It's clear three days after the fact that the Carlos Condit's unanimous-decision win over Nick Diaz will go down as one of the most hotly debated fights in UFC history.

Everyone has a take, as is clear from the 446 (and counting) comments in my most recent blog post, in which I asked whether aggression and Octagon control are even counted any more when judges render their decision.

There were a lot of interesting points raised by the readers, and I think some of them were worth highlighting. (Here's a hint for future feedback posts: Notice that people who made cogent points got mentioned here, and those who resorted to personal insults were ignored).

Let's have at it:

Commenter Moore says: "I agree aggression should be taken more into account so we don't have fighters going for points rather that fighting. But Diaz has beat his last ELEVEN opponents by pushing them to the cage and unloading on them. What did you expect Condit to do?"

That's a great point. It obviously would have been pretty dumb of Condit to just stand in front of Diaz. The question is whether his game plan did enough to earn him the victory. I still maintain Condit came up just short.

@evolution1085 on Twitter says: @davedoylemma has never seen lateral movement in a fight before.

Frankie Edgar, for one, has tremendous lateral movement and his fights are among the most compelling in MMA. One thing you don't see Edgar do is turn form his opponent and run to safety, which we saw once too often from Condit against Diaz. Again, running is a foul under MMA rules, for which points can be deducted.

KD says: So under the criteria that Doyle laid out, Roy Nelson should have been tabbed the winner in his fight with Werdum as he was constantly moving forward and being the aggressor?

Ummm ... no. Did you see the pictures of Nelson's face after the fight? I'm not in any way implying that aggression and Octagon control be the only factors considered in the fight, just pointing out that they're actually listed in the Unified Rules and seem to be too often ignored.

Pa-boy says: You don't like the judge's decisions then end the fight yourself.

Can't argue with that one, amigo.

Wb says: Thank GOD! I thought after some of the other articles I'd read (and comments I'd received) I was one of the few who thought that fight was judged incorrectly!!! Let me state, I do NOT have a problem with Condit getting the nod (personally I scored it 3/2 for Diaz but could see how it might have been judged 3/2 Condit). Still after having seen the judges scorecards its hard to understand what fight they were scoring or more specifically by what criteria. 2 of the 3 gave Condit the second round!? For the record that was the only round that Diaz out-struck him. To say that Carlos won 4 of the 5 rounds on judges sheets seems to indicate they have no concept of octagon control or aggression and were simply counting strikes.

Eddie, via Facebook, says: absolutely agree with your article on the Diaz/Condit fight. the judges' criteria include ring aggression and generalship: basically who's bossing the fight. this isn't boxing where you can dance and outpoint your foe with jabs.

Wb, Eddie, you guys are clearly smart people with bright futures.

Follow Dave Doyle on Twitter.

Check out Tracy Lee's pictures from Saturday night's fights. See Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit's fight played out in pictures, Roy Nelson and Fabricio Werdum's Fight of the Night, Dustin Poirier's submission and more.

MMA is a dangerous sport. The kicks, punches, chokes, armbars, kneebars, calf slicers and all the rest make it a sport not for the faint-hearted. But all the dangers and difficulties in MMA usually come from opponents, not the cage the two are fighting in.

In Kentucky this weekend, the cage got the win. Skip to the 1:27 point in the video.

Brandon Bishop and Braedon Ward crashed through a faulty cage door in the co-main event at Hardrock MMA 43 on Saturday. The fall appeared to knock both men out, but as the video shows, they both walked away on their own. A hinge in the cage door had been damage earlier in the evening, but the staff though it was fixed. The fight was called a no-contest, and according to the notes for the video, both fighters received their win bonuses.

The playing surface getting involved in the game is not unique to MMA, as it happens in every sport. Michael Irvin and Wendell Davis both suffered career-ending injuries in football thanks to the poorly-done AstroTurf at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Gus Frerotte's neck was injured after he celebrated a touchdown by headbutting a wall at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium. Mickey Mantle's legendary career was almost stopped before it started because he tore his ACL when his foot was caught on a drainage ditch at Yankee Stadium during his rookie year.

It's even prevalent at the college levels, as Houston's Patrick Edwards suffered a nasty broken leg when he ran into a cart just past the end zone. At this year's Carrier Classic, Michigan State's Branden Dawson tweaked his ankle on the court's slippery logo. Two football coaches implied that University of Missouri's Faurot Field was to blame when two different players had season-ending knee injuries.

So even in the best circumstances, playing surfaces fail the players they are supposed to support. Luckily, both fighters were able to walk away from the fights.

OK, so maybe UFC 143 didn't knock your socks off. The extremely close contest between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit left me wanting to see three more rounds. However, as always, there were fighters whose stars shined a little brighter.

No. 1 star -- Stephen Thompson: It's no surprise that the man nicknamed "Wonderboy" has a kick like a swinging baseball bat. Thompson started off UFC 143 with a stiffening knockout of Daniel Stittgen. He won a $65,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for the kick, which is a nice infusion of cash for a fighter making his UFC debut.

No. 2 star -- Dustin Poirier: Why yes, that was a triangle armbar that Poirier pulled out to submit Max Holloway, and yes, he did win a $65,000 Submission of the Night bonus. Starting in the WEC, Poirier is on a five-fight win streak, which is even more impressive when you consider he is just 23.

No. 3 star -- Renan Barao: Speaking of young fighters with impressive resumes, Barao picked apart Scott Jorgensen, a fighter with an impressive track record of his own. Barao has 27 straight wins, including five under the Zuffa banner.

Who were your three stars? Tell us in the comments or on Facebook.

LAS VEGAS -- Watching the main event of UFC 143 from my spot on press row, where the fight can often look quite a bit different than it does on television, I thought Nick Diaz won his interim welterweight title fight against Carlos Condit. I had Diaz winning the first three rounds and Condit taking the last two. The fight was close enough that you can't call it a robbery, but I did feel Diaz was effective enough over the first three rounds to earn the decision.

In the aftermath of the decision, and the heated debate that came with it, though, I've been left to wonder: On what do MMA judges base decisions, these days?

Among the several factors judges are supposed to consider under the Unified Rules is aggression. Diaz was the clear-cut aggressor in the first three rounds.

Octagon control is also supposed to be considered when judging a round. Condit seemed to spend most of the early rounds backpedaling. He even ended the third round literally scooting backwards on his butt to get out of Diaz's way.

And yet, you never seem to hear anything about aggression and Octagon control these days when judging is dissected after the fact.

[Related: Carlos Condit faced with controversy after win over Nick Diaz]

There was a time when turning an MMA fight into a track meet was not considered a virtue. John McCarthy docked Jamie Varner a point in his UFC 62 loss to Hermes Franca for running when he employed similar tactics. Kalib Starnes was just about mocked out of the sport entirely for running sprints in his UFC 83 bout with Nate Quarry.

This is supposed to be a fight, right? With fighting for points increasingly becoming en vogue, maybe it's time to take a closer look at the actual criteria laid out for the judges when scoring a round. Aggression is supposed to be rewarded and weighted more heavily than defense. Backpedaling and sprinting is not supposed to be a point in a fighter's favor. Let's nip this one in the bud before MMA turns into Olympic tae kwondo.

• Much is being made of the fact that Condit outstruck Diaz in the fight. According to CompuStrike, he outlanded Diaz, 146-110. All this tells me is that MMA statistic keeping is still in its infancy and has a long way to go before it's a rock-solid method of measuring a fight. Sure, a 36-strike discrepancy could be an accurate portrayal of a fight. It could also mean the when one fighter has another cornered, he connected solidly on a single straight right, only to have his opponent throw a wild flurry of four of five punches, none of which did damage, then scamper to safety. And yet the latter fighter in that example would have a 5-1 strike advantage. Which leads us to the next stat, "significant" strikes, which Condit also took Who gets to define "significant?" That's a subjective decision and thus has minimal value as an objective fight measure.

[Related: Plenty of outrage over Diaz-Condit decision]

• In hindsight, maybe Herb Dean should have just docked Alex Caceres after his first kill shot to Edwin Figueroa's groin, then docked him another after the second one, rather than issue a warning after the first one and deduct two later. While Dean's two-point deduction was certainly unusual, I can't get too worked up about it. The first one was right up there with the nastiest groin shots I've seen in six years over covering MMA. Dean issued Caceres a "strong warning," and within a matter of seconds after the fight resumed, Caceres went right back to throwing wild kicks, to the point you could tell there was going to be another foul if the fight went on for any length of time. I wouldn't want to see referees start handing out two-point deductions left and right. But Dean, in my opinion, is one of the two best refs in the business along with Josh Rosenthal, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the call in this instance. Hopefully Caceres, an energetic bantamweight with some upside, will use this experience to become a smarter fighter.

• Just over a year ago, Josh Koscheck looked like a fighter without many viable options. He had just lost his title challenge to Georges St-Pierre in one-sided fashion, and he suffered a cracked orbital bone in the process. It was his second loss to GSP, and the No. 2 guy in the division, Jon Fitch, was his teammate for life at the American Kickboxing Academy. But now Koscheck has a variety of intriguing options. Should he be the next opponent for Diaz (c'mon, you and I both know Nick isn't retiring)? Should he get a hot up-and-comer like Jake Ellenberger or Rory McDonald? Or is that off-limits fight against Fitch maybe on the table now that Koscheck is no longer with AKA? Love him, hate him, or love to hate him, Josh Koscheck remains one of the UFC's most interesting fighters.

[Related: Jon Fitch vs. Josh Koscheck is a possibility]

• Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson apparently never heard of the famed "Octagon jitters" fighters are supposed to experience in their UFC debut. The Simpsonville, S.C., native looked poised and confident from the get-go in his bout with Dan Stittgen, right up until the highlight-reel head kick that won him both the fight and a $65,000 knockout of the night bonus. Sure, one fight is far too soon to label someone a potential contender, but Thompson impressed inside the cage and was humble at the post-fight press conference, so you know he has the right attitude. Way to make a first impression, kid.

Follow Dave Doyle on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/davedoylemma

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