Good Show, Joe Lauzon.

Lauzon just beat Takanori Gomi at UFC Fight Night: Dillishaw vs. Barao 2.  Lauzon actually stopped the fight with Gomi by himself after knocking Gomi out.  Referee Herb Dean took another 20 seconds or so to agree with Lauzon.  It's good to see a fighter aware enough to know when to stop a fight without intervention.

What The Hell?

Does anyone have a clue what B.J. Penn thought he was doing in his fight tonight against Frankie Edgar?  Whatever he was trying to do by laying on the ground waiting for Edgar to attack didn't work, and you'd think any fighter with his experience would quickly change tactics.  Towards the end I found myself wondering if he was deliberately trying to throw the fight for some reason.  I suspect we'll soon have Dana White saying Penn won't be fighting in the UFC again.

Hey, Ed Herman!

That was quite the pompadour/Mohawk thing you had going on tonight.  I think Brian Setzer would approve.  Seemed to be getting into your eyes a bit at times though, so maybe something different next fight would be a good idea.

Brutal.

There's no better word to describe tonight's UFC fight in Australia between Mark Hunt and Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva.  I can't remember seeing a more bloody slugfest in the UFC cards I've watched.  I found myself worrying about both fighters at times in the later stages.  Can they really take that kind of punishment without ongoing health problems?  As for the decision itself I wasn't all that surprised.  I really couldn't decide who won the fight, so a majority draw makes sense. 

I suspect we'll see a rematch eventually.  But it might be a good while given the damage both men must have taken tonight.

Hard Money.

The current issue of The Atlantic has a profile on UFC fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, which you can read here. The article details Jackson's activities in the runup to his July 2008 fight with Forrest Griffin, and his subsequent July 15th arrest after an evening of vehicular mayhem. One of the issues mentioned in the article is that of money, with UFC frontman Dana White stating that something like half of the UFC's stable of fighters make 100 grand or more a year. Of course this also means that the other half don't make that kind of money. This made me curious, so I decided to look for UFC salary information online. Although there is some dispute how much certain fighters get paid the range of salaries is interesting, and rather disturbing on the low end. At the bottom you have fighters who are making 3 thousand dollars for fighting on a UFC undercard, while at the top end you have someone like Chuck Liddell who has made as much as 500 thousand dollars in base salary for his fights. Given the money involved in things like gym time and so on some of the lower end salaries probably barely cover expenses, if at all. But some say even someone like Liddell may be being short changed given how much revenue UFC pay per view events draw in. Still, such salaries do explain some of the luxuries Liddell was shown with in a profile I saw a while back, like several expensive vehicles.

As with some of the boxers I see on TV I really have to wonder why some of the older UFC fighters keep at it. They must realise by now they're never going to make it to the pay level of a Liddell or Canadian fighter Georges St. Pierre, who is making in the 100 grand plus range these days. Do they really want to fight for chicken feed when there's always the risk of a permanent injury? Because of the variety of styles and tactics involved there's probably a lower chance of the kind of debilitating brain injuries that can result from boxing, but having wrecked knees or a damaged shoulder isn't great either.

As for Jackson hopefully he's handled his money well. If he is convicted for what happened in July he could spend up to 3 years in jail, and I can't help but wonder if he might not have trouble getting back into the UFC with a criminal record.