Please post your thoughts after you do. I'm interested.
Also watch this vid on the new judging criteria beforehand, and try judging it using it:
VID - Big John McCarthy Explains New Rules and Judging Criteria for MMA | The MMA Community Forum
I just finished watching the Silva vs. Brunson fight. Had to rewind and slow things down just to make sure certain shots did indeed land. I didn’t take into account if shots were blocked, evaded and such.
Silva was the superior when landing counters consistently, but his counters didn’t happen too often or produce meaningful impact. Brunson didn’t consistently land going on the lead but the few times he did, he would land some solid power shots worthy of note. Most notable thing to take into account was that Brunson was definitely winning the clinch exchanges. What I saw was that he wasn’t consistent on the feet, but would actually catch up tremendously in the clinch. I wrote notes on all 3 rounds. Here’s what I observed from round one.
Round 1
Silva
· Silva lands about 2-3 counters (normal-level shots)
· Silva leads and manages to land punches to the head (in about 3 different sequences)
· He manages to have control of this rhythm form the most part
Brunson
· Brunson enters the clinch on about 3 different occasions and manages to catch up in that small window of time in terms of how many strikes he manages to lands. We’re talking about 5-7 seconds of shots landing within that small time frame.
· He lands a cross (solid shot), into a takedown attempt.
· Brunson lands about 3 leg kicks
Then silva gets into guard very briefly where judges consider it an equal position anyways. So no one gets any favor there.
Here’s where things get thrown off about the first round. While Silva seemingly had control over a longer span of time, he landed a smaller volume. Brunson manage to catch up on his strikes landed exponentially just in the clinch exchanges alone. But considering he spent around 18 seconds or so in the clinch, that’s only about 6% of the time in round 1. So now you have one guy who’s spacing out his shots over a longer span, versus a guy who lands a lot in a very short window of time. Brunson’s shots did seem to have more visible impact, and he had a bit more volume in smaller amount of time. Brunson had more leg kicks landing but then again, Judges may not hold that as a high precedence over shots that land to the head.
Here’s a few notable things that caught my eye through the fight (mainly things that land cleanly)
Rd 2
- Brunson landing with leg kicks
- 3:39 silva lands a solid punch counter to the leg kick
- 3:08 brunson lands power hand
- 2:53 brunson lands lead hook
- Clinch ensues: Brunson lands a few shots, silva lands a shoulder strike and a punch.
- Silva gets another shoulder strike in another clinch, hook attempt
- Brunson inside leg kick
- Silva leg kick
- Silva lands a stiff jab
Rd 3
- Brunson leads more often
- Brunson lands leg kick
- Brunson lands a weak rear hand (at 4:56 silva rolls with the punch)
- Silva lands stiff jab 2 times
- Pretty on par blocking kicks, punches and evading shots.
- Brunson lands about 3 or 4 weak to solid punches
- Around 2:16 brunson lands about 2-3 shots
- SIlva gets into full guard. Silva lands 2 elbow solid, 1 reverse elbow to the top of the head, Brunson lands 4-5 pitter patter punches
(edit: completely forgot to include takedowns).
It’s honestly a hard fight to score, and could have gone either way depending on how you want to interpret the scoring criteria in detail. I'm leaning towards Brunson on this one, but you can easily argue for Silva too. I'm not expert on the judging though. I'm just looking at the technique and strategy involved.