COLUMN: Despite upset loss at UFC on Versus 4, don't count Rick Story out yet

By: Matthew Stefaniak, MMATorch Contributor

Charlie Brenneman couldn't have written a better ending to Sunday night. His takedowns kept welterweight contender Rick Story at bay and may have taken all of the steam out of Story's championship run. However, we shouldn't be surprised and we shouldn't count Rick Story out justyet.

On the Versus broadcast, Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan made a big deal, and deservedy so, about Rick Story having won twelve of his last thirteen bouts. Charlie Brenneman had also won eight of his last nine fights into the event. Some would argue that Story had better competition and Brenneman certainly doesn't have a win against Thiago Alves, but he does have wins over Jason High and Amilcar Alves, both UFC vets, and his only loss in this stretch was to former NCAA national champion wrestler Johny Hendricks.

Brenneman wrestled at NCAA division I powerhouse Lock Haven, while Rick Story attended NAIA's Southern Oregon. Not to take anything away from the Raiders of Southern Oregon, but certainly Brenneman was the more polished wrestler, and he showed it Sunday night.

Story took the fight against Nate Marquardt on three weeks notice. He literally went from training for one of the best welterweight strikers in the UFC (Thiago Alves) to possibly the best jiu- jitsu practitioner (2nd degree black belt Marquardt) to a very good wrestler (Brenneman) in that short period of time.

How could Story have been prepared? No one could prepare for an elite striker, an elite submission artist, and then an elite wrestler in three weeks. This fight was made for Brenneman. Not only did Story have to train and adapt to three very different styles, he still came extremely close to winning against Brenneman, twice being an eyelash away from a submission.

While no one should ever want to take anything away from Brenneman's win (he also took the fight on a day's notice and won against a top welterweight contender) I don't think it is time to take Rick Story's contender status away. His next fight will answer a lot of questions (and so will Brenneman's) but at the end of the day the fact is that most fighters at this level refuse to take fights on as short of notice as these two had. Perhaps we caught a glimpse on Sunday night of why that's the case.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/Staff_Editorials_19/article_9765.shtml

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