After a lackluster stretch of PPV’s from the UFC in June and July, it was crucial that UFC 150 righted the ship heading into a number of big time fights in the fall.
With a high profile lightweight title main event between Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar, as well as a guaranteed barn burner between Donald Cerrone and Melvin Guillard, UFC 150 had the ingredients to be an awesome fight card.
Luckily for the UFC, it mostly delivered.
Watch highlights from the event in the video above.
The card started off with a highly technical and entertaining scrap between two of the youngest competitors on the UFC roster in Max Holloway and Justin Lawrence.
Lawrence was the more well known of the two due to his stint on the last season of The Ultimate Fighter, but Holloway had looked impressive in his last fight and the betting lines were fairly even heading into this one.
After a closely contested first round, things were pretty much going the same way heading into the final minute of the second.
Then Holloway turned it on, delivering a pair of crippling body shots that sent Lawrence to the mat and finishing him with a handful follow up shots to secure the win.
Next up on the dance card was a middleweight contest featuring former title challenger Yushin Okami against a relative UFC newcomer in Buddy Roberts.
Roberts came in as a late replacement against Okami after “Thunder” had two different opponents pull out of the fight due to injury, and most considered Roberts to be a sacrificial lamb set up to be slaughtered by Okami.
As it turns out, they were pretty much right.
Okami was in desperate need of a win following two straight losses, and he almost finished the fight in the first round by getting on top of Roberts and raining down punches from his back.
When the bell saved the Team Jackson product in the first, “Thunder” decided he would just do it all over again.
Okami took the back in the second round and once again started pouring it on, this time earning the stoppage win.
Another middleweight that badly needed a win at the event was Jake Shields, who had come into the UFC with a ton of hype but had floundered in the welterweight division with just a 2-2 record.
Squaring off against Ed Herman, Shields used his grappling based attack to completely shut down Herman’s offense. While it wasn’t the most entertaining fight on the card, it earned the former Strikeforce champion the victory.
While fans knew that the Shields-Herman bout had a chance to be a snooze fest, they must have been kept awake due to the potential in the next fight between Donald Cerrone and Melvin Guillard.
Lucky for us, the fight was everything we thought it would be.
Cerrone came out reckless and got dropped early by a big right hand from Guillard, and after “Cowboy” was able to survive “The Young Assassin’s” furious attack, he landed a solid head kick that put Guillard on wobbly legs.
A follow up right hand from Cerrone ended Guillard’s night, but both men earned a nice fight of the night check for their efforts.
If the Cerrone and Guillard bout was the early favorite to take home the bonus check at the end of the night, the lightweight title fight couldn’t have been too far behind.
Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar went to battle for a full 25 minutes, and while both men had some success, it was Henderson who would walk away with a controversial decision win.
The win wasn’t the best performance of Henderson’s career, but he got the job done against one of the toughest fighters on the planet to out-point and saved his title.
Overall, UFC 150 was a solid event from top to bottom and the entertaining headlining fights made the card well worth the $50 price tag.
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