Last week the UFC’s Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Europe, Garry Cook, pointed out the various European countries that the promotion would be visiting in 2014. Among the highlighted lands were Turkey, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Poland.
At the UFC Fight Night 27 scrum, Dana White added to that projection. He said that the company had plans to visit the Philippines in 2014, as well. On the same night, he revealed that the UFC will visit Singapore as well, on Jan. 4. When asked about Russia, White said that he and Lorenzo Fertitta would be making a trip to the motherland soon to "talk to some guys." There are inroads being made to China, where the government is famously "hard to navigate."
Ditto Mexico. As for Brazil, it’s already been turned into a fight factory.
What does all this mean for people in North America? Good thing that Fox Sports 1 got a deal done with DirectTV. And send your well wishes to Burt Watson, the babysitter to the stars who hates flying, yet will be airborne for much of the next year.
Japanese breakthrough?
While he was fighting and winning championships in Sengoku and Shooto, Hatsu Hioki looked like trouble for western featherweights, should he ever come over to fight in the UFC. In the fall of 2011, that happened. Hioki debuted against George Roop at UFC 137 and literally won a split decision by the skin of his teeth.
His next bout against Bart Palaszewski was better. He dominated that fight. And it turns out, that was the high water mark of the "Iron Broom’s" career. His next three fights, including Wednesday night’s whooping at the hands of Darren Elkins, have been losses. Each of them was contested on American soil. His lone convincing victory over Palaszewski was in Saitama, Japan. In America, Hioki has gone 1-3—and that lone win comes with a wink and a nudge.
This has commonly been the case for highly-touted Japanese fighters coming over to America. Since July 2009, Shinya Aoki is 12-0 in Asia, and 1-2 in America. The hard-hitting Takanori Gomi fought seven times in the UFC, and went 3-4 in that stretch. He was 2-4 in America. Only middleweight Yushin Okami has demonstrated an ability to win in America consistently.
Maybe the tide will change with Takeya Mizugaki, who took out the hyped Erik Perez in Indianapolis. Mizugaki’s won three in a row (though his wins over Bryan Caraway and Jeff Hougland occurred in Japan and Macau respectively). It was a great performance, and showed off his toolbox. As Dana said, "it’s good to see the judges finally got one right." Mizugaki deserved the decision.
Yet even with Mizugaki, going back when he first came over to the WEC back in WEC 40 to fight Miguel Torres, the win in Indianapolis just barely got him above .500 on American soil. His record in the States is now a pedestrian 5-4.