New champions were crowned Saturday night in Dallas at UFC 185. Rafael dos Anjos took UFC lightweight champion Anthony “Showtime” Pettis‘ to school. Dos Anjos used powerful takedowns and relentless pressure to batter Pettis for five rounds.
When it was over, all three judges saw it as a five-round sweep for dos Anjos. The new champion finished with nine takedowns in the fight and out-landed Pettis 90-54 in significant strikes. It doesn’t get more dominating than that.
If you could find someone who picked dos Anjos to win, I can almost bet they didn’t see the Brazilian dominating the way he did. Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports marveled at dos Anjos‘ accomplishment:
In the co-feature, Joanna Jedrzejczyk‘s muay thai proved to be too much for UFC strawweight champion Carla “Cookie Monster” Esparza. Jedrzejczyk scored a decisive second-round TKO to become the new women’s champion at 115 pounds. She displayed excellent takedown defense in the bout.
Esparza attempted 17 takedowns and only secured one. It seemed as if she had no Plan B once Jedrzejczyk was able to stuff the takedown attempts. Jedrzejczyk showed her striking prowess by out-landing Esparza 53-4 in significant strikes.
Light heavyweight contender Daniel Cormier was impressed with multiple facets of Jedrzejczyk‘s game.
Per UFC Canada, both new champions also earned Performance of the Night bonuses.
Here’s a look at every result from Saturday night.
Other Dominant Performances
Alistair Overeem
He didn’t knock Roy Nelson out, but Alistair Overeem did display the most varied and technically sharp array of strikes we’ve ever seen from him.
Overeem out-landed Nelson 66-48 in significant strikes, and he stopped all four of Nelson’s attempts to take him down. Iole talked about all of the weapons Overeem showed off:
He came in ranked ninth, but Overeem looks capable of taking on a Top Five opponent. Then again, he’s duped us into believing he was elite before. We’ll need to see Overeem sustain this level of fighting for the next two or three bouts.
Johny Hendricks
Matt Brown wanted to make his fight with Johny Hendricks a brawl, but Hendricks’ takedown defense eliminated that strategy. With a nice mixture of striking, grappling and ground-and-pound, Hendricks proved he’s in shape physically and in the right mindset to take on UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler for a third time.
Hendricks would love to to regain the title he lost to Lawler. However, there’s a long line of 170-pounders with a solid claim to the next title shot. Since Hendricks is a former champion who has history with Lawler, it may not be difficult to land the third fight in their rivalry.
In any case, Hendricks is back on the right track, and his future is looking bright once again.
All stats per UFC.com.
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