Author: Joseph Zucker

If you stayed up to watch the entirety of UFC 190 from start to finish, you deserve a piece of the “Performance of the Night” bonus.

Sunday’s pay-per-view card achieved the toxic combination of being both agonizingly long and dreadfully dull for stretches. And the entire payoff was a 34-second victory for Ronda Rousey, which was pretty cool nonetheless.

UFC 190 won’t exactly go down in company history as the greatest event ever, but it still featured a few highlights throughout the night.

Here’s a look at the full results, followed by the three fighters who looked the strongest in winning efforts.

 

Most Impressive Performances

Antonio Silva

After getting knocked out by Andrei Arlovski and Frank Mir, Antonio Silva looked completely past it as a UFC fighter. You can blame it on the failed drug test if you want, but Silva’s simply getting older and wasn’t aggressive whatsoever in his last two bouts.

Against a powerful puncher like Soa Palelei, “Bigfoot” didn’t appear to stand a chance.

But then Silva went and knocked Palelei out in the second round. As MMAFighting tweeted, the most surprising aspect of the victory was how little Silva seemed fatigued at the end:

Palelei was the aggressor in the first round and the better of the two fighters. By the second, he was completely gassed. Maybe his plan was knocking Silva out in the first round, and he was completely screwed when that didn’t happen.

Take nothing away from Silva, who desperately needed this win.

“Bigfoot” won’t be competing for the heavyweight title anytime soon, but he’s at least earned himself another marquee fight in the future.

 

Ronda Rousey

You could argue nothing Rousey did against Bethe Correia should be considered impressive. The champion was the heavy favorite entering the fight and Correia‘s superior in every facet of the sport.

Can you call a No. 1 seed beating a No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament impressive?

While that’s a valid line of questioning, Rousey‘s greatness transcends the discussion. No single person or team in sports today is as consistently dominant as Rousey. Floyd Mayweather may be the closest, and he doesn’t so much win fights as he fails to lose them.

Give me a 30-second Rousey fight over 36 minutes of Mayweather.

Just look at this stat from Fighting Spirit Magazine‘s Justin Henry:

Rousey has won her last four fights in less time than it takes to get through half of a standard UFC round. Talk about efficiency.

Someday, Rousey will stop being a force of nature in the Octagon. Maybe her passion for mixed martial arts will fade as she pursues other avenues. Maybe age will take its toll at some point. Maybe the rest of the world will catch up.

Until that happens, let’s not be so jaded so as to not enjoy Rousey in her prime.

Also, athletes should do more of this on a regular basis (via Sportsnet’s Mike Johnston):

 

Patrick Cummins

ESPN Radio’s Jorge Sedano had the best reaction to Patrick Cummins‘ knockout of Rafael Cavalcante:

“I got caught a couple of times,” Cummins said after the fight, per MMAjunkie’s Matt Erickson. “The first round, I got caught with some good and clean punches and that kind of dictated the pace of the fight. I decided, ‘OK, I’m going to wrestle him and use my ground game,’ and that went well.”

The rope-a-dope strategy served the 34-year-old well. He absorbed Cavalcante‘s heaviest blows, and by the third round, Cavalcante was running on empty. Cummins saw the opportunity and pounced, hitting his opponent with elbow after elbow.

It’s not like Cavalcante got lucky with one blow to turn Cummins‘ face into the proverbial crimson mask. He dished out a ton of punishment but still couldn’t put Cummins away. The fact Cummins had anything left to finish Cavalcante is a testament to his conditioning and toughness.

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Over the past few years, Rio de Janeiro has become a favored destination for UFC, and on Saturday, the company will once again occupy the HSBC Arena.

UFC 190 will begin with the UFC Fight Pass preliminaries at 7 p.m. ET and work its way up to the main card, which is scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. ET.

From top to bottom, the pay-per-view card doesn’t offer a whole lot, but sometimes the more underwhelming shows on paper turn out to be pleasant surprises once they get underway.

Here’s a look at the full card for the PPV, followed by brief previews for three of the bigger fights at UFC 190.

 

UFC 190 Card

 

Forecasting Saturday’s Biggest Fights

Ronda Rousey vs. Bethe Correia

Ronda Rousey is basically John Cena at this point. “Cena wins LOL” has become a meme for WWE fans since it’s a near guarantee Cena will overcome the odds and win his biggest matches, especially when he’s paired with a wrestler who has a smaller profile.

Calling Rousey the favorite ahead of her UFC 190 bout would be a massive understatement. She is superior to Bethe Correia in in every single facet of MMA.

Like Cena is essentially forced to do in order to build drama, Rousey basically moved the goalposts during an interview on America’s Pregame. via Fox Sports’ Damon Martin, when discussing her definition of an underdog and how she fits under the designation:

In these individual fights I might be a heavy favorite; in the end goal I’m not a favorite at all. I’m a huge underdog. The end goal is I want to retire undefeated and be remembered as one of the most dominant athletes of all time. There’s these athletes that have come up and been really dominant for a period and seemed indestructible for a period, but that time came to an end and eventually they had to retire.

You can kind of see where Rousey is coming from with regard to the entirety of her mixed martial arts career and overall legacy. But there isn’t a bigger individual “overdog” in sports today.

The gulf in class between Rousey and Correia looks to be gargantuan, and it would be a surprise if their fight went beyond the second round.

Prediction: Rousey wins, first-round submission

 

Mauricio Rua vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

Mauricio Rua and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira put on a classic when they fought in PRIDE. Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden joked that fight might serve as a great replacement for their upcoming bout on UFC 190:

Quite a bit has changed in the 10 years since they last met in a competitive match. “Shogun” is 33 years old and the loser in four of his last fights. Nogueira, meanwhile, is 39, having fought twice between UFC 140 in December 2011 and now.

In a way, you can envision this being the best fight on the card. Neither guy has anything to lose, and they’re both relatively at the same level talent-wise. Sometimes, it can be a lot of fun watching two older stars throw caution to the wind and simply go after each other.

You can make a strong case for either Rua or Nogueira to win. “Shogun” might have a little more left in the tank, and he also has much more to fight for Saturday following his string of defeats.

The two will fight to a near-stalemate, with Rua just edging out his opponents on the scorecards.

Prediction: Rua wins, decision

 

Antonio Silva vs. Soa Palelei

Desperate men can do desperate things.

Antonio Silva hasn’t won a fight since knocking out Alistair Overeem at UFC 156 in February 2013. He has lost three fights—none of which went past the first round—and drawn with Mark Hunt, which was immediately followed by Silva’s failed drug test.

The 35-year-old needs a win against Soa Palelei in the worst way, and that might force him to be much more aggressive in the Octagon than he was on his last few fights.

Even then, Silva still might not have enough to finish off Palelei, who’s 4-1 since coming back to UFC in August 2013.

The biggest factor in the bout will be whether Palelei can get Silva down on the mat. If he does, then he’ll go to town on the Brazilian with a flurry of punches. Few fighters are stronger than Palelei, so Silva won’t stand much of a chance if he gets clocked by one or two big blows.

Simply put, you can’t look past Palelei here. Since returning from suspension, Silva has been helpless in the Octagon. Maybe he gets lucky Saturday night, but he looks way past it.

Prediction: Palelei wins, second-round knockout

 

Note: UFC 190 odds are courtesy of Odds Shark and up to date as of 11:50 p.m. ET Friday.

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Considering how much the UFC product has felt subpar of late, building up excitement for the major events on the calendar has felt more of a chore than a natural emotional reaction. With UFC 189, that hasn’t been the case.

Jose Aldo was originally supposed to face Conor McGregor for the featherweight championship, but Aldo was injured during training and is unable to compete. Even taking that into account, Saturday’s pay-per-view should be fantastic.

Looking at the show, these three questions have been among the more hotly debated over the past weeks and months leading up to Saturday.

 

Will Chad Mendes Expose Conor McGregor as All Sizzle and No Steak?

In a way, it might be better that Aldo was forced to pull out of his featherweight title bout with McGregor. Did fans want to see Aldo vs. McGregor? Of course. But that doesn’t mean McGregor was ready for a fight of that magnitude.

Although McGregor is a supreme self-promoter, it remains to be seen whether his in-ring work, despite those victories over Dustin Poirier and Dennis Siver, has reached that level. Beating Mendes would represent moving up one rung on the featherweight ladder.

UFC will certainly hope the 26-year-old lives up to the hype. ESPN’s Luke O’Brien wrote an extensive profile of McGregor and noted how his TKO win against Siver came at the perfect time for UFC:

The promotion has run into difficulty of late. Too many cards. Not enough stars. Incessant injuries. The slump owed in part to a gamble to go big and blast out as much MMA as possible to the world to create new viewers and grow the sport — a strategy that could eventually pay off, but the short-term result has been a watered-down product and a disgruntled core audience. Last year was especially bleak: Pay-per-view numbers hit new lows, and only one event registered more than 400,000 buys. Profits fell by an estimated 40 percent, and Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit rating of the UFC’s parent company, Zuffa.

In terms of a stylistic matchup, McGregor couldn’t have imagined an opponent trickier than Mendes. Fightnomics author Reed Kuhn highlighted how Mendes is an excellent wrestler in the Octagon:

If Mendes can consistently get McGregor down to the mat, he’ll slowly suck the life out of the fight and tire McGregor out.

Should McGregor prevail Saturday, then he will have answered the critics who argue he isn’t ready to take that next step in the featherweight division.

 

Will Rory MacDonald Follow in Georges St-Pierre’s Footsteps and Win the UFC Welterweight Title?

For better or worse, Georges St-Pierre will never be too far behind when discussing Rory MacDonald. Since the two are training partners and fight in the welterweight division, a certain segment of UFC fans will always want to lump the two together, no matter how unfair the comparison is.

As much as the head-to-head comparisons don’t really hold up upon close examination, beating Robbie Lawler would put MacDonald and St-Pierre in the same company as UFC welterweight champs.

As much attention is being paid to McGregor vs. Mendes, Lawler’s title defense against MacDonald will likely be the best fight on the card. They needed the full three rounds to determine a winner their first bout, and a split decision wasn’t the most definitive result.

MacDonald is the superior technical fighter, but Lawler possesses a nearly unparalleled level of toughness and an ability to alter the trajectory of a fight with one timely punch. That could come in handy in a fight where the margin between the two combatants is bound to be razor-thin.

MacDonald has been tabbed for greatness for a while now. We’ll find out this weekend whether he’ll finally ascend to his welterweight throne.

 

Just How Good Will UFC 189 Be from Top to Bottom?

UFC 100 isn’t the gold standard when it comes to UFC PPVs, but the event was both a commercial and critical success. It remains the highest-grossing PPV in promotion history and boasted a card with St-Pierre, peak-Brock Lesnar, Thiago Alves and Dan Henderson, while Jon Jones was on the preliminary card.

Because of UFC’s current PPV strategy, it’s difficult to create the sort of buzz about PPVs that you saw in the past. An inability to create bankable stars combined with a glut of events has hurt the overall product more than it has helped.

Even without Aldo, UFC 189 is a bit of a return to the days of old. It boasts a ton of quality matchups all the way down to the prelims. Dana White went on UFC Tonight and proclaimed that Saturday’s PPV is on pace to topple many of the records set by UFC 100:

Making a ton of money doesn’t equate to a great show, however; Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao was the most lucrative boxing fight of all time, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who actually enjoyed the fight.

You expect White to play up the importance of UFC 189 and talk about how much interest surrounds the event. On Saturday night, we’ll find out whether he was justified in his praise.

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