UFC 170 in Las Vegas was filled with plenty of exciting action and thrilling results.
While Ronda Rousey squaring off with Sara McMann was certain to draw headlines, it was far from the only result on the card that turned heads.
Let’s dig i…
UFC 170 in Las Vegas was filled with plenty of exciting action and thrilling results.
While Ronda Rousey squaring off with Sara McMann was certain to draw headlines, it was far from the only result on the card that turned heads.
Let’s dig into a discussion of some of the notable results of the card.
Ronda Rousey vs. Sara McMann
It was only fitting that two former Olympic medalists made waves at UFC 170 as the 2014 Games were ongoing in Sochi.
Rousey registered the TKO on McMann to pick up her seventh first-round victory and first win by TKO. Before defeating McMann, all of Rousey’s previous wins had come by armbar.
While Rousey eventually tallied the win, it was McMann who got off to a quick start. She held Rousey off and even got in a few blows of her own, but Rousey landed an impressive elbow right before finishing off McMann with a knee.
The crowd wasn’t particularly pleased that the referee waved the match at 1:06 in the first. However, it was clear Rousey was the better competitor on the night.
Patrick Cummins vs. Daniel Cormier
Rouseywasn’t the only one to make headlines at UFC 170.
Daniel Cormier extended his perfect record to an impressive 14-0 with a first-round TKO of Patrick Cummins.
Cummins failed on an early takedown attempt, and Cormier took advantage by landing a number of shots and combinations. The bout was waved at 1:19, giving Cormier a decisive victory over Cummins.
Cormier was pleased with his wins in comments that were passed along by UFC.com: “I feel good because it’s my first finish in UFC. Training camp was long and hard and I prepared for a long fight. I’m going to stay in this cycle and be this healthy in every camp.”
Looking ahead, Cormier did enough to break into his new division’s rankings by beating Cummins.
Cormier was ranked No. 4 at heavyweight and did more than enough to impress in victory at UFC 170.
Stephen Thompson vs. Robert Whittaker
Stephen Thompson and Robert Whittaker may have been squaring off in a welterweight bout, but it certainly thrilled fans.
Professional MMA fighter Sarah Kaufman apparently predicted the result before it started:
Thompson registered the TKO on Whittaker, but Whittaker performed admirably with his early jabs and boxing prowess. Thompson is known for his kickboxing skills, but Whittaker was able to hold that off early in the match.
However, Thompson eventually settled in and landed an impressive left punch to turn the momentum. That is when Thompson started attacking with hooks and numerous impressive blows, until the match was called at 3:43.
UFC 170 was a fairly bland card in terms of star power Saturday night from Las Vegas. It wasn’t helped by the last-minute replacement of Rashad Evans by Patrick Cummins and the attempts to create a narrative around that mismatch. Despite the one-minute…
UFC 170 was a fairly bland card in terms of star power Saturday night from Las Vegas. It wasn’t helped by the last-minute replacement of Rashad Evans by Patrick Cummins and the attempts to create a narrative around that mismatch. Despite the one-minute finishes in both the main and co-main events which failed to get going, one fight really saved the card for me.
The true fight of the night, and one which was a treat on all levels, was Demian Maia vs. Rory MacDonald.
Fork in the Road
Both Maia and MacDonald have been on the end of some pretty severe criticism in recent performances.
Maia was once the most feared grappler in MMA, but then he tried to round out his game and began to get involved in mediocre stand-up affairs. MacDonald, for his part, was considered the new breed: an all around killer, but his snoozefest against Jake Ellenberger turned that around over night.
MacDonald suffered exactly the same problem as his stablemate, Georges St. Pierre. His jab worked so well that once it was removed, by meeting a southpaw, he had no other weapons. Robbie Lawler beat him up and knocked him down in their match in November, and MacDonald was out of title contention and back to the drawing board.
At UFC 170, despite their fight providing a clear-cut winner, we got to see both men returning to what made them so great.
The Leg Weave/Dope Mount
Maia showed immediately that he is still the premier grappler in mixed martial arts as he quickly took down MacDonald with a single leg. MacDonald showed that tendency we have been seeing from wrestlers in recent months to use butterfly guard, because of the opportunities it can allow to scramble back up to the feet.
What Maia did so masterfully on the ground was to constantly look to remove one of MacDonald’s hooks, taking away a good deal of control from MacDonald.
Once he had achieved this, Maia would look to use a hip switch to drive his knee across the middle of MacDonald’s guard and achieve a leg weave position. This position is variously called a smash pass, a leg weave, dope mount or even Penn mount, after B.J. Penn who utilized it a great deal against Jens Pulver, TakanoriGomi and others.
Notice how as soon as MacDonald attempts to elevate Maia’s hips (and he can only do it on one side now, making it a predictable action), Maia switches his hips and drives that knee to the mat. This crosses MacDonald’s legs and flattens them. From here, Maia lands a nice knee and moves into mount.
You can also see Penn hitting variations of the pass in several clips in this excellent piece of guard-passing collection. Being Penn, he would often chill out in the dope mount and soften his opponent with punches to the face.
ShinyaAoki also uses this pass masterfully in MMA.
It was beautiful to watch Maia show the kind of high-level jiu-jitsu we have all wanted to see from him since he began his attempts to become a more rounded fighter and forgot his BJJ roots.
MacDonald showed the incredible value of the butterfly guard in the third round, however, as he used it to create space and get back to his feet.
More Than Just the Jab
MacDonald impressed enormously by showing that he has a full arsenal of strikes, not just the same flicking jab which he stuck to against Ellenberger. MacDonald’s jab, however, still found far more of a home than it should have against a southpaw.
Notice how low Maia carries his lead hand. It might not look particularly low, and if he were against a fighter in the same stance as him, it wouldn’t matter much, but that lead hand is the check to the jab in a southpaw vs. orthodox (open guard) engagement.
In an “open guard” battle it is supposed to be hard to land jabs. You are supposed to get “crossed swords” and check each other’s attempts at the jab. Maia’s low lead hand, which he carries that way in hopes of landing his money right hook when his opponent steps in, means that MacDonald was able to thread the needle with his jab all night.
It is fairly easy to parry a straight punch across the body or downward. It is much, much harder to parry a punch outward. Think the difference between your bench press and your back hand. It’s not impossible, some Thai’s set up knees by parrying jabs outward by reaching over the top of the punch, but few fighters can parry a punch with their parrying hand beginning inside their shoulder and finishing outside of it.
It’s just not how your body works.
If you can get a jab going effectively, even just flicking at the opponent’s lead-side eye, from open guard, it can start to cause overreactions in the opponent’s guard, which makes the rear hand straight easier to land. The Japanese boxer, HozumiHasegawa, was phenomenal at using a seemingly inconsequential southpaw jab to create a path for his left straight directly to the chin.
Even if Maia had seen the punches coming and tried to get his arm in the way or redirect MacDonald’s blow, he’d have had a hard old time doing it. If his hand had been up, level with his shoulder, checking MacDonald’s lead and denying it the straight path, the fight could have turned out differently.
It was an absolute pleasure, however, to witness the return of MacDonald’s body kicks. MacDonald has all manner of kicks along all different trajectories. He doesn’t just show the same roundhouse kick with the top of the foot or shin again and again, as Maia often does. No, MacDonald with land with the shin, the top of the foot or the ball of the foot, and he will change target and angle.
And goodness did it work. By Round 2, Maia looked exhausted from some of the biting body kicks which MacDonald had thrown. Each time Maia’s head came forward, up came a front snap kick at his chin, or a roundhouse kick at his head. Every time these kicks forced Maia back upright it was back to the stiff one-two, or the kicks to the body.
You will always hear me saying how undervalued body strikes are in general in MMA—particularly long kicks to the body, and especially snap kicks with the ball of the foot. Watching MacDonald when he is on his game is akin to seeing what KatsunoriKikuno (click here to read my high opinions of that guy’s style) could do with a fully rounded skill set and some top-flight experience inside the UFC under his karate black belt.
Even though Maia was severely outmatched on the feet, he did show a neat counter kick which we rarely see in MMA. That is to kick the standing leg underneath an opponent’s kick. The best consistent example of this counter throughout a fight is, of course, FedorEmelianenko vs. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic.
Whether you cared about the main and co-main event or not, Maia vs. MacDonald is worth catching up on because it provided a technical chess match and a blood-and-guts battle.
Pick up Jack’s eBooksAdvanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.
Ronda Rousey may have been the star attraction at UFC 170, but Daniel Cormier was the one who took home the bigger paycheck, according to the disclosed payroll numbers released by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
MMAWeekly.com reported the numbers…
Ronda Rousey may have been the star attraction at UFC 170, but Daniel Cormier was the one who took home the bigger paycheck, according to the disclosed payroll numbers released by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
Rousey steamrolled fellow Olympian Sara McMann on Saturday night to record her third consecutive UFC title defense. The women’s bantamweight champ proved she was anything but a one-trick pony by forgoing the usual armbar finish and notching her first ever TKO stoppage.
McMann’s punching power had no effect on Rousey, who quickly closed the distance and roughed the wrestler up in the clinch with dirty boxing. Many truly believed McMann would serve as Rousey’s most difficult test in the Octagon, but a knee to the liver and a controversial TKO stoppage by referee Herb Dean at 66 seconds into the first round put that notion to rest rather quickly.
In the co-main event, former heavyweight contender Daniel Cormier made his light heavyweight debut against UFC newcomer Patrick Cummins.
Originally slated to fight Rashad Evans, Cormier accepted a late replacement bout against Cummins, one of his former training partners for the 2004 Olympic games. There was plenty of back-and-forth jawing between the two leading up to the bout, but the actual fight played out exactly the way one would expect on paper.
Cummins, a fighter drastically lacking in experience, was completely annihilated in an 89-second TKO loss to Cormier, who is arguably one of the top pound-for-pound fighters on the planet. The UFC marketing team definitely deserves a huge pat on the back for selling Cummins’ chances of pulling off a historical upset in an obvious mismatch.
Cormier tops the base salary list with a $160,000 purse, while Rousey comes in at a close second with $110,000.
The UFC also handed out $50,000 bonuses for “Performance of the Night” and “Fight of the Night.” Rousey and Steven “Wonderboy” Thompson both took home bonuses for top performances, and “Fight of the Night” went to the welterweight scrap between Rory MacDonald and Demian Maia.
Here is MMAWeekly’s full list of disclosed salaries from UFC 170. Keep in mind, this list doesn’t include sponsorship money or discretionary locker room bonuses that may have been given by the UFC.
(Cormier spent more on Popeye’s delivery that night than Durkins made for getting his ass kicked. / Props: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports, via MMAJunkie)
Ronda Rousey ($110,000, including $55,000 win bonus and $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus)
def. Sara McMann ($16,000)
Daniel Cormier ($160,000, including $80,000 win bonus)
def. Patrick Cummins ($8,000)
Rory MacDonald ($150,000, including $50,000 win bonus and $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
def. Demian Maia ($114,000, including $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
(Cormier spent more on Popeye’s delivery that night than Durkins made for getting his ass kicked. / Props: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports, via MMAJunkie)
Ronda Rousey ($110,000, including $55,000 win bonus and $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus)
def. Sara McMann ($16,000)
Daniel Cormier ($160,000, including $80,000 win bonus)
def. Patrick Cummins ($8,000)
Rory MacDonald ($150,000, including $50,000 win bonus and $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
def. Demian Maia ($114,000, including $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus)
Mike Pyle ($96,000, including $48,000 win bonus)
def. T.J. Waldburger ($18,000)
Stephen Thompson ($78,000, including $14,000 win bonus and $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus)
def. Robert Whittaker ($15,000)
Alexis Davis ($30,000, including $15,000 win bonus)
def. Jessica Eye ($8,000)
Raphael Assunção ($56,000, including $28,000 win bonus)
def. Pedro Muhnoz ($8,000)
Erik Koch ($30,000, including $15,000 win bonus)
def. Rafaello Oliveira ($14,000)
Ernest Chavez ($16,000, including $8,000 win bonus)
def. Yosdenis Cedeno ($8,000)
Not sure if underpaid or overpaid: Let’s be real, Patrick Cummins could have been killed in there. On the other hand, would you rather take a 79-second ass-whuppin’ from Daniel Cormier, or work for 800 hours in a coffee shop making hot drinks for assholes at $10/hour? Cummins got an opportunity that most up-and-coming fighters would probably take for free, sadly.
I’d say that Cummins is “not ready for the UFC” at this point, but of course he is. At 4-1, he’s more than qualified to compete on the prelims of an international Fight Pass event, where he’d face off against another too-green prospect for the opportunity to fight on future Fight Pass cards.
That’s the best case scenario for Cummins right now, because he accepted an invite to the big show too soon. In the UFC, you’re either a fighter the promotion wants to develop, or the meat that gets fed to them. Maybe two or three years from now Patrick Cummins could have been a prospect that the UFC was actually interested in. Instead, he chose to be the meat, after being fooled by one of the biggest lies in the MMA promoter’s handbook: Anything can happen in this sport.
Patrick Cummins faced the wrath of an amped-up Daniel Cormier at UFC 170, and the UFC newcomer performed…not so well.
Cummins ate several hard shots from Cormier in Round 1, dropping to a knee and eventually turtling up and forcing the referee …
Patrick Cummins faced the wrath of an amped-up Daniel Cormier at UFC 170, and the UFC newcomer performed…not so well.
Cummins ate several hard shots from Cormier in Round 1, dropping to a knee and eventually turtling up and forcing the referee to intervene.
In just 80 seconds, Cummins’ UFC debut was over, and a week’s worth of trash-talking was settled (and not in his favor).
The fight went poorly for the former barista Cummins, but it was not an indication of his eventual place in the UFC’s light heavyweight division.
Let’s cut through the pre-fight buildup and realistically analyze this fight.
Daniel Cormier was supposed to win. He’s undefeated, he’s beaten two current UFC top-10 heavyweights in Josh Barnett and Antonio Silva, and he trains at one of the nation’s best gyms at American Kickboxing Academy with the sport’s best heavyweight, Cain Velasquez.
This man is destined for mixed martial arts greatness.
Making the drop to light heavyweight, Cormier was set to face former 205-pound UFC champion Rashad Evans. Unfortunately, that matchup didn’t pan out after Evans suffered an injury, and Cummins stepped up to the plate for what would be his biggest test to date…by a landslide.
No matter how much smack Cummins talked or how vigorously he stirred the pot leading up to his bout with Cormier, understand this: Cummins is not Rashad Evans. You probably had not heard of Cummins before this series of events unfolded.
That tells you everything you need to know about his chances against a proven animal like Cormier. This is important to understand when soaking in my next statement.
Patrick Cummins can still make a name for himself in the UFC’s 205-pound division.
Will he become champion? Probably not. But the dude can fight, and he’s putting in the time and effort to improve, and he’s surrounding himself with the right people at MMA. That’s a good start.
Now, he just needs to get more comfortable on the big stage and face more reasonable opposition. As B/R lead writer Jonathan Snowden pointed out before the UFC 170 co-main event, Cormier vs. Cummins does not make sense. It’s insane.
One does not simply quit his job as a barista, walk into the UFC and dispatch of a top-5 fighter and world-class athlete like Cormier.
That said, Cummins isn’t a nobody in the athletic realm. He’s a former Division I standout wrestler, and he was previously undefeated in his MMA career, boasting a 4-0 record over questionable opposition.
His Octagon jitters should be thoroughly flushed now (thank to Cormier’s sledgehammer fists), and with a full training camp in his next fight, we will be able to gauge Cummins’ ceiling more accurately. Thankfully, he’s in one of the promotion’s shallowest divisions, and names like Ryan Jimmo, Anthony Perosh and Ilir Latifi await.
The step from names like those to Daniel Cormier is considerable, and Cummins’ full worth can be showcased as he takes on this lower echelon of UFC light heavyweight talent.
He didn’t look that bad…
He lost in 80 seconds.
He got knocked out in under two minutes.
He didn’t last a full round.
I get it. The bottom line in this fight is bad for Cummins.
The results weren’t pretty, but what we did see of Cummins was not terrible. It was actually better than I had expected.
Cummins flicked a nice, sharp jab in Cormier’s face, and he scored with low kicks against the former heavyweight fighter, notching eight significant strikes during his quick debut.
Unfortunately, he failed on all three of his takedown attempts, but these came largely in desperation after getting clipped with hard shots from “DC.”
The takeaway here is that Cummins was unafraid and aggressive, and he looked quick and capable.
And that he got caught. That part matters, too, I suppose.
How good can he be?
This remains to be seen.
Before the fight, Cummins told Bleacher Report in an interview that he had signed a multi-fight deal with the UFC, and Dana White, the promotion’s president, reiterated this fact in a post-fight media scrum, saying (quotes via MMAjunkie.com):
“Yeah, we’ll give him another fight. We’ll give him a fight he can prepare for.”
Given his performance against Cormier, one would expect this fight to come against a name like Jimmo or Perosh, somebody who is not a top-10 talent.
Until then, understand that Cummins was bested at UFC 170, but also understand that his performance against Cormier may not be an accurate reflection of his overall skill set. He got caught against a far superior opponent, but his early signs of offense and his stacked wrestling credentials tell me that there is something there.
He may not even sniff championship contention, but Cummins can be a solid gatekeeper for the UFC’s 205-pound class.
Don’t be surprised if the often talked about super fight between Ronda Rousey and Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino ends up as another disappointing pipe dream in a long line of potential UFC blockbusters.
Initially, a difference in weight w…
Don’t be surprised if the often talked about super fight between Ronda Rousey and Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino ends up as another disappointing pipe dream in a long line of potential UFC blockbusters.
Initially, a difference in weight was the only hurdle keeping the long-awaited grudge match from happening. It was thought that Cyborg would never be able to make the 135-pound mark without putting her health at serious risk.
She constantly asked Rousey to meet her at 140-pounds for a catch weight bout, but the UFC women’s bantamweight champ wasn’t willing to tack on an extra five pounds to solidify the super fight. Even UFC President Dana White scoffed at the idea of doing a catch weight bout.
With no 145-pound division currently implemented in the UFC, it made little sense for White to risk his champion losing to an outsider.
It wasn’t until Friday’s edition of Inside MMA (h/t MMAFighting.com) that the excitement level for the potential super fight soared once again. In a prepared statement, Cyborg explained that she could make 135-pounds, but her doctor suggested she shouldn’t make a career at that weight.
She announced that she would be dropping to bantamweight in the summer to challenge for the Invicta title. After taking the title, Cyborg vowed that a move to the UFC and a super fight with Rousey would be next on her itinerary:
Now I know critics will say ‘I thought you said you would die if you made 135.’ All I’m promising is that I will give 100 percent to try to get to 135 to make this plan happen. If I do, I will still listen to my doctor’s advice and fight no more than three times at 135: first to win the Invicta belt, the second time to kick your ass and the third time to kick your ass again so that the world can see it wasn’t luck. You can even have me tested every week up to the fight. That way you will not have an excuse after I kick your ass.
Unfortunately, Cyborg’s willingness to meet Rousey at 135-pounds does little to help the chances of this fight actually coming to fruition.
The UFC is still without a 145-pound women’s division, which means Cyborg’s time in the promotion would be short-lived. During the UFC 170post-fight press conference, White stated that Cyborg would have to win a couple of fights at 135-pounds in the UFC before getting an opportunity to challenge Rousey for the title.
Let’s say Cyborg comes in and dominates Rousey in the title fight and the rematch. According to her statement on Inside MMA, she would then return to the featherweight division, which would mean a one way ticket back to Invicta.
Why should the UFC risk arguably its biggest draw against someone who probably won’t even be with the promotion after winning the title?
It’s simply not good business for the UFC or Rousey, who has obviously taken it down a notch in calling out Cyborg. People will undoubtedly attack the UFC for “protecting Rousey” from a fighter many believe to truly be the best in the world, and to a certain extent, they are absolutely correct.
With Georges St-Pierre on an indefinite vacation and Anderson Silva sidelined with a broken leg, Rousey is now arguably the biggest star in the UFC.
One doesn’t simply throw a golden ticket into a shark tank.
UFC 170 in Las Vegas was filled with plenty of exciting action and thrilling results.
