Couture takes controversial decision, Swick licked by Hardy, Bisping bounces back (and gets called out by Patrick Cote) and two other fights that bored me

For the second time in as many UFCs the judges delivered a controversial decision in the main event. This time, five-time champ Randy Couture was the beneficiary of a unanimous decision over Brandon Vera in a light heavyweight bout at UFC 105 in Manchester, England, on Saturday.

While the decision wasn’t as outrageous as light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida’s UD win over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 104, it certainly raises a few eyebrows.

The officials all scored the fight 29-28 and admittedly Couture did a decent job of nullifying much of Vera’s Muay Thai striking with a smothering clinch-and-prey game plan. In fact, Couture took the first round without landing a shot. But from where I sat, the second and third frames belonged to Vera – he landed a sharp body kick that dropped Couture in the second and scored a takedown and gained the mount in the third.

Of the four elements on which a bout is judged, I’ll give Couture the advantage when it comes to octagon control; he did a good job of holding Vera against the cage but didn’t do anything with it. But Vera was clearly the more aggressive, he won the grappling (what little there was; i.e. the takedown and mount) and he obviously won the striking (he attempted more strikes, landed more strikes and did more damage). Even Couture seemed surprised at the decision in the post-fight interview and I had to double-check to make sure Cecil Peoples wasn’t scribbling on the scorecards.

Something clearly needs to be done to revamp the way MMA is judged (or perhaps who’s judging it).

As for the rest of the card, it was an unmemorable mixed bag. In the battle to determine who loses to welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre, Brit Dan Hardy looked like he’d won the lottery after earning a unanimous-decision win over heavily favoured Mike Swick. Then, when GSP entered the cage to congratulate him – very classy and gracious – it was like Hardy realized how much of his winnings he’d have to pay in taxes and alimony. The fight itself saw Hardy repeatedly rock the very skinny Swick with lead left hooks and follow up with flurries of punches that threw Swick completely off his game.

Michael Bisping bounced back from suffering the KO of the year against Dan Henderson to earn an impressive TKO victory over PRIDE vet Denis Kang. While there was a deja vu moment early in the first when the Brit middleweight ate a hard right and dropped to the canvas, Kang couldn’t capitalize. Bisping showed remarkable defensive skills off his back as the BJJ black belt worked from full guard to half guard to side control to mount and back again for three minutes without ever doing any damage. The second round was all Bisping as he battered Kang with punches, scored a takedown and smacked him into a ball until the referee stepped in.

As for who’s next for Bisping, Patrick Cote posted to his Facebook status immediately after the fight that he’d like to face someone named _I_PI_G once he returns from injury. Sounds like a good match-up to me.

In the first two fights on the main card, Ultimate Fighter 7 vet Matt Brown survived being rocked early to earn a third-round TKO over TUF 9 welterweight winner James Wilkes and TUF 9 lightweight champ Ross Pearson picked apart Forrest Griffin-lookalike Aaron Riley with crisp striking en route to a second-round TKO win.