BALTIMORE — When the best fighter in the world comes calling, you know what you do? You accept the charges.
It doesn’t matter whether you remember what a collect call is. Doesn’t matter. Here in Baltimore on Saturday night at UFC 172, the great Jon Jones showed up to do what he does best: defend his light heavyweight belt. This time it was against Glover Teixeira, the Brazilian who, despite his fearsomeness, was a heavy underdog against the prodigy.
At the still-young age of 26, Jones made his seventh consecutive title defense. That’s already a light heavyweight record.
So what went down against Teixeira? And, for that matter, what happened on the rest of the card, which was pretty dang loaded?
Who prevailed between redemption-seeking headhunter Anthony Johnson and sudden microphone fiend Phil Davis, two men who might just make Jones’ contender short list with a victory? How about Luke Rockhold, the would-be middleweight kingpin who tangled with bear-of-a-man Tim Boetsch?
As always, the stat lines only reveal so much. Here are the real winners and losers from UFC 172, hand-selected at cageside for freshness.