Good morning, fight fans! Your usual keeper of the MMA Gradebook,
Kevin Wilson, has the week off, but with International Fight Week
capped off by a typically loaded
Ultimate Fighting Championship offering from
Las Vegas, your humble guest columnist steps in to pinch-hit.
This is another card that desperately needs the Gradebook, as
Saturday’s card offered a stark mix of thrilling finishes and
frankly dull one-sided beatdowns. Here are all 12 fights from UFC
239: Jones vs. Santos, rated for, as Mr. Wilson says,
“competitiveness, showcase of skill and technique, finishes, and
the story and heightened drama of the contest.” Whenever possible,
I’ll rate the fights without spoiling the outcomes.
Veteran bantamweight Kianzad welcomes
Invicta FC transplant Avila to the UFC.
Charmingly, Avila’s nickname is “Raging Panda” and her declared
style, back in the Invicta days, was “competitive snuggling.”
Sadly, as introduced by Bruce Buffer, she’s just a “mixed martial
artist” now. Equally sadly, the introduction was pretty much the
most suspenseful part of the fight. A straightforward sweep in
which the loser was game, but rightfully lost all three rounds.
[2.0]
“The Austrian Wonderboy” Naurdiev takes on relative late bloomer
Rencountre -- who debuted in the UFC at age 31 -- in a battle of
rising welterweights. Even more so than the opener, this one was a
straight-up wipeout. I’d say this: watch the first round and if you
enjoy it, keep watching, because you’re going to get more of the
same. [2.0]
Now we’re cooking with gas! The British paratrooper and the
21-year-old
Dana White's Contender Series export meet in an
effort to get onto the suddenly-crowded middleweight ladder. The
winner here wipes out the loser in very short order; it’s the first
of what will end up being four first-round finishes tonight, and a
very impressive show of transition between phases of MMA.
[3.25]
Same as with the Marshman-Shahbazyan fight, this bantamweight
affair benefits from the simple fact that any fight that ends in
less than a round is not asking for much of your time. Blistering
finish that netted the winner a “Performance of the Night” bonus on
an evening with no shortage of deserving candidates. [3.5]
This fight should have been better than it was. It promised more:
former title challenger Gadelha, trying to show that her days of
contention aren’t over, and Markos, looking to finally break
through after alternating wins and losses (in generally
entertaining fights) seemingly forever. Instead, this one was a bit
of a dud. Competitive throughout, but a slow-paced affair that left
me less excited for either woman’s next fight. [1.75]
Proof that a fight doesn’t have to be close in order to be
enjoyable to watch, rising bantamweight star Vera stakes his
three-fight win streak -- all by finish -- against Hernandez, a UFC
newcomer who stepped up on two weeks’ notice. The winner ran game
here, with an impressive workrate even by 135-pound standards, and
a fantastic arsenal of offensive techniques on display. [3.5]
I cannot for the life of me understand why the UFC chose to close
the prelims with this fight. They had to know how it would go, as
former
Strikeforce champ Melendez, once arguably the top
lightweight in the sport, dragged a four-fight losing streak into
the cage against Allen, a young and hungry fighter who had heard
the final horn three times in his five previous UFC fights. The
fight delivered exactly what it promised: a dismal, one-sided
shellacking, with Melendez too tough to be finished and too shot to
offer any hope of a comeback. [1.25]
The main card opens with what is, on paper, a less depressing
version of Melendez vs. Allen, as Sanchez, while clearly not the
fighter he was eight or 10 years ago, has had a minor career
resurgence in the last year. Unfortunately, he was booked to face
Chiesa, who had been a top-10 lightweight right up until he decided
to move to 170 and announced his presence with a dominant
performance against
Carlos
Condit in December. Would “The Nightmare” continue his unlikely
run, or would “Maverick” continue to rise towards contention in his
new division? The fight was one-sided and only became more so as
the rounds went on, but you never felt the loser was completely out
of it until the final half a round or so. [2.25]
This fight promised to answer some pressing questions about
Rockhold: Would the move to light heavyweight solve the problems
that had seen the former champ hit a ceiling at 185, namely a
suspect chin and gas tank, or would it only expose that chin to
even bigger hitters, while diminishing the size advantage he once
enjoyed? Blachowicz, as a solid top-10 205-pounder and very much a
known quantity in the division, seemed the perfect test. This fight
was competitive right up until it wasn’t, and it ended up with yet
one more losing fighter knocked stiff on a night full of nasty
finishes. [3.5]
I imagine this fight has been spoiled for you already. If it
hasn’t, I want you to close your Twitter and Facebook tabs
immediately and go watch it. Of all the fights you have ever heard
described as “don’t blink” affairs, this is the one that most
deserves it. It’s one of the most brutal finishes in the history of
the sport, and gets my vote as the all-time greatest example of the
specific technique on display. Yowsers. [4.0]
This was a high-stakes affair for both women for different reasons.
Two-division champ Nunes was looking to lodge her first defense of
the bantamweight belt since adding the featherweight strap to her
mantel, extending her greatest-of-all-time résumé in the process,
while former champ Holm wanted to prove there was still plenty of
life in her at age 37 and with a new six-fight contract in hand.
Going in, the fight felt closer and more tense than the long odds
would seem to indicate, probably due in part to the indelible image
of Holm knocking out
Ronda
Rousey in one of the biggest upsets in MMA history; it’s hard
to count someone out completely after that. The fight was a
cracking affair for as long as it lasted, and the finish was
emphatic -- it would have been the knockout of the night on just
about any other night. We can't help it if the display graphic
spoils this one just a bit, but just know the whole thing is worth
your time. [3.5]
When you have a fighter like Jones, who has yet to suffer a true
in-cage defeat, there are really only two ways to make his fights
interesting. Either he must do spectacular things to his opponents,
or the audience has to believe that the opponent has a chance to
catch him, hurt him and perhaps finish him. It’s the reason his
fight with
Anthony
Smith was so dull; it became apparent very early on that Smith
had nothing for him, and Jones was content to chip away at him
without overextending himself. I won’t spoil the ending of this
one, but I will say this: Santos had me believing he could catch,
hurt and perhaps finish Jones, more so than anyone since
Alexander
Gustafsson in their first meeting, and maybe even more than
Gustafsson. There’s some dissension among fans in the wake of this
fight, but it was pretty riveting viewing. It’s definitely the most
exciting Jones fight since UFC 165. [3.75]
