UFC: Evan Tanner vs. Kendall Grove
By Jim Murphy June 21st, 2008Evan Tanner vs. Kendall Grove closes the show. This is a de facto ‘loser leave town match’ so expect both guys to bring it. Dana White is transforming himself into Vince McMahon before our eyes. If he offered the loser a chance to keep his job by kissing his bare ass it wouldn’t be *that* much of a surprise. Dana could have at least booked a Texas Bullrope Match for the ‘loser leave town’. Kendall Grove is probably the guy they *want* to lose since his nickname happens to be ‘The Spider’ which is also Anderson Silva’s nickname. Grove comes to the ring first, Tanner follows. Tanner has grown a Mark Eaton-like beard, which makes him look less like a porn actor which he does when clean shaven. Good choice of entrance music–’All Along The Watchtower’ by Jimi Hendrix. Rogan throws out the quip that Tanner ‘is competing with Kimbo Slice for best beard in MMA’. Kimbo’s in a different league and they’re different kinds of beards–Kimbo’s is what is known as a ‘grown ass man’ beard, most famously worn by LeBron James. Tanner is doing more of a mountain man beard. Rogan may be subtly getting back at Dana White for making him suck up to him and put over the Spike TV show that’s running against Affliction: Banned–he’s mentioned JZ Cavlan (twice), Shinya Aoki, and now Kimbo Slice. That’s part of the reason he’s gained so much credibility with fans–he’s the only guy in the company who’ll give props to good fighters in other promotions.
ROUND ONE:
Grove is so much taller and rangier, but Tanner is just a pit bull (with apologies to Andrei Arlovski). Tanner trying for a takedown and he gets it right into side control. A couple of hard punches and Grove makes it to his feet. Tanner lost control of his opponent while trying to throw the punches. Big knee by Grove and a big elbow and Tanner is cut. Grove misses with a head kick and falls on his process but Tanner can’t follow up. Combination by Grove. Tanner is so much better fighting a Randy Couture style fight. Tanner tries for a single leg takedown and Grove counters with a knee to the noggin. Nice takedown by Tanner. Grove makes it back to his feet. Tanner eats a punch and now Grove is trying to take his back. Tanner’s bleeding like a stuck pig–maybe Dana gave him permission to ‘blade’ for the main event. Tanner finally throws him off. Tanner now trying to drop a Jerry Lawler fistdrop around Grove’s upkicks. Tanner eats one of them but has Grove up against the cage now. The announcers are sure favoring Grove–they may think that as a younger fighter he has more ‘upside’. Anyway, Dana’s master plan is thwarted for now as Evan Tanner takes round one 10-9 on the SavSci scorecard. Good competitive round, both fighters had their moments but Tanner’s two takedowns get it.
ROUND TWO:
Post round highlights made it look like Grove dominated round 1. You can make a case that he won the round, but in no way did he dominate it. Nice right hand by Grove followed by a knee. A nice uppercut followed by a straight right. Grove is 6′6″ which is giving Tanner trouble. Grove using the jab well to keep the spacing to his liking. Tanner bulls Grove against the cage–this is Tanner’s fight. The more he fights like Randy Couture the better chance he has to win. Another nice takedown by Tanner, who’s trying to pass guard up against the fence. Grove working for a kimura, but it was really a decoy so he coul stand up. Grove scrambles out, Tanner eats a couple of big elbows and follows up with a knee. Tanner is in trouble but gets a double underhook and survives for now. Tanner such a tough dude–he’s bleeding and just ate a few shots that would have KO’d anyone else in the game. Grove still on offense with another elbow, Tanner responds with a borderline low knee. 46 seconds left and if everything stays the same this will be a tough round to score. Grove should be trying to finish, but Goldberg putting him over for ‘being patient’. ‘Being patient’ is going to give Tanner a chance to recover between rounds. Grove scoring with punches and kicks as the round ends. Grove did more damage so that’ll get him the round on the SavSci scorecard. 10-9 Grove takes the second with the fight 19-19.
ROUND THREE:
Rogan puts over Grove as ‘looking spectacular’ to start round three. He then suggests that Tanner is ‘being overwhelmed’. Granted, he ate a bunch of punches and was in trouble in round 2 but he won the first on our scorecard and has three takedowns in the fight. That’s being ‘overwhelmed’? Tanner trying for another takedown and has Grove backed up against the fence which is the best place for him to fight. Leg kick by Tanner. Tanner resigned to walking through Grove’s punches to close the distance and got the better of the striking exchange that time. Tanner with double underhooks against the cage. 2 minutes left in the fight and from the tone of the announcers Tanner will need a stoppage to win. Knee by Tanner, and Rogan keeps humping the party line that Grove is ‘dominating’. Big right hook by Tanner. A minute left with Tanner fighting to win and Grove fighting not to lose. Straight right by Tanner. Nice combination by Tanner scores, Grove retaliates with a knee. Big left hook by Tanner and Grove stumbles, Goldberg pretends not to notice. Big knee by Grove as the fight ends. To hear the announcers tell it Grove dominated, but on the SavSci scorecard he loses. Tanner takes round 3 10-9 giving him a 29-28 edge in the fight. We’ll wait for the official decision and don’t be surprised if they saw it differently…
29-28 Tanner
30-26 Grove
30-26 Grove
How *two* judges saw this fight as a 30-26 affair is beyond me. Dave Meltzer had it 29-28 Grove.
KENDALL GROVE WINS BY SPLIT DECISION
They’re showing some of the taped prelims now….thanks for joining us for the Ultimate Fighter Finale round by round. We’ll be back next Friday night with the Strikeforce show from San Jose headlined by Gilbert Melendez vs. Josh Thompson.
July 11th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
i welcome any serious mma fans’ comments and opinions, but have to say that on this particular occassion your’s is simply ridiculous. i suspect you are an evan tanner fan, or just simply not a kendall grove fan. not to fond of grove myself, but no way he lost that fight.
2 of tanner’s 3 takedowns were a result of him grabbing hold of grove to regain his composure after getting rocked by him. grove also got up from 2 of those takedowns rather quickly with little to no damage done. score points to grove for that as well.
overall, grove connected with more hands, elbows, knees, and legs than tanner did, and had a couple of takedowns of his own.
out of curiosity, who did you have winning the bisping-hammill fight and the rampage-griffin fight?
July 11th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
First of all thanks for reading and taking the time to comment–actually, I’m painfully objective in most MMA fights including this one. There’s plenty of fighters we like and *want* to win, but we have a ‘full disclosure’ policy this situation–if a fight involves Clay Guida, Josh Barnett, Hidehiko Yoshida, Shinya Aoki, GSP, Shayna Baszler and few others our favoritism is obvious. I like Tanner–he’s a guy that’s been through a lot and is an interesting character–but also respect Grove as a first rate fighter.
Ironically, I’m in the process of writing a multi-part series on MMA judging and your comment underscores the nature of the beast. Your points are well taken, but when I do the live fight commentary I try to approach it from the standpoint of a fight judge at ringside. Were I to go back and review the fight it could very well be the case that I’d see what your talking about and change my opinion. But since MMA judges don’t have that luxury I always stand by the scoring I come up with at the time. Most of the time I like to think that I’m right, sometimes I may be wrong and would have voted differently in hindsight but I’m sure that’s no different than how a fight judge views their work.
As far as my own judging biases, I’m big on dictating the tempo and style of a fight. In an otherwise even round I’ll usually give the 10 points to the fighter who most closely fights “his” style of fight. I also have a tendency to favor takedowns and ground work over striking. Every judge has certain things they look for, certain things they favor, and factors that influence who’ll win the round when its otherwise even.
The Bisping/Hammil fight was a while back and so my memory is somewhat foggy but I think I either had Hammil winning a narrow victory or possibly even had it scored a draw. That was another example where Hammil would have earned the close rounds on “my” card due to his taking Bisping out of his preferred fight style. Obviously, with that fight taking place in the UK Hammil would have had to have dismembered Bisping to get the decision.
I scored the Rampage/Griffin fight 48-47 Griffin. Again, this was a fight where I didn’t have a personal “rooting interest” in the outcome–I like both fighters a lot. If you’ll click on the ’round by round’ catagory in the archive menu I think this fight will be at the top of the list. I gave Rampage rounds 1 and 3, Griffin, 2, 4 and 5. I didn’t give Griffin the 10-8 in the 2nd though it definitely could have been justified.
The first round in particular underscores the vagaries of MMA judging and probems with retrofitting the 10 point must system to the sport–in boxing, a knockdown almost always results in a 10-8 round regardless of what else transpires. My rationalization for that is that no matter who you are or how you fight, if you’re a boxer its a bad thing to get knocked to the canvas. That isn’t always the case in MMA, of course-I’ve seen instances where fighters will ‘play possum’ to get the fight to the ground.
Without the knockdown, round 1 was almost certainly a 10-9 Griffin round. Personally, I have a problem giving Rampage a dominant 10-8 round when Griffin controlled the action though a “strict boxing interpretation” could justify it. You could have also made a case that it should have been an even round (though I think that such a score is a ‘cop out’ for a judge). So depending on your personal judging methodology round 1 could have gone 10-9 Griffin, 10-10 even, or 10-9 or 10-8 Rampage–any of these disparate scores could be logically justified.
What’s interesting is just how little instruction for judges is given in the ‘official rules’. For example, here’s the relevant passage from the Nevada Rules:
1. Each judge of a boxing contest or exhibition that is being judged shall score the contest or exhibition and determine the winner through the use of the following system:
(a) The better boxer of a round receives 10 points and his opponent proportionately less.
(b) If the round is even, each boxer receives 10 points.
(c) No fraction of points may be given.
With so little direction for judges wide variances in interpretation are inevitable.