Match up two standout wrestlers together, and sometimes you get a standup fight.
Sometimes, though, even the standup fight that breaks out between those two wrestlers ends up in a near-stalemate.
That’s what happened in Saturday night’s light heavyweight bout between Phil Davis and Ryan Bader at UFC on FOX 14 in Stockholm.
In the end, though, Bader got the best of what action there was in the fight, and he took two of three 29-28 decisions for a split-decision win.
Davis went for 15 takedowns over the course of the fight, but did not land one. Bader, meanwhile, got the best of things in the standup, landing the only real blows of note. That included a second-round head kick and a big right hand in the third round. Davis emerged from the bout with his right eye swollen shut.
Davis made one last-ditch takedown attempt in the fight’s waning moments, but Bader stuffed it, then scored a takedown of his own, the only one of the fight.
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Bader (19-4), the TUF 8 champion, has won four straight bouts and five of his past six. Davis (13-3, 1 NC) has lost two of his past three.
Bader also improved to fourth in the UFC’s all-time light heavyweight wins list with 12.