UFC 195: Lawler vs. Condit Discussion Thread

This one's flying somewhat under the radar relative to the mainstream crossover appeal of the last two UFC PPVs, but it's a hardcore fan's dream. 

Lawler-Condit, Arlovski-Miocic, Larkin-Tumenov ... Oh lawd. 

The prelims kick off on UFC Fight Pass at 630pm ET before switching over to FS1 at 8pm. As always, the main card kicks off at 10pm. 

Enjoy!

Condit clearly won round 3. He controlled the vast majority of the round.  Robbie  was back peddling for the majority of the round not throwing strikes aside from the occasional flurry. He back peddle a lot, I suggest people pay attention to how little Robbie actually throws strikes in that round, I don't see how you can win a round like that with out a knock down. He never hurt Condit and he throw so few strikes through out that round, the majority he spent back peddling. He also got hit by Condit  more than double the time he landed. Condit clearly won that round . The fight should have gone to condit. Not the worst decision I have seen, but the wrong fighter did win this one.  I find it also telling Robbie own corner thought he was down 2 to 1 rounds going into the 4th, while Condit corner was confident he was winning the fight. 

* Edited at 01.04.2016, 12:51 AM ET *

^^^ I agree with that. 

On a related note, I think the thing that kills Condit with some judges is his awkward movement. He's tall and lanky, and he's constantly shifting his weight. The one thing he did horrible against Robbie was lean back to avoid power shots rather than blocking or ducking to the sides. It made it look more impactful in the third round when he's leaning back with his chin in the air and sort of stumbling out of exchanges that he won. 

If they count 193 of 198 of Condits Strikes as significant then there is something wrong with stat counting. Most of Condit's strike were thrown at half power or less, Up until rd 4 a lot of what Condit was doing was simply stay busy score points.  Until UFC flashed the punch stats on screen during rd 3 I thought Lawler was winning the round as his strikes seem to be the most effective despite condit being busier. 

I dont see how you could possibly see the guy who constantly back peddling as winning the fight when he was barely throwing strikes.  Condit for the majority of the round was pushing the pace and landing shots. While Robbie was mostly avoiding striking out side the occasional power flurry he throw. I really don't see how you can view the guy who is trying to avoid most of the exchanges and who was barely throwing any strikes as winning the round while the other guy is constantly throwing strikes at them and out landing them by more then double.  That just does not seem logical to me. People are acting like Condit was throwing pitter patter. He was throwing solid shots, if he was not then Robbie would have had no reason to constantly back peddle trying to avoid them, through out the round.

* Edited at 01.04.2016, 3:28 PM ET *

By the way I completely agree with you Skelliher

i rewatched the fight 3 times, the final time on mute because rogan... each time i came away with a different perspective of the 3rd round. if you value control and output more, you sided with condit. if 10 punches at 50% doesnt carry the same weight as two power shots, then lawler won. when condit got hit, it just felt alot more impactful. i personally scored it for lawler. hope condit doesnt retire

Condit should have won 48-47, but R5 was abso-*******-lutely Robbie's round. He had Condit out on his feet for about a minute. Doesn't matter that Condit was winning the round for the first 3 minutes. He was in survival mode for the last minute or two. 

Y'all are crazy thinking Condit won R5. It was basically the same thing as Jones-Gus R4. Both Condit and Gus were handily winning the round, then got rocked badly and went into survival mode. Condit threw some back at Robbie in the final 30 seconds, but even stumbled around after he pushed Robbie off of him. 

Hate defending Robbie since I thought Condit won, but you're making it something that it's not and painting an inaccurate picture of the fight by claiming Carlos won the fifth. 

After rewatching the fight, I remain convinced that Lawler won round 3. In my opinion, he just landed the cleaner harder shots, especially within the first 2 minutes. There was a headkick that even though Condit blocked knocked his head around, the elbow/forearm to the face, a powerful right left combo that caught Condit with his chin up in the air, and a nice right hook or 2. While Condit was throwing the ticky tack range finding kicks. Rogan (although not always the greatest at analyzing fights while there happening) points out that Condit is throwing low power shots to save energy. 

Then at about 2 minutes into the round, Robbie goes defensive and doesn't throw a shot for 2 minutes and Condit doesn't land any for 2 minutes. I call that even on my card maybe a slight advantage to Condit for missing so many times. 

Then the last minute Condit lands probably his best shot of the round a body kick, Robbie lands a good leg kick and then they clinch and neither guy does much of anything. 

To me the most significant portion of the round was the first 2 minutes where Robbie connected with powerful clean shots and avoided most of Condits. Condit was 22 of 78 in that round meaning he missed or Robbie dodged 56 of his strikes. And to me the shots that landed weren't significant. Round 3 to Robbie.  

To follow up on my previous post, what I dislike about Condit and why I haven't been a fan of his since the Diaz fight can be summed up in the difference between round 3 and round 4.

FIGHTER	SIG. STR	SIG. STR. %	HEAD	BODY	LEG	DISTANCE	CLINCH	GROUND

ROUND 3
Robbie Lawler Carlos Condit	11 of 26 22 of 78	42% 28%	9 of 24 6 of 50	0 of 0 9 of 20	2 of 2 7 of 8	8 of 22 20 of 76	3 of 4 2 of 2	0 of 0 0 of 0
ROUND 4
Robbie Lawler Carlos Condit	6 of 18 47 of 98	33% 47%	6 of 18 27 of 73	0 of 0 14 of 17	0 of 0 6 of 8	6 of 18 39 of 86	0 of 0 8 of 12	0 of 0 0 of 0

Whether you think Condit won the third or not, he was a completely different fighter in the 3rd vs 4th. In the 3rd, he lands only 6 strikes to the head and while he lands a solid number of leg and body kicks, most were soft range finder, distance keepers. He misses 72% of his strikes, throwing quite a few that never had a chance to land. Overall, a very inefficient "Jacksonian" round IMHO. 

Enter round 4. When Robbie starts backing away, Condit remembers he's The Natural Born Killer who has beastly power, a vibranium chin, and cardio for days. Like a predator he stalks him down, presses the action, and doesn't let Robbie breathe. He takes Robbie's legs out with damn powerful leg kicks that were missing all round 3. Lands 27 head strikes compared to the 6 in round 3, most of which are powerful truly significant strikes.  He's much more accurate landing 53% of his strikes, again strikes that had the intent to damage. He rocks Robbie by backing him up, throwing with the intent to hurt him opponent and does. IMHO his only mistake in round 4 is not going harder for finish when he has Robbie hurt, if he'd keep him up against the cage and unloaded I think he could've gotten the TKO. 

Where was The Natural Born Killer in round 3? This is your shot to be champ and you're content with maybe taking the round based on octagon control but without landing anything significant. It's kind of sad. 

* Edited at 01.04.2016, 7:13 PM ET *

You seriously have some of the biggest goggles on I have ever seen. You are trying to blame Condit strategyfor the third round inactivity when in reality Robbie was not engaging for the majority of the third round and started engaging more in the 4th after his corner indicated he needed the last two rounds to win the fight. It not some coincidence that Condit started unloading on Robbie with better shots in the fourth. It because robbie engaged far more often instead of his few flurries like in the third round which found him constantly back peddling through out much of the round, with Condit  pressuring, throwing strikes and landing through out the round on a retreating Robbie.  In the 4th round Robbie engage more and once hurt became a stationary target which allow condit to land more effectively.

* Edited at 01.04.2016, 7:45 PM ET *

Stop your whining people, Condit won 3 rounds, Lawler won 2

Judges gave Lawler the fight, guess what? Judges suck.

Rematch.

* Edited at 01.04.2016, 7:52 PM ET *

I think Robbie landed some slightly harder shots in R3 in the first half, but not by much, and Condit's activity was the difference. 

Yes, he wasn't loading up on power shots in that round, but aggression and Octagon control is a real thing, a scoring factor, in an otherwise close round. Condit was pressing the action and constantly making Robbie uncomfortable the whole round. Robbie looked frozen, and his coaches knew it heading into R4, pleading with him to turn up the pressure. 

Granted, Condit is frustrating to me with the positions he gets hit in sometimes. He alternates between looking extremely poised and intelligent and then in some exchanges looks awkward and like he's doing a little too much ad-libbing. 

I think Condit ssometimes become a point fighter and on this ocassion it cost him the fight, Condit clearly landed more shots but a lot of them wer of little or no significance, mild kicks and clinch shots, while Lawler shots stopped Condit on his tracks several times, and I think ten judges were more impressed by Lawler's power than with Condit high output. same thing won him the interim belt, but now cost him the real one.

Nifty video of every strike landed with no rounds visible. 

To me, makes it even more clear that Condit won the vast majority of the fight. 

Anyone who thinks that Carlos Condit won round 5 should go drown themselves in a puddle.

Condit def lost round 5, however I think it just as crazy for anyone to suggest that Robbie won that round 10-8, because that just bat **** crazy talk.

I agree that Lawler won that last rd but it was not for 2 of him being out on his feet though. even when rocked he was firing shots back. which I seriously cant' believe.  i've always known him to have a granite chin but when that tired in the 5th to satay standing and keep firing back??? that's a whole new level of chin.

as a judge him taking those shots alone might have swayed me lol.

 

rematch