7. Don’t Abandon the Hathaway Bandwagon Just Yet
Everyone loses, so John Hathaway’s loss to Mike Pyle is nothing to be overly alarmed about. The not-yet-24-year-old was dominated by a crafty veteran with a strong ground game; it’s not like an inexperienced novice took it to him.
While the defeat takes some of the shine off his star following his coming out party against Diego Sanchez, Hathaway is still a very bright talent with a promising future. A lot of critics and fans will be spraining their ankles jumping off the bandwagon, but there is no real need for unnecessary pain right now.
Another truism of the sport is that you learn your biggest lessons in defeat, and that should hold true for Hathaway as well. Getting beaten in his backyard by a heavy underdog is humbling, but also helpful, provided the young London Shootfighters product looks at what went wrong and works to improve.
8. Not TUF Enough?
In the wake of Efrain Escudero becoming the first non-veteran winner of The Ultimate Fighter to get the axe, James Wilks might be joining him very soon.
The British welterweight was beaten over the entire 15 minutes of his bout with Claude Patrick, dropping his record to 1-2 since the show ended. All three of the performances have been underwhelming, and with the larger-than-normal paycheck Wilks earns as a TUF winner, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him hit the unemployment line.
On a more macro level, the struggles of recent TUF winners only continues to illustrate that the show is far more focused on delivering drama than bringing the best talent into the organization.
9. Prospects Emerge on the Undercard
Paul Sass stamped himself as one to watch with a first-round triangle choke win over Mark Holst.
Alexander Gustafsson bounced back from his first professional loss by submitting Cyrille Diabate in the second round.
Team Nogueira’s Fabio Maldonado became another Brazilian to pay attention to in the 205-pound division with a third round knockout of James McSweeney.
This is what the undercard is supposed to be about: fights that showcase lesser-known talents and helps build fighter than can be marketed moving forward. Had Steve Cantwell not been bitten by the injury bug late in the week, Stanislav Nedkov could have potentially added his name to the list of new faces earning praise after UFC 120 as well.
All-in-all, this was a good night of fights on the preliminary portion of the card.
10. The Problem with Tape Delay
Dana White sent an angry text during the day Saturday, urging fans to put ESPN on blast for spoiling the results of the tape-delayed broadcast of UFC 120, and while many probably took up his advice, it was the wrong advice.
This is what happens with these kinds of events; results escape and the mystery of what you’re waiting to watch can be lost. Instead of complaining about the mainstream sports media including your results on their ticker, stop running events on tape delay.
Canada had the chance to watch the event live, as did everyone across the Atlantic; it was solely on American soil that the tape-delay situation was the only option and it didn’t need to happen in the first place. Stop running hours of Unleashed on Spike, accept that you’re not going to outdraw US College football in the ratings and show the event as it goes down, live and free of potential spoiler situations.
We live in the age of instant information exchange, so stop being surprised when the cat gets let out of the bag before you were hoping.
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10 Things We Learned From UFC 120