I'm not so sure... you get KO 100% of the time, it loses it's luster and is no big deal. IN 2009 it was out of the box balanced imo. When I fought top guys online we would mostly go to a decision or get a well deserved KO/sub. If I buy UFC3, throw it on simulation setting and it's doesn't playout fights better than 09 I will get rid of it.
It's ironic and annoying to me that some games like this were very inspired and had so much effort go in and played so well (again imo) and that were products of "next generation" where things like hud's went away, and visual que's were king (the camera during sub's etc) and now we're back to messy hud's and "oh the masses want bomb-fests" attitudes. The game becomes worse and awkward - I have no way of proving this, but I'm willing to bet if the game was released in an identical alternate universe but followed a different path of pushing in the same direction of the inspiration from the first and went more for subtleties, bigger on details, and less concern for the 'masses' and concern about people instantly knowing what to do - accessibility and so on - THAT game would outsell this one!
Look at Bethesda and Skyrim. "we make the games that we really want to make, and games we really want to play" When the focus is making the best game possible, you end up with the best games.
I'm holding out hope on UFC3, but 2010 from a gameplay and balance perspective was much worse that 2009 - the default setting in 3 coupled with the submission "cat and mouse mini-game" doesn't make me feel good about it.
edit - the randomness in 09 is still largely untouched in sports games imo - the knockdowns were great.