(Photos by Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports, via MMAJunkie)
Brief summary of Brendan Schaub‘s experience at UFC 174 on Saturday: He out-works Andrei Arlovski on the feet and and the ground during one of the least entertaining fights of the year, then somehow loses a decision and leaves the Octagon with his jaw swollen up like Quagmire. On the bright side, doctors will not have to amputate.
Schaub confirmed late Saturday night that he was medically cleared before he left the arena, and his only serious injuries were psychological ones. (Schaub will be sharing his thoughts about the fight on today’s installment of his podcast, so keep an ear out for that.) Meanwhile, Andrei Arlovski isn’t exactly in a celebratory mood either. After the fight, the Pitbull lamented his performance and tried to explain why it was so flat:
“I still feel like really horrible and um…it’s good that Dana White’s not here because he’s probably so pissed at me. He gave me great opportunity. I didn’t like my performance, my fight tonight. But for some reason I [was] nervous a lot, like you know, before the fight when I step inside the Octagon, my legs, my hands, like shook for some reason. I [was] just nervous, like [my] first time when I fought back fourteen years ago almost. But next time I promise it’s gonna be much better.”
Speaking of Dana White, the UFC president expressed his own regrets after the fight, wondering why he didn’t stick it on the prelims. But hindsight is 20/20, right? This fight had the potential to be a slugfest, just like every other fight on the UFC 174 main card. It just didn’t work out that way. On the bright side, only the most hardcore, devoted, and bored UFC fans were even watching this PPV in the first place. Schaub vs. Arlovski may be the most forgettable fight of the year, which is good news or bad news, depending on how you look at it.