UFC on Fox 9 went down Saturday evening from Sacramento, Calif.
In the main event, Demetrious Johnson put his flyweight title on the wire against Joseph Benavidez. These two have danced before, with Johnson outlasting Benavidez in September 2012 to win a split decision and become the UFC’s first champion at 125 pounds.
There were two interesting subplots going into the event, the first being that Benavidez was one of four competitors representing Team Alpha Male, the lighter-weight MMA mecca based right there in Sacramento and founded by Urijah Faber, who himself fought in the evening’s co-main event.
Second is that semi-eternal conundrum: If a flyweight fights on national television, does it make a sound? Though the smaller guys have skills to spare, they have historically failed to capture the MMA public’s imagination. Would Johnson-Benavidez II score one for the little guys?
These are just the two main storylines that simply can’t be resolved on stat lines alone. Here are the real winners and losers for the evening, from Facebook to finale.