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UFC 172: Most Memorable Performances from Main Card

UFC 172 turned out to be an event filled with memorable finishes and decisive victories.The main card bouts were especially good.It’s hard to pick which performances were the most outstanding, but Iet’s narrow it down to the top three.Anthony “Rumble” …

UFC 172 turned out to be an event filled with memorable finishes and decisive victories.

The main card bouts were especially good.

It’s hard to pick which performances were the most outstanding, but Iet’s narrow it down to the top three.

Anthony “Rumble” Johnson’s Decimation of “Mr. Wonderful”

I’ll be the first to admit that I thought Johnson had drawn the worst possible matchup for his return to the UFC. Rumble had always struggled with grapplers. Here he was, tangling with one of the best in the UFC.

After the smoke cleared, Johnson had beaten up Davis for three rounds. Per FightMetric.com, he stuffed all eight of Davis’ attempts to take him down.

A vicious right hand busted up Davis’ eye in the second round. Per Bleacher Report MMA, Johnson went all Edgar Allan Poe in his description of the punch’s impact on Davis:

Johnson made Mr. Wonderful look like Mr. Ordinary. Don’t look now, but the win made Rumble one of the hottest names in the light heavyweight division.

Luke Rockhold Is All Business

It took just two minutes and eight seconds for Rockhold to lay waste to Tim Boetsch on Saturday night.

Rockhold’s relentless pursuit of the submission was indicative of his hunger to conquer.

A kimura lock spelled the end of Boetsch in the bout. But it feels like just the beginning for Rockhold’s ascension through the middleweight rankings.

He has now scored two straight wins over top-notch competition at 185 pounds.

His only blemish in the UFC came in his debut against Vitor Belfort. Per the UFC’s Twitter account, Rockhold has already called out his next opponent:

It seems like he may be aiming pretty low with Bisping. Rockhold looks like a fighter who should be one step away from a title shot.

Bisping is more of a gatekeeper now.

Jon “Bones” Jones Is the Best Ever

Sure, Glover Teixeira is a bit one-dimensional, and most expected Jones to beat him on Saturday night. But the best part of the UFC light heavyweight champion’s victory was the way he won.

Teixeira is known as a great striker. Conventional wisdom said he needed to get inside Jones’ reach to be effective.

Bones is not a conventional thinker.

He fought the entire fight in Teixeira’s grill and beat him at his own game.

B/R’s Jeremy Botter saw exactly what I saw:

You didn’t have to be an MMA journalist to appreciate what Jones did. Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Marcedes Lewis heaped praise on Jones’ performance as well:

Take a look at these stats from FightMetric, per Mike Chiappetta of Fox Sports. How dominant is this?

It’s hard to imagine how Jones could have fought any better. What’s even more impressive is the same could be said for Teixeira.

Jones is really just that good.

Follow me. I dig combat sports.

@BMaziqueFPBR

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Dana White Says UFC Considering Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson II in Sweden

During a UFC 172 post-fight media scrum, UFC President Dana White said that the promotion is considering a rematch between UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson in Sweden.
While nothing is confirmed at this moment, Whi…

During a UFC 172 post-fight media scrum, UFC President Dana White said that the promotion is considering a rematch between UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson in Sweden.

While nothing is confirmed at this moment, White strongly suggested that the event could take place at an outdoor stadium in Gustafsson‘s home country of Sweden, presumably the Friends Arena. According to White, the event would be “massive” for all parties involved.

“It has the potential to be huge, and the gate on this thing is going to be huge, too, depending on where we do it,” White said. “It’s a big, massive fight. If we do it in Europe, this thing could do 50, 60,000 seats or more.”

After this hint, members of the media pressed the issue, asking if he meant to specifically target Sweden for this European show.

“Yeah, of course,” White said.

Understanding that Jon Jones, the champion, may feel a bit hesitant to accept a fight in his challenger’s home nation, White noted that the fight needs to take place where it will do the best business.

“Jon’s going to agree to whatever fight we make,” White said. “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. We never have people say, ‘This is where I’m going to fight my fight.’ It never happened. It won’t happen. We gotta take the fight wherever the fight is going to do the best.”

Still, there are doubts.

The champion probably wants to fight on his terms, and, after the amazing reception he received from the crowd in Baltimore for UFC 172, he’d probably like to build upon that momentum and continue to elevate his stock in the eyes of his fans.

Obviously, any rematch between Jones and Gustafsson—who previously fought a close, back-and-forth five-round battle at UFC 165—would be huge for the company, but booking the event in Sweden certainly adds a little extra intrigue to it.

While the first fight between Jones and Gustafsson went down as the 2013 Fight of the Year, White said he is impressed with Jones’ improvements as a fighter and as a man.

After barely getting touched in his previous title defenses, Jones was pushed to the limit by Gustafsson, and White felt that the reigning champion would take the easy way out against his UFC 172 challenger, Glover Teixeira. This, however, is not what transpired.

“I think a lot of people—me included—questioned how he (Jones) was going to bounce back from the first time he’s ever gotten his ass whooped,” White said. “Why not play it safe? Double leg Glover, get him down, get that top position, and you know what he can do with his elbows on the ground. He didn’t do it at all.”

The notion of a “new and improved” Jones represents a scary thought, but that is exactly what mixed martial arts fans saw on Saturday night at UFC 172 in Jones’ eyes.

Building on the momentum of Jones’ masterpiece against Teixeira, White now looks to the future. This means Jones vs. Gustafsson II and right now it’s looking like the showdown will take place on the Swede’s turf.

*All quotes were obtained firsthand.

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Jon Jones Breezes by Glover Teixeira, Sets LHW Class Up for Another Banner Year

Jon Jones admitted he went off-script against Glover Teixeira on Saturday at UFC 172.
Not that you’d know it from the results.
While Jones said the game plan was to keep Teixeira at a distance and hunt for takedowns, at some point the UFC light h…

Jon Jones admitted he went off-script against Glover Teixeira on Saturday at UFC 172.

Not that you’d know it from the results.

While Jones said the game plan was to keep Teixeira at a distance and hunt for takedowns, at some point the UFC light heavyweight champion decided to chuck it all and go at his powerful opponent from the clinch, pressed against the fence at close range.

In the process, he sprinted headlong into Teixeira’s wheelhouse, forgoing his considerable reach advantage and dragging their main event fight into the only place where the 34-year-old Brazilian might have a chance to surprise him with a knockout punch.

It didn’t matter.

The UFC had gone out of its way to frame Teixeira as Jones’ toughest test to date, but he dominated in all facets, eventually securing a lopsided unanimous decision (50-45 x 3).

“A lot of it was improv,” he told UFC color commentator Joe Rogan in the cage after it was over. “The game plan was takedowns and going at him from range, but I realized he was winding up on his punches, and you can’t do that when someone is on top of you.”

If there was a lesson on this night, it was that Jones can still do whatever he likes in the Octagon. Except for a close call against Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165, he’s looked a generation ahead of the competition while breezing past the rest of the best light heavyweights since his promotional debut in 2008.

Speaking of scripts, Jones’ now appears to be written for the rest of 2014. Barring injury or unforeseen calamity, he’ll rematch with Gustafsson some time this summer and then likely take on the winner of UFC 173’s title eliminator between Dan Henderson and Daniel Cormier near the end of the year.

It’ll amount to a murderers’ row of 205-pound contenders. If Jones can emerge from that gauntlet unscathed, his 2014 could rival his 2011 for a place in the MMA history books.

That’s saying something, considering Jones put together what could be the single best year any mixed martial artist has ever had during 2011. That year he went 4-0 (all by stoppage), won the UFC title and defeated three former light heavyweight champions during consecutive appearances. He eventually ran that streak to five and then set a record with six straight 205-pound title defenses by slipping past Gustafsson last September.

The win over Teixeira made it seven and moved his overall UFC record to 14-1. Jones’ lone career loss came in December 2009, when he was disqualified for beating Matt Hamill in ways that not even the unified rules of MMA would allow. Since then, he’s gone 11-0 and become the consensus No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

The scariest part is, at 26 years old, he’s still getting better and adding new wrinkles to his unorthodox attack. He unloaded his entire toolbox on Teixeira, even adding an unconventional arm crank from the clinch that Teixeira said may have dislocated his shoulder in the first round.

The rest was vintage Jones. He cut Teixeira over the right eye with slashing elbows, brutalized his legs with elliptical kicks and narrowly missed with an assortment of ax kicks and spinning techniques. The only thing he proved incapable of doing with any regularity was taking Teixeira down and keeping him there, though the point became moot once Jones had beaten him so badly everywhere else.

It was perhaps not the champion’s most exciting performance (at some point, it seemed like he should’ve stopped Teixeira). He may also court a bit of controversy after he was warned by referee Dan Miragliotta for poking Teixeira in the eyes with the open-handed stiff-arm he used to keep him at bay throughout the bout.

In the end, though, the lasting takeaway was that Jones remains far and away the fight company’s best all-around performer. With Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva still out of action, he’s one of the few UFC stars whose bouts still feel like appointment viewing.

Even when he has to make it up as he goes along.

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UFC 172: The Card That Helped MMA Not Suck Anymore

(Photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

UFC 172 wasn’t terribly interesting on paper. “Who cares about Jon Jones vs. Glover Teixeira and a bunch of other mismatches?” we all asked. And we were right to. MMA had been in a slump. Good cards were sparse–islands in a sea terrible TUF finales, awful Fight Pass exclusives, and PPVs not worth the $60 price tag.

Last night changed all that (well, it did if you ignore UFC 173)

I know what you’re thinking. “Tone down the hyperbole a bit, Matt…and by a bit we mean several orders of magnitude.” Let me explain.

(Photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

UFC 172 wasn’t terribly interesting on paper. “Who cares about Jon Jones vs. Glover Teixeira and a bunch of other mismatches?” we all asked. And we were right to. MMA had been in a slump. Good cards were sparse—islands in a sea terrible TUF finales, awful Fight Pass exclusives, and PPVs not worth the $60 price tag.

Last night changed all that (well, it did if you ignore UFC 173)

I know what you’re thinking. “Tone down the hyperbole a bit, Matt…and by a bit we mean several orders of magnitude.” Let me explain.

Remember when Ronda Rousey and her stable of teammates (Jessamyn Duke, Marina Shafir, and Shayna Baszler) proclaimed themselves the Four Horsewomen—MMA’s equivalent to the legendary pro wrestling stable? As controversial as it might’ve been, the name stuck…and Bethe Correia took note of it. When she defeated Jessamyn Duke via unanimous decision, she pulled off one of the sickest burns since Ronda Rousey refused to shake hands with a defeated Miesha Tate. Correia put four fingers in the air, and knocked one down, representing one horsewoman down, and three to go. K-1 level trolling right there. See it for yourself (h/t Zombie Prophet).

This clever taunt can be turned into a meaningful feud with the right promotion. Why not match up Correia with Shayna Baszler and market it as a grudge match? The women’s bantamweight division is shallow and pallid. There’s not much talent, and there’s even less buzz around anyone not named Ronda Rousey. Even though a potential Four Horsewoman vs. Bethe Correia feud still technically involves Rousey in some capacity, it’ll at least attempt to create some kind of narrative in the weight class other than “Ronda Rousey vs. Opponent. Buy it.”

Lightweight, too, had its fire rekindled. Jim Miller choked Yancy Medeiros unconscious in a wondrous display of grappling technique (and violence). But better than that was his post-fight call out of practically the entire lightweight division—Khabib Nurmagomedov, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, and more. Jim Miller’s aggressiveness is welcome in a division lacking its champion as well as perennial shit-starter Nate Diaz. Miller-Nurmagomedov or Miller-Cerrone are both great matches—ones that make MMA what it should be: Fights between the most talented fighters.

An honorable mention goes to Luke Rockhold‘s unreal domination of Tim Boetsch. While this was a sight to behold; it didn’t necessarily shake the division up. Middleweight was intriguing enough.

The most interesting development of all, however, was Anthony “Rumble” Johnson‘s resurgence. Johnson made Phil Davis (who’s built like a comic book superhero) not only look like a neophyte wrestler, but a neophyte wrestler who was about three weight classes lighter. In a division where Jon Jones rules over everyone with an iron elbow, a new, viable contender is not only welcomed but necessary. Before Johnson’s fight, the only meaningful light heavyweight fight on the horizon was Jon Jones-Alexander Gustafsson II. Now we have Anthony Johnson carving a bloody path through the light heavyweight top-10 to look forwards to.

MMA had been in a rut the last few months. Some recent fight cards have made fans never want to watch MMA again. This card wasn’t one of them. UFC 172 helped MMA not suck. There’s stuff to look forward to now. Let’s hope the trend continues.

Jon Jones Clowns on Phil Davis at UFC 172 Post-Fight Presser

Jon Jones was all smiles after thoroughly dominating Glover Teixeira for five rounds at UFC 172. You could tell in the cage shortly after the fight, sure. It wasn’t until the post-fight press conference, though, that he showed how walking-on-air deligh…

After a “performance issue” with the Maryland Athletic Commission regarding his post-fight urine sample, he entered the media room, cracked jokes, laughed it up with the press, ate some potato chips with Luke Rockhold and shot the breeze.

That said, he was still a bit sore about Phil Davis’ actions over the previous week and, when asked about how his performance against Teixeira related back to his previous win over Alexander Gustafsson, Jones took the chance to take swipes at his former potential-opponent-of-the-future.

“I’m happy, I know I keep saying that…Phil Davis isn’t happy,” he said before reaching across Dana White‘s podium to high-five Davis’ opponent that night, Anthony “Rumble” Johnson. “He was talking all that greasiness, and now he’s somewhere pouting.”

Ouch!

For those who didn’t see it, Davis has been throwing a lot of vitriol in the direction of Jones. At the April 21 conference call for UFC 172, Davis hijacked the happenings in order to barb Jones and rub in the controversial nature of his win over Alexander Gustafsson. Two days later, at the event’s media day, he again took shots at Jones while also dismissing Johnson.

Davis’ “uppance” came with a vengeance, though, when Johnson beat him in surprisingly lopsided fashion. While many expected Davis to bully the former welterweight with his solid wrestling, Johnson shrugged off his takedowns and roughed him up with his superior striking. Right or wrong, that has many believing that Davis wrongly looked past Johnson.

While Jones was smiley for most of the conference, he quickly got serious when asked about his next opponent, Alexander Gustafsson, whom he has been in a heated war of words with. Given Davis’ close relationship with the Swede, that likely means we haven’t seen the last exchange between the two wrestlers.

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Jon Jones vs. Glover Teixeira Results: Bones Proves True Contenders Are Rare

Jon Jones isn’t invincible after all.
That’s what many were saying after Swedish light heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson pushed the reigning champion to his limits in their title fight back at UFC 165 in 2013.
After his five-round dismantlin…

Jon Jones isn’t invincible after all.

That’s what many were saying after Swedish light heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson pushed the reigning champion to his limits in their title fight back at UFC 165 in 2013.

After his five-round dismantling of Glover Teixeira at UFC 172? Well, maybe that glimmer of mortality can only be seen by those tall enough to look Jones in the eye.

In Jones’ first fight back since “The Mauler” made him look human, he looked decidedly inhuman once again. The champion utilized his range early on in the fight to open up a lead against the Brazilian challenger before closing the distance to bludgeon his opponent as the fight wore on.

By the end of the bout, the lopsided numbers spoke for themselves—Bones once again looked like one of the most unbeatable champions in the UFC.

This wasn’t a case of a fighter who didn’t deserve a shot at the belt getting his opportunity too soon, though. Teixeira was more than qualified to be involved in the five-round main event. His ability to finish fights has made him one of the most feared fighters in the division.

With a winning streak that spanned nearly eight years and six fights in the Octagon, there wasn’t much more that Teixeira could do to earn a shot at the champion other than grow an additional two inches and spawn longer arms.

For a man who boasts 13 knockout victories and six submissions, Teixeira did not look like a dangerous fighter on Saturday night. Jones dwarfed the challenger in the cage and often repelled his advances simply by placing his open hand on Teixeira’s forehead, like a schoolyard bully.

The whole spectacle served to highlight the true problem that the UFC will have in creating interesting matchups for the champion. The realistic pool of contenders who can endanger the champion is short.

As great as Teixeira is—and he is a great fighter—he never stood a chance against Jones. The way Bones is able to use his length ends many of his fights before they even start.

All of this isn’t to say that Jones is unbeatable, though. There are still a few fighters that have the potential to end the champion’s reign, with the most obvious being the man who has already taken him to the limit: Gustafsson.

Jones wasn’t willing to talk about the Swede in the post-fight press conference:

Fortunately for inquiring minds, Dana White was, and he stated that Gustafsson will fight Jones next and that the fight could take place in hostile territory for the champion:

Walking away from UFC 172, Jones took a step toward growing his legacy to the stature of Anderson Silva and George St-Pierre. He’s to the point where even the most qualified of contenders won’t have anything to offer him in the Octagon.

But that doesn’t mean his title reign won’t be without exciting challenges, though. With Gustafsson on the horizon, beatdowns like the one Jones delivered against Teixeira aren’t likely to become the norm.

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