What drew me to this sport was, above all else, the promise of something honest. It was what every other competition pretends it isn't, and that is violence. The purest form of every argument, every shouted word, every touchdown or tackle or scored goal I've heard or seen or done myself. Unlike these things, mixed martial arts did not consider the violent end a disgrace or an ugly loss of composure, but an exaltation.

Carlos Condit didn't want to hurt Nick Diaz. It would've been all right if he did hurt him, but only as a side effect. What he wanted to do was show three judges that he'd kicked Diaz a few more times than Diaz punched him. He flitted in and out of Diaz's reach for twenty-five minutes. He didn't care who hurt who, just that he won. And he won. There is no question about that – you can't give Diaz the win. But Condit wasn't fighting. He was playing a sport. He tried his best to keep Nick Diaz from getting into a fight, and he did it brilliantly.

This was supposed to be a celebration of what our sport could be. It turned out to be a statement on what it is.

Which is okay. I have, of course, found more to love about this sport than just violence. But it's worth noting that we've come to a place where violence is no longer a prerequisite of victory. Where one of the most "violent" men in our sport is elated with such a quiet triumph. I don't say this with malice or bitter blood, but disappointment. It was always going to be like this if we ever wanted the sport to evolve.

Two of my favorite fighters "retired" recently – BJ Penn and Nick Diaz. They were the only martial artists at the grandest stage who didn't know how to win a decision. The last elite fighters who weren't sportsmen. For now.

Today, the UFC Champion is not the best fighter. He's the best mixed martial artist.

There is a saying that the cynic sees the world more clearly, but the optimist deals with it better. If we're to handle these terms very roughly for mixed martial arts use, the cynic has the technical know-how. The optimist is the man with a heart. He is the one who fights back when he’s reeling half-blind. Because how stupid is it to get up when you’ve been hurt that badly? Stay down. You need to know things are going to be all right when you put your head up. It takes an optimist to stumble back to his feet with the storm all around him.

BJ Penn is the purest cynic this sport has ever seen. He is the sharpshooter, the accurate fighter who measures you up and knocks you down. He knows the facts; he can't handle it when they contradict him. When you push him, he seems to freeze. He'll stand dead on his feet and let the worst happen to him, like that's the only way he can deal with it. A thousand ways to cut you down, but if you can stand up to him... You’d have to go back quite a while to find an instance of Penn winning a single round after he’s lost one. You'd have more luck finding him on either end of a wipe-out. Making grown men cry or quitting on his stool - take your pick, he's done both.

Nick Diaz, though – what a stubborn fighter. I cannot call that man an optimist, not even in my very liberal reinterpretation of the word. It just wouldn't be right. But as much as Diaz doesn’t like to fight, there is no one with a better fighting heart and no one born to it like he is. Some people said that when the third round came along, Diaz would show Penn what a real fighter looked like.

When he started slapping punches at Penn along the cage, I knew it was over. I knew if Penn went down he wasn’t getting up, and I knew in the last round Diaz would be fiercer and Penn would be fading. I was wrong about at least one of those things.

Last night was the most heart Penn has ever shown. Swinging after being swung on. When was the last time you saw him push through a flurry like that? Maybe a decade ago, when he fought Pulver for the first time, a kid with three fights going in. When it was all new to him and he knew he could still conquer the world. The optimist.

Say what you want about his preparation. That he was lazy in his training. That he didn’t put in the work he should have. He got by on talent alone. He was never the fighter he could've been or should’ve been. It’s all part of his story now. You can hardly praise Penn without criticizing him.

When he refused to stand back before the third round, I thought it was bravado, like so much of his career. He has to keep up the act. Can’t let Diaz know how bad it’s gotten. I’m not so sure now. Who would blame him if he’d let his legs go limp and covered his head? Let himself wilt. It would've been easy. Same career, same loss, when all was said and done.

But that last round was everything. He gritted his teeth and squinted past Diaz’s knuckles, and he fired back. You’ve never seen him so bruised in his life. He had to know, for sure, if he was good enough. He caught Diaz hard and he went for takedowns. He tried to hobble forward. He swung hard at air. Anything. Nothing worked. It was his best fight in years. As pure and as good an ending as you could hope for – because you know he'd never go out on a win. It had to be beaten out of him. That was the finest beating of his career. And it was beautiful to see that at the end of his rope, BJ Penn could still... just scrap.

July 5, 2008. Guillard stops Dennis Siver in the first round. May 29, 2010. Guillard stops Waylon Lowe in the first round. January 22, 2011. Guillard stops Evan Dunham in the first round. July 2, 2011. Guillard stops Shane Roller in the first round.

Melvin Guillard was a mature fighter. A year and a half win streak proved it. Knocking out Dunham cemented it. Greg Jackson had changed him. He wasn't going to make stupid mistakes anymore. He wasn't hotheaded, he wasn't a reckless kid who'd lose to inferior fighters. Things were different now.

He'd always been talented, this was true. First round knockouts were his thing. Handing his opponent first-round submissions - that was his thing too. Burst in and fade out. But that was the past.

September 23, 2006. Guillard dominates Gabe Ruediger for the first few minutes. Ruediger nearly submits him. The clock runs out. September 16, 2009. Guillard dominates Nate Diaz for the first few minutes. Diaz does submit him.

Edgar and Maynard repeated a classic of a fight, except for the ending. Edgar changed that part of it. Guillard repeated himself too. He finished a streak of impressive wins with a bad submission loss to a supposedly inferior opponent. His ending was the same one it's always been.

April 5, 2007. Guillard rushes in and Joe Stevenson drops him. Guillotine choke. Twenty-seven seconds. October 8, 2011. Guillard rushes in and Joe Lauzon drops him. Rear naked choke. Forty-seven seconds.

There is something that makes great fighters great. Melvin doesn't have it. He's gotten better, as a fighter, in these last years with Jackson. He's refined his hands, he's added a hell of a knee, his throws and takedowns are better, his scrambles have improved... but he is still Melvin Guillard.

June 20, 2009. Guillard wins an uneventful, controversial decision over Gleison Tibau. February 6, 2010. Guillard wins an uneventful, controversial decision over Ronnys Torres. September 25, 2010. Guillard wins an uneventful, controversial decision over Jeremy Stephens.

Melvin is in many ways the opposite of Edgar. He starts quickly and drops off quicker. He's never had the heart to go deep into a fight. He doesn't know how to sustain his successes; when he tries to pace himself he turns into a bafflingly mediocre fighter. It's not his lack of skill. What he needs is intangible and unfixable.

Because you can't change him now. It's too late. Maybe in ten, twenty years he'll learn not to be so impatient. So reckless. Whatever it is that's held him back, maybe he'll overcome it, but his MMA career won't wait on him.

He's got five good years left if he's lucky. In those years he could become champion. It's not out of the question. Who'd be shocked if he managed to knock Edgar out? It's not a matter of skill. He has that. But if he makes it to the top, he'll teeter and fall. Because that's what Melvin does. Burst in and fade out.

In those days you spoke of Pride's holy trinity - and then, separately, at arm's length from divinity, you spoke of Josh Barnett. An afterthought only. Somehow the qualifier great escaped him. It was strange; he fit seamlessly into the equation, the wrestler adjacent the striker and the jiu-jitsu player. And of course Fedor on his separate plane, equal in all parts and greater than the sum.

But it was never Nogueira, Filipovic, and Barnett. You didn't say it all in a line like that - he was never quite their equal. Cro Cop had his Grand Prix trophy; Nogueira and Fedor had their belts. Barnett never even fought Fedor to secure his link to the trinity. He was never out of place in their company, and yet he wasn't often mentioned in the same breath.

And later on, when the others fell and Barnett kept winning, it was easy to gloss over his steady record. There was no room for an old-time catch wrestler under Lesnar's watch. His skills were limited, his style was antiquated. With seemingly inferior wrestling and a body like melted candlewax, Barnett belonged nowhere in mixed martial arts; not an erstwhile giant of history, never to become a modern champion.

To declare yourself a Barnett fan was unthinkable. He was goofy at best, repulsive at worst. Most days he only inspired disgust. Cheater, scoundrel, clown. Failure and laughingstock of the MMA world. All the while he tallied up his victories and tightened up his game.

The holy trinity is gone now. Barnett remains. A perfectly preserved artifact. Eight good wins since leaving Pride. Zero losses. Maybe more than perfectly preserved. His peers have fallen, they're not what they used to be. Barnett is better.

He is the last one. The last enduring heavyweight of Pride's jewelled ranks. Greatness eludes him still - but on he goes. He hasn't been put down yet. Maybe it's luck, maybe it's by design; who knows. Maybe he's been evading unfavorable fights. Maybe he hasn't fought a worthy opponent in years.

Whatever the case, he hasn't lost a step. His time has not passed, his skills have not dulled. When he fights Cormier he will fight him in full.

Who would've thought? Josh Barnett, last king of Pride.

I got chills as soon as I saw this. I have seen this picture a thousand times and it says a thousand things. You’ve seen it too. A young upstart is in front, excited, loud. The old lion stands in the back eyeing him. Quiet. Knowing. The word is sorely misused and overused, but this is classic.

Jon Jones: "God is so good. I feel so great. I’m going for a world title, baby. Let’s do it!"

Mauricio Rua comes in, nonchalant: "I respect Jon Jones, but I’m a professional fighter. No problem."

Jones fights a young man’s fight. He fights like someone who doesn’t think he can lose. Every challenge for him is a wild ride and he throws himself into it with abandon. Does that remind you of anyone?

Take yourself out of a fan’s shoes for a moment. Imagine you’re Rua. You can see past the flash. You see another fighter like all fighters you’ve faced: a conquerable challenge. You look at him like you know of worlds he’s only seen in his dreams. This kid. He doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into.

He’s never left his soul in the ring with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. How many countries has he fought in? He's only seen the inside of Chute Boxe in his fantasies. He hasn’t had his arm broken in a fight. He was never PRIDE’s uncrowned champion, fallen. He hasn’t been low and lower and risen again.

He’s business as usual. That’s all.

Jones is high off his win, high off the chance to prove himself. He’s screaming, amping himself up. Rua knows what it’s like. He was the original 23-year-old wonder. Once upon a time he did everything Jones did, and more. That was five years ago. Five years is forever in this sport. He looks at Jones like Son, you don’t know where I’ve been.

This is one of the best MMA photos I’ve ever seen. It taps into a story, a showdown we’re all familiar with, and which will never become trite as long as combat sports exist. Two sides of the same coin. His present, his future. This is the best story you're going to get in MMA, better than any revenge tale. And it's all real.

I've figured it out. I know why everyone hates Rashad Evans. Same reason they hate Fedor: priorities.

Fedor's lean toward his family and his religion. He's said in many interviews that he's blessed to be able to support his family and fight as a professional. He does not ever, ever call himself the best fighter in the world, and he's not really trying to prove he is. He's cool with the way things have gone down. M-1 is picking bad opponents for him? Who cares, he gets to feed his daughter. He hasn't beaten a top fighter in years? Oh well, he just opened up his own gym. Yay! His training partners aren't that great? But he gets to talk to his priest every day.

Of course that's not cool with his fans. It's only cool if his priorities align with theirs. Which is to say - he should sacrifice everything to win over the public. If he doesn't fight Lesnar, FUCK HIM. If he doesn't bend over for Dana, FUCK HIM. If he doesn't give us all our dream fights, FUCK HIM. If he feels comfortable being managed by M-1, FUCK HIM. But what if he's happy doing - NO, FUCK HIM. HE DANCES FOR US OR HE DIES.

So, Rashad. He comes with more, uh, baggage than Fedor. So I'm going to knock down all the reasons people say they hate him.

He's cocky. No, Rampage is cocky. Thiago Silva is cocky. There are a hundred fighters worse than Rashad and cockier than him, and a hundred cocky pricks people love more than him. I'm confused when people tell me Rashad is secretly cocky. It's fairly easy to tell when a cocky fighter is behaving for the camera (see: Frank Mir, BJ Penn) but I've never gotten that vibe from Rashad, not even once. Every interview makes me think Rashad's a cool dude.

Oh, but the crotch grab! He grabbed his crotch! During a fight! Okay, picture Forrest Griffin doing that. Picture Rampage doing that. Picture Thiago Silva doing it. You'd eat that shit up. And anyway, things happen during fights. Even Randy spanked Tito when they fought (and before that fight Randy did some of the worst shit talking I've ever heard, which brings me to...).

He's bad at talking trash/not funny/corny. All right, he's not wonderful at shit talking (Quittin' Jackson), but he's not Sean McCorkle or Shane Carwin. His back-and-forth with Rampage wasn't bad at all (it was the whole reason anyone bought the fight!), despite a few eye-rolling lines. Besides, he's one of the more charismatic guys in MMA. I can count on one hand the number of top fighters who are more personable than him.

He's boring. Really? First of all, he has 7 decisions and 4 (T)KO's, two of which are two jaw dropping KO's, one of which made him champion in a third-round comeback victory. Most of his decisions aren't as bad as people claim (seriously, go run those tapes back). But more importantly, he's no worse than Fitch or Maynard, and you don't see much outright hate for them. A bunch of lame jokes about their style, but not much hate.

Fighting is a job for him. I know a lot of guys say that, but it really applies to him. Right now, for example, he's waiting it out so he can maximize the risk/gain when he fights. He's not Chris Leben; he'll make smart moves over fan-friendly ones. He's not trying to be a glorious champion and sacrifice his health for a fickle public. He doesn't fight because he "likes to give the emotion for the fans." He fights because he's good at it and he can make a living from it. Does he like it? The learning, the competition, the KO's? No doubt. But I get the feeling he'd give it all away if he found a safer, more lucrative job.

That, I think, is the crux of it. An intuitive feeling that Rashad is phoning it in, like most people do at their jobs. Obviously not to the same extent - you can't really slack off in training or in a fight - but fans probably sense that he's not giving it his all, or at least not in the same way that a guy like Chuck Liddell might. I don't think he's into it in the same way. There is a slant to his actions, and an incongruity with his talk. Because he talks a lot. He gives his opinion a lot. It's part of his job (he's some sort of analyst on ESPN on the Internet or something... I think), but he's not exactly Mr. Leave-it-all-in-the-cage, so fans get irritated.

For the same reason your boss doesn't really trust you to do your job, you don't trust Rashad to be a fighter. Everything else is justification after the fact. Your boss already thinks you're a lazy, lying sack of shit; he's just looking for ways to get on your ass.

You know what, though? It's cool. Both ways, it's cool. Not everyone can be Wanderlei Silva, but if Rashad isn't that into it, he can't expect fans to be that into him. Personally I think he's great and I like the way he fights (I loved the Rampage fight, and I even liked the Silva fight) but I know I'm in the minority. I mean, I get it. I like Wanderlei more than Rashad too.

I'm just asking one thing here - can everyone please stop pretending Rashad is a cocky, boring, uninteresting fighter? There are valid reasons to hate him, I guess, though hate is kind of a strong emotion for it. But don't pretend he's not a great fighter and a pretty cool guy. At least not with Rampage's dick in your mouth.

I just want to be the greatest ever. Is that so much to ask? – BJ Penn

January 11, 2002. UFC 35.

Eight months and three fights into his professional career and BJ Penn is already It. In coming years he’ll have to live with idolatry, expectation. Eyes looking higher than his arms can reach. Welterweight champion, lightweight champion, belts in five divisions. Georges St. Pierre, his white whale. An island, eight islands telling him he is their champion. Champion is the only epithet fit for Penn. Not good, not great, not elite. ‘Best’ is his only option. He does not yet know the full brunt of it, what it means to be the best. To swallow his lows, days and days, years without cease, the tedium of it, to face it (can he?) with tireless eyes and reignite the waning embers, shut up and do it. All this to come.

But on this night he is twenty-three years old and loves it. He fights in a lowlife's spectacle, fights for a beggar's purse. An audience ill-informed of the sport, or what skeletons of a sport that yet exist. The manic Prodigy who earned his black belt in three years, already the world’s best in that. This mixed martial arts thing? Just another mountain to climb.

And he loves it. You can see it in his smirk as he lies on his back looking to tear Pulver’s arm off. You can see it in the way he jogs to his spot when the referee tells them to stand. He jumps for a standing guillotine. He swings a punch so wild he puts himself off balance. Impulsive, self-assured. No one can stand up to him. Kid out of Hawaii, Mundials winner at twenty-one. First-round knockouts of Caol Uno and Din Thomas. Everything comes to him in time. The world hangs on a whim.

Pulver doesn’t care. He’s been knocked around all his life. This is one more man who wants to break him, one more man who won’t. He stands up to Penn and matches him, first fighter to make it more than five minutes with the Hilo Kid. Penn is unconcerned. Strategy? What strategy? For him, for now, the endgame is clear: hurt Pulver. Nothing else matters. They come out for the second and for Penn, every move is eager, anticipatory. He's reckless and dangerous with it. He gets an armbar at the end of the second and sneers as the bell saves Pulver.

Pulver controls him for two rounds, stifling Penn’s jiu-jitsu. Penn comes forward on his feet when he can, is relentless with takedown attempts and is forced to pull guard on all of them. He doesn't think about giving up. Shot after shot. Pulver on top, pounding Penn's face, and Penn answering with heel strikes to Pulver's leg. This is Penn at his most instinctive. There is no overthinking, no caution, no attempt to sway the judges. This is Pulver at his most fearless. Perched in the guard of MMA’s best jiu-jitsu practitioner and beating away every misconception, every faithless jeer, every inkling that he might not bring hell on earth to BJ Penn.

Going into the fifth round, there is no great concern in Penn's expression. This is the only time he's been out of the first round, and now he's in the fifth. Maybe he’s lost three rounds, maybe he’s even at two and two. He looks ahead, the last traces of cockiness wiped clean, replaced by a steady and intense look. Sweat beading bright like wet plaster on his face. There's no quit in the kid. In either of them.

Pulver sits in his corner and lets out sharp breaths, jerking his head as if trying to rid himself of some malignant feeling. He faces away from the octagon space, looking through the cage, to the side, to his trainers, like he’s shoving aside the intensity of the fight, grounding himself.

No takedown attempts in the closing period. It would yield nothing and Penn knows it. He believes he can, will win, but he does not have so much hubris that he’d stick to a bad plan, he is not so wary of the judges’ eyes that he wouldn’t take a risk in this last stand. And he does stand. He wades within distance of Pulver's hands and they trade. Pulver finds his range finally and in the last minute he hits Penn hard, stunning him several times. In the final seconds they are moving almost as well as they did in the first minute of the first round. Neither lets the long haul of the fight tire or discourage them. It ends with Penn running – literally running – Pulver down and throwing a front kick (it’s the only strike long enough to reach Pulver) and then a last punch each.

After the the decision is announced – 48-45 and 48-47 for Pulver and a 47-47 draw – the champion looks to the camera and says, "Sometimes hype just ain’t enough."

"It didn’t go my way tonight. It's not gonna slow my confidence in myself," Penn says after the fight.

Pulver, meanwhile, has nothing but praise for his opponent: "He stays in there 'cause he's got heart, a lot of heart."

August 14, 2010. War on the Mainland.

Pulver’s sixth straight loss, fourth straight submission. The scrappy kid who held his own against BJ Penn on the ground, eight and a half years ago. A champion who’d fought the best lightweights of his time and given them all hell. Submitted in the first minute of the first round by a nobody. He’s still hungry, still no quit in him. He will not give up on this.

My favorite author wrote: "All courage is a form of constancy." No quote fits Jens Pulver better. But he’s too old, too worn to be like this. Whatever demons once drove him can’t sustain him. The refusal to be deterred, the quality that was admirable in a 27-year-old of great potential – now its aftermath turns a grimace on your face.

August 28, 2010. UFC 118.

He looks unsure of himself. He's been touched too many times. He comes out strong for the first round, but every blow Edgar lands seems to deflate him. He’s reinvigorated for the second round, but that doesn’t last 30 seconds.

He is wary of all the things Edgar can do and is afraid to commit to anything. Two takedown attempts in five rounds. He spends the fifth round on his back, as if he is resigned to failure.  A third, failed shot with seconds left to go, and he falls to his knees in disappointment.

Where is the skinny Hawaiian kid who practically trembled with nervous energy, who ran down the ramp to knock Caol Uno's brains loose and ran back out, who pulled standing guillotines and jumped around the cage, who didn't stop until the last bell rang. He was the kid who choked out Hughes and ran around the world fighting in four weight classes. He was to be the greatest ever. You will not see him this Saturday.

Shogun lost, Cro Cop lost, Wanderlei lost. Fedor never came. Rampage was Dana’s man. The PRIDE boys were falling apart. Accusations everywhere: a gangster-run promotion, champions with puffed-up records, steroid users.

What was it they said about him? He doesn’t lose fights, he just runs out of time. You could expect a rollercoaster consistency from Nogueira. He didn’t look so good in the UFC, not at first. He was supposed to trash Herring, a man he’d beaten twice, and instead Herring nearly knocked him out. Then it was time to fight for UFC gold, and his backers weren’t so sure of him. Randy Couture even picked Sylvia to stop the former PRIDE champion.

Main event of UFC 81. Earlier in the night, Frank Mir chased out the pro wrestling pretender Brock Lesnar. If Nogueira could take home Sylvia’s arm, all would be right in the mixed martial arts world.

Gimme Shelter. Could you ask for a more appropriate song? Mick Jagger could’ve written it for him. Japanese hero out of Brazil, Nogueira walked out to fight the UFC’s most hated and arguably most dominant heavyweight. A man who jabbed his way to safe shores met a man who threw himself into the fire.

In the first round Nogueira came out and got hit. Came forward and got hit. Again. Again. Sylvia knocked him down, but you weren’t worried yet. He’d get up. Isn’t that what Nogueira does? He got up and so it went. He swung his fists at Sylvia, he dove for singles, and he was not winning. But at the end of the round he dragged Sylvia down and slid to side control. The bell rang and a threat hung heavy in the air: I will get you down again. We are not done here.

Already there’d been whispers: slow, old, over the hill. Slight tremors in his image, but they were there. He’s gained weight. His reflexes aren’t there anymore. How could Herring do that to him? This was not the man who’d walked through fire to bring Cro Cop’s arm back to Brazil. Not the man who’d stared unflinching while Fedor swung fists like anvils.

The second round came and Nogueira went in again. Shot after shot, stuffed. Outboxed and outmuscled. A drawn out takedown attempt that had Sylvia staggering one-legged across the cage and Nogueira straining and slipping inefficately to his knees and nothing. He had nothing for Sylvia. Nogueira fans groaned and Nogueira – well. He had the same look in his eyes: looking, looking, looking for that one moment. As if expecting an old friend. Every moment preceding it was a test. A distraction. The one was everything.

Sylvia threw and snapped his head back, again, again. The second round ended and they walked to their corners and he was still not winning.

His name is Minotauro and he has a twin you’d never mistake him for. A scar with a story and a fistful of heart because of it. When you’re asked who’s the better Nogueira, you don’t say “the little one.” You say Big Nog.

They came out and Sylvia hit him hard and stopped a shot, easy. The clock seemed to tick faster in the third round. Closer to the end now. Maybe he wouldn’t lose, but he was going to run out of time. He closes in like lightning and yanks Sylvia into his half guard. He grabs wrist control and traps Sylvia’s leg and he sweeps. This is it. Nogueira is in side control. This is the moment. He baits Sylvia and Sylvia tries to scramble and stand and Nogueira wraps his arms around Sylvia’s neck and the guillotine and he rolls and Sylvia’s already tapping. It’s done.

Nogueira stood and raised his arms, his face swollen and smiling. He’d fought his fight. An easy win wouldn’t have been half as satisfying. It was not easy and every minute belonged to him. He was PRIDE’s horseman riding into an American cage, that era’s stalwart, its torchbearer.

In the months and years to come, Nogueira would fall and fall badly. Sylvia would be shoved out of the picture. Lesnar and Mir, the earlier freakshow, would be champion and champion. Things would change and PRIDE would fade, DREAM would fall to the wayside. Puppeteers of the Japanese scene would be exposed for the liars and hustlers they were, and all champions would be called into question. Some would declare PRIDE’s heroes a fraud, their dominance illusory. Their reigns the result of a trick. Maybe they were right, maybe not.

But on that night, on UFC 81, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira hoisted PRIDE’s banner high and claimed his prize in gold. On that night he was more than Nogueira, more than a champion. He was Minotauro. He was PRIDE.

"How many more dimensions did he say? Was it like three more dimensions? 'Cause that's a lot of dimensions." - Rich Franklin

Striking, wrestling, submissions.

For Royce Gracie, one was enough. Jiu-jitsu and nothing else. Coleman, Severn, Nogueira, Wanderlei. They were good at one thing and that was enough. Early days, the bare sketchings of a sport.

But there was Cro Cop, too . Liddell, Hughes. Cro Cop could hit you with a kick and stuff your takedown. Make you play his game. Hughes could take you down and beat on you - and if that didn't work, he might submit you. Not quite two disciplines, but improvements. Call it MMA 1.5.

And Fedor. Fedor. Emperor of PRIDE, king of his decade. They said he was a brown belt in all disciplines. Not great at anything, but good at everything. You could put him in bad positions, but he always had an answer for you. He always had another trick up his sleeve. He wasn't a great striker, wasn't a great wrestler, wasn't a great grappler. Master of nothing. How could you quantify that? Well, he was a mixed martial artist. Not a great mixed martial artist, but the first true one. It was enough. Oh it was more than enough.

Then came the washing out of old blood: Silva over Franklin, St. Pierre over Hughes, Penn over Sherk. Silva, whose dizzying array of finishes could exploit any weakness. St. Pierre, who could wrestle, punch, kick, and submit, as necessary. Penn, whose arms could box as well as they could choke. Now these guys, you could quantify their "dimensions." Master of striking, expert at jiu-jitsu. Master of wrestling, expert at striking. Master of jiu-jitsu, expert at boxing. Sure there were intangibles, but you could fit these guys into a box: MMA 2.0.

For these fighters, two was enough. If you could be excellent in one discipline and great at another, no one could lay a finger on you. BJ can strike with you, but if he's not getting off the way he wants, he'll submit you. GSP can take you down and stifle all your offense, but he worries you on your feet too.

It was a dramatic changing of the guard. Now a time of deified champions. Champions who'd fight so well we no longer wanted to see them at their proper weight. GSP vs. BJ, GSP vs. Silva, Silva vs. Shogun, even Silva vs. Fedor. It seemed these men were in a class all their own, and the only rousing fights were to be between them, not the lesser men they'd humiliated.

Meanwhile, Fedor continued his paradoxical dominance. Arlovski outstruck him, but Fedor knocked him out decisively. Rogers hurt him on the ground, but Fedor knocked him out too. One of the hallmarks of Fedor's career was his ability to get in and out of trouble. From Randleman's suplex to Fujita's fist, Fedor thrilled people with a kind of queer consistency. Over time it became a part of his story: it doesn't matter if he makes mistakes, Fedor will always get you in the end. He was a real mixed martial artist, but he just wasn't great at anything. He fought Werdum, who was great at jiu-jitsu, and he lost. The implications of this have been digested, vomited, swallowed again, and shit out a thousand times over. My take on it is that Fedor was a curious breed of fighter, at once ahead of his time and slightly behind it. A jack of all trades amongst a sea of specialists.

Then came the summer of 2010. For MMA fans, it was educational, to say the least. We'd thought two styles was enough to be king. We thought wrong. Sonnen, a great wrestler, thrashed Silva, a great striker and jiu-jitsu player. It wasn't supposed to happen. He's so limited, they said. He's only good at one thing. Turns out it was the important one. But despite 23 minutes of hell, Silva pulled a last trick on Sonnen. He'll get his second chance soon. We'll see if one is still enough for now.

Penn and Edgar. The only people who thought Edgar would win the first fight were Frankie and his parents. He took Penn to the limit, arguably defeated him. In the rematch, Frankie's in-laws might've jumped on his bandwagon, but really no one else favored him. Yesterday, Edgar blew Penn out of the water. He outstruck him, outwrestled him, nullified his jiu-jitsu, and gave him flashbacks of GSP on the ground.

So we've learned a couple things here. Wrestling is far, far more important than striking and jiu-jitsu. A good wrestler can smother your jiu-jitsu, take you off your feet so you can't strike. Excellent wrestling is worth far more than excellent striking or excellent jiu-jitsu. If you can't keep it on your feet, how can you strike? If you can't get it down, how will you grapple? If you are a great wrestler, you can overcome a more well-rounded opponent.

We've learned there will not be another ten-year reign of terror, at least for a long time. Mixed martial arts is expanding too fast. There are too many styles, too diverse to defend them all. Your boxing, your jiu-jitsu, and your takedown defense might roll over Florian and Sanchez, but then you run into Edgar. Edgar, who is not more well-rounded than you. Edgar, who has struggled against fighters you would've drawn and quartered. But being a master of two styles leaves you open to the third. And wrestling is the worst style to be lacking in. If Edgar was only a superior striker, Penn would have submitted him. If Edgar had only been a better wrestler, Penn would have outboxed him. But Edgar was a better striker and wrestler, and wrestling covers your ass better than any other style. Edgar's two trumped Penn's two.

Georges St. Pierre is the only champion to emerge unscathed from the last round of top pound-for-pound fights. Machida fell, Silva was battered, Penn was outclassed. St. Pierre is the only great wrestler out of them - and he's already been defeated by a far worse fighter.

No more demigods for champions.

We've learned that the next dominant champion will be either: an excellent wrestler, or a great three-dimensional fighter. We have never, ever seen the latter. We have never seen a talented kid who's been training striking, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu equally, and is great at all of them. Fedor revamped. But even he will not be invincible. He could be submitted by Jacare, outwrestled by Sonnen, knocked out by Shogun, outworked by Edgar. There are too many ways to lose. There always will be, in this sport. You just can't cover all your bases, not with one style, not with two, not even three.

Mixed martial arts is not a true sport. Not yet. It is an amalgam of mashed-up styles, of athletes from disparate backgrounds trying to cram their chosen sport into this one. Certain things work, certain things don't. Certain things you have to force yourself to stop, after a lifetime of drilling. Things you've relied on for years now cut away from you. Fighters grow up learning to wrestle so they can compete in wrestling tournaments, jiu-jitsu to compete in jiu-jitsu tournaments. Not to be locked in a cage where your opponent can beat you unconscious.

But what if they only trained wrestling techniques that worked in mixed martial arts? What if they never learned a traditional boxing stance, but only the squared-up stance? What if they'd known since a child not to overcommit to punches and kicks?

Then I wouldn't be talking about two dimensions or three dimensions. I'd be talking about depth. I'd be talking about the fluidity of style, of the harmony in martial arts. Takedowns, but not wrestling. Rear naked chokes, but not jiu-jitsu. Left hooks, but not boxing. These individual sports will no longer exist, like rivers flowing into an ocean. It will just be... martial arts.

What you're seeing here is Anderson Silva putting himself in an awkward position so he can maneuver his head away from the cage. Earlier in the fight, Sonnen had Silva's head jammed up against the cage and was pelting his skull with the most effective ground strikes of the entire fight. That was round one. It never happened again.

In every round after, Silva deftly rotated his body every time his head was near the cage. Sonnen was dominant, but for the remainder of the fight he couldn't hurt Silva like he did in the first round. Near the end of the second round, Sonnen nearly gets Silva up against the cage, but Silva briefly gives up his back. He then goes for a totally out of position kimura, and a half-assed leg lock, and voila: his noggin is safely away from the cage again.

In the fifth round, shortly after he slips, Silva appears to actually slide his own leg into half-guard in an effort to get away from the cage. Seconds later, Sonnen goes for an arm triangle choke; I'd claim Silva let that happen on purpose to get away from the cage, but that's a little too wild even for me. Instead, I'll chalk it up to a gamble/mistake on Silva's part. Sonnen's best chance to stop the fight was to press Silva's head to the cage and rain down punches; Silva knew this, and was willing to take a chance to prevent it.

Now, let's look at Silva's striking. Silva's known for spending the first minute or so dancing around, gauging his opponents' timing before he strikes. In the first round, he comes out uncharacteristically aggressive - probably he wants to prove something after all of Sonnen's trash talking. This leads to:

Well that's no good. After some Anderson reversal action and a few punches on the chin just to prove how crazy he is, Sonnen gets the easiest takedown of the fight. Second round, Silva is still showing unwonted aggression. He is angry, he has to pay Sonnen back for the punch that hurt him. Understandable - but not very smart. Perhaps he'd thought by now he had Sonnen's timing down, and it was safe to go a little crazy. But Sonnen catches a poorly timed kick and gets Silva on his back, again. Silva takes note.

Third round. Seeing that Sonnen doesn't go for a takedown at the very beginning, Silva throws a haymaker and backs off. Now he dances away from Sonnen, trying to judge distance and time Sonnen's takedown like he did Maia's. Very different from the first two rounds. He realizes by now he cannot give up the takedown. No more lazy leg kicks. He throws a spinning back kick, though, to get Sonnen away from him. But Sonnen distracts him with a punch and moves in for the takedown. Okay - this isn't working either, Silva thinks. This guy is not Demian Maia.

Fourth round. No more fucking around. Sonnen hasn't shot in on Silva during their exchanges; why not go all out and see what happens? Silva pays him back for the first-round punch with a wicked elbow - and Sonnen can't take him down. Now Silva knows it's time to unload, before Sonnen can pull himself together for a good shot. Silva's right on the money - as he lets go wild kicks and haymakers, Sonnen shoots again, and Silva stuffs it again. He's on top, landing elbows to the body. But alas, Sonnen's wrestling is worlds apart from Silva's, and he dumps Silva on his back yet again.

Fifth round, Silva seems to have finally gotten his opponent's timing down. He stuffs a takedown, slips a punch... and falls on his ass. That's it for the striking.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Silva had been trying like hell to stifle or submit Sonnen. People act like that triangle choke came out of nowhere. Well, yes, it was unexpected, but he'd been working up to it the whole fight, trying different things from his back, until finally something worked.

First round, Silva just gets beaten. I don't know if Sonnen's offensive style just confused him, or if he had never trained for a wrestler of his caliber, or what it was - but Silva had nothing for him that round.

Second round, he tries his usual strategy from the bottom: shut down the other man's offense, don't risk a submission attempt, and wait for the referee to stand you up. First he locks his hands around Sonnen's back to stop the ground and pound - but Sonnen lands little shots to keep the fight active, even boxing Silva's ears. Silva realizes he can't force a stand-up this way, and lets go. For the rest of the round, he tries a variety of things. He is constantly moving his hips, trying to get wrist control, landing elbows from the bottom, even dodging punches from the bottom. He tries to set Sonnen up for submissions, but none of the attempts are remotely successful. Still, Silva does considerably better this round than in the first.

Third round. Silva goes to his old standby: the body triangle. This is how Silva stifled Dan Henderson's offense - but he quickly realizes Sonnen isn't the same kind of fighter. Sonnen is fine with landing pitter-patter punches to keep the action going. Silva recognizes this and lets go so he can at least go for submissions off his back.

Fourth round. More of the same from Anderson - that is, more of his multifaceted groundwork. Not highly effective or threatening, but constantly moving, constantly looking. Finally he lands a good elbow and Sonnen starts bleeding. The whole time Silva is working, working, never complacent. Elbows, hip movement, wrist control. Sonnen has not been nearly as successful in these later rounds as in the first. Silva is constantly testing Sonnen and figuring out his game on the fly.

Fifth round. You can see him moving his hips and legs, poising his limbs. He is hunting. No more stalling. Four and a half rounds, taking less and less damage, getting more and more active. Finally, after 23 minutes of searching, the moment comes, and he snatches it.

23 minutes, nearly all of it on the losing end, and he never stills his mind. He never stays stagnant, never stops looking for another way to win. That is why, even as dominant as Sonnen was, it'll be hard to look at Silva as an underdog if they fight again. Silva may very well be the smartest fighter out there. He can adapt to situations, adjust on the fly. This is not something you can teach a fighter to do, and it's not something Chael Sonnen can learn if he hasn't by now. It is creativity, and reflexes, and intelligence, and calculated risk-taking. It is one of the many, many reasons Anderson Silva is the greatest fighter in the world.

BJPenn.com makes me sick. If heaven is real, the angels are going to use that site as an indictment against him. Look at his implacable narcissism. The banal ‘Hey guys, just hangin out’ videos. The suck-ups, the excuses, the almost comedic lack of self-awareness, all of it is so damn ridiculous it could be an act. I mean, the man has a video of himself eating a god damn cheeseburger. That’s it. That’s the whole video. It was the first video I ever saw on his site. At the time I was curious about BJ Penn, as a person – who is this fearless motherfucker who moves up four weight classes and fights the future light heavyweight champion – and almost beats him? So I watched him eat a cheeseburger. I listened to him explain to the camera how he likes to eat his fast food – ‘I like to try and, uh, finish off the fries first. You know?’

I had so much respect for this man. I thought he was the most talented fighter ever to walk the earth. As far as personality went, that bone-white stare he gave his opponents was all I knew about him, and it was all I needed to know. This man was clearly not of the mortals. I thought to myself, he must be a truly fascinating person to fight on such a higher plane than anyone else. The way he handled himself, the purity with which he fought. This was either before the Sherk fight or the second St. Pierre fight, and I still thought he was invincible. I could not picture him back flat to the canvas, blood running from his nose, looking like he wanted to cry every time St. Pierre hit him. I still wince when I think of that fight.

It’s so difficult to describe the weird, weird feeling of disbelief I got as I watched him chew his junk food and speak seriously about it as if the world were squirming to know how he ate his burger and fries. It reminded me of Rener Gracie selling watermelon juice strainers, dangling a piece of limp white cloth like it could unlock some secret watermelon power from the juice, explaining to me step-by-step how to squeeze liquid through a fucking handkerchief. Except BJ Penn was not just some amusingly exploitive Gracie no one took seriously. He was fast becoming one of my heroes. I don’t like knowing that my heroes are repulsive human beings.

I thought it was a fluke at first. I thought, Hey, maybe he was bored that day. He was just fucking around with the camera. He does sound a little like he’s trying to be ironic.

I watched a couple more videos. I became uncomfortably familiar with that weird, blank look in his eyes, the one that turned into an iron stare when he stepped into the cage. And that halting, high-pitched voice squeaking out comments so stupid and superficial it made me grimace. I didn’t understand how this had happened. I didn’t understand how the most talented man in mixed martial arts could be so god damn stupid.

His fights are amazing. Limbs like an octopus, hands like lightning, head like a rock. Gyroscopic takedown defense. He embarrasses his opponents. Joe Stevenson – outclassed in every aspect of the game, bloodied like a horror movie. Kenny Florian – every takedown stuffed for four rounds, choked out within two minutes of grappling. Diego Sanchez – broken over five rounds.

I got to thinking: man, what if BJ wasn’t so retarded? What if he had some self-awareness, what if he was humble? What if he was like Lyoto Machida, Georges St. Pierre? What if he lived like those guys? What if he trained like them?

Here is the sobering fact: BJ Penn is a disappointment. All the things he’s done, all the titles he’s held, all the great men he’s defeated, it’s dust next to what he might have done. This is the man people envisioned holding two belts at once, maybe three. Maybe more. This is a man who mastered two disciplines – jiu-jitsu and boxing – when most struggle to be half-good in even one. A man not put on his back for seven years. A man who is preternaturally gifted. A man who spent years training one hour a day. A man who is used to bullying opponents far below his level. A man who almost always loses when he is forced to fight hard. A man who lost to Frankie Edgar when people once talked about him beating Anderson Silva.

And he did lose. Look at his face in the fifth round. Forget the scorecards, the silly ten-point must system, the asinine division of a fight into five parts. Look at his face. He is done and he knows it. If that fight had gone on, Frankie Edgar would have gutted him.

This is the problem with BJ Penn. He breaks. In his dedication to mixed martial arts, in his focus in the moment of the fight. You can see it there. He breaks.

He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t know how to take it out and replace it with a piece of leather. He has always been so good it screws with his head. This is the real tragedy of BJ Penn. He doesn’t get tested. He is the lazy kid who aced all his exams without studying and now he doesn’t know how to work hard for what he wants. And don’t get me wrong – I know BJ works so much harder than the average loser will ever work in his life. I know he has more passion in his bones than most men. I just think of how much more he could have if he wasn’t so spoiled, so used to the world lying down for him.

Stories of Wanderlei Silva and Mauricio Rua knocking each other silly in Chute Boxe: this is what it means to be tested, to be hardened. Men who do not quit two rounds into a rematch they’ve been salivating over for years. Men who would rather leave their brains on the mat than quit on their stool. Men who would stitch their lips shut before making an excuse for failure.

When asked about how talented Jon Jones is, Greg Jackson looks strangely nonchalant and replies he’s seen some crazy talent come through the gym. Guys you’ve never heard of. Guys so gifted you wouldn’t believe it. He admits Jones is talented, but he seems far more impressed with his work ethic, his attitude, his humility and quiet confidence. And so am I. If Jones keeps on going the way he’s going, he may very well be remembered as the greatest fighter of his generation. As it stands, BJ Penn will be known as one of the best in the early history of mixed martial arts. To most people he’s not quite Fedor, not quite Silva, not quite St. Pierre. But he’s half a step below them, if that. What saddens me is that BJ could have been the greatest. If he’d disciplined his mind like Fedor, stayed humble like St. Pierre, kept learning like Silva, he could have been better than them all.

Every time BJ loses he claims he has a minor epiphany and rededicates himself to his training. Supposedly he trains harder than ever, and this time he’s really in top shape. He’s really the best he can be. Then he loses again, and he realizes he can train even harder. Then again. Every loss has made BJ better, has made him realize how human he is, how much harder he needs to work, how satisfying it is to be well trained and focused and tear through the man standing across from you. I wonder how much harder he can train. I wonder if he will ever train as hard as he should, as hard as all the other great champions train. I wonder if there is still a chance, just some small slight chance that at thirty-two years of age, just past his physical prime, BJ Penn can still be the greatest.

One of my favorite BJ Penn moments is his entrance to the Hughes rematch. Coming down the aisle swinging his fists to Gnarls Barkley, that crazy-intense look in his eyes. A purity like a primal monk, some crazy inner calm. He enters the cage and walks to his corner and his mouth hangs open in a muted scream and he throws out a couple mean hooks as the crowd roars. I still get chills thinking about that walk-in, just the walk-in, not even the fight itself. And the fight, as much as I hate Hughes and love BJ, was one of the best I’ve ever seen. BJ maintained that intensity for the fight. It was one of the most pitch-perfect fights I’ve ever seen from BJ, right up there with the Sanchez fight. It’s a sin that his victory was taken from him by some freak injury.

When BJ enters the cage to face Frankie Edgar for the second time, I will be cheering for him. I will always cheer for him, because of what he could have been. I’ll be hoping for him to come out of this with his arms raised like some Hawaiian wargod, licking blood from the back of his gloves. I don’t wish ill on Frankie Edgar. It’s more that I wish well for BJ, and Edgar is just a bystander. Because this fight is not Penn vs. Edgar. It’s Penn vs. Penn, again.

From what I’ve seen of him, Frankie Edgar seems like a very cool, very likable guy. He’s a great fighter, smart and relentless, and can beat any lightweight on any given day. I enjoy watching him fight, and I’m generally happy for him when he wins because he seems like such a nice guy. And I really like guys who go hard for the whole fight and never let up. Hell, the man was even a wrestling coach at my school. So, nothing against Edgar. But on August 28th, I hope BJ knocks his fucking head off.

Edit: Please don't rec this just because you hate BJ Penn. In fact, if that's the only reason you did, you need to un-rec it if that's even possible.