UFC 159 is in the books and outside of Jon Jones’ big toe and eye pokes, there wasn’t much of note emerging from Saturday’s event.
It was a fairly uneventful card that has to be ranked towards the bottom of the UFC’s cards so far this year. The build up to the Jones-Chael Sonnen bout was expected to be huge when the fight was announced, but only one fighter chose to care about promoting the event.
It probably didn’t help that the card was built around a huge mismatch in which we all knew what the outcome would be.
Filling out the rest of the card were few fights that had any major implications in them. The Michael Bisping-Alan Belcher contest featured some good trash talk leading up to the contest, but it failed to materialize in the actions of the fighters. Bisping showcased his best talent in setting a pace that Belcher failed to keep up with.
The strange ending with Belcher‘s eye bleeding due to an eye poke that caused a technical decision was one of many strange occurrences on the card.
On the prelims, Gian Villante lost a technical decision after his fight was called due to an eye poke. Villante said he couldn’t see mere moments after the eye poke and the fight was called.
Also on the prelims was Rustam Khabilov picking up his second victory via slam except not in the manner that you’d think. As he dropped his opponent Yancy Medeiros, the Brazilian went to brace his fall with his thumb and dislocated it. Medeiros pointed the injury out to the referee and as such, the bout was halted and Khabilov picked up a TKO victory.
The highlights of the night have to be Roy Nelson’s KO of Cheick Kongo and Pat Healy tapping out Jim Miller.
Everyone knows what Nelson will attempt to do in the cage, yet few have been able to avoid it. Add Kongo to that list, as he circled directly into an overhand right and was subsequently finished by another punch from “Big Country.”
Healy was unquestionably a big underdog coming into UFC 159 but eventually forced Miller to tap out in the final frame. It was a big upset and rightfully earned Healy some big money in the form of bonuses.
As with all cards, UFC 159 had some high points but had far too many lows to be considered anything above average. The card was destined to flop after being built around a mismatch that needed trash talking for it to matter.
Unfortunately, the hype never came and Jones retained his title in typical dominant fashion.
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