Coming into UFC 156, fans and pundits slavered over this densely packed card. The pay-per-view segment featured four current or former major league MMA champions and six guys who at some point fought for a UFC belt.
Overall, this was a very good card. The excitement extended well beyond that star-studded main card, too. The highlights extended all up and down the line, from Facebook to finale.
But do the results alone tell the whole story? If you just said yes, then I would like to correct you there and tell you that no, they do not. Outcomes are but the tip of the iceberg.
What are those outcomes not telling you? What lurks behind their curtain? Who were the real winners and losers here tonight at the casino? Read on, why don't you?
Francisco Rivera was off to a perfect start in his second stint with the UFC. But he had to go and flame down a bathroom and get himself a no-contest ruling and a nice, fat suspension.
This was his first fight back. They didn't exactly welcome him back with a Fudgie the Whale, either; he got Edwin Figueroa. But Rivera showed Figueroa and everyone else that he still hits harder than any other UFC bantamweight.
All throughout fight week, Volkmann told anyone who would listen that he already had his post-fight soliloquy all mapped out. All he had to do was handle Bobby Green, and then he could get in the cage with Joe Rogan and get down to the real business at hand.
Unfortunately, he didn't clear his speech plan with Green ahead of time. Volkmann was probably winning on the judges' scorecards when he gassed during the final round. Green pounced and scored the submission victory.
Volkmann was a two-time loser Saturday night. He lost a fight, then squandered his big chance to make himself more famous. It's a big, huge pity, is what it is.
"I'm declaring war on the welterweight division," Tyron Woodley told broadcaster Joe Rogan in the cage. Based on his performance Saturday night, it appears the shock-and-awe phase may have commenced.
In his UFC debut, Woodley blitzed his way to a win over veteran Jay Hieron, dropping Hieron with a massive punch and ending the fight with ground strikes just 36 seconds into the opening round.
Before Woodley put the welterweight division on notice, his fellow Strikeforce refugees were putting in their own work. Bobby Green pounded out Volkmann, and the hyper-aggressive Isaac Vallie-Flagg took a surprise split decision over Yves Edwards.
By the way, I'm not counting Strikeforce vets Edwards, Hieron, Antonio Silva or Alistair Overeem in this, since they all left for and debuted in the UFC well before Strikeforce folded.
You have to love the flyweights. Ian McCall and Joseph Benavidez battled all over the Octagon for 15 frenetic minutes. There were heavy strikes, especially from Benavidez in the beginning. There were sharp exchanges from the clinch.
And there were some masterful—and I don't use that term loosely—sequences on the ground from the two best wrestlers in the division. McCall, in particular, used those to score.
After the adrenaline drained out, McCall seemed to start getting the better of Benavidez. But Benavidez stayed on his horse down the stretch and rode it to the unanimous decision win over "Uncle Creepy."
Fitch lost to Demian Maia by unanimous decision. But the fight was more a testament to the greatness of the winner than some mistake or shortcoming by the loser.
So why is Fitch on this list? Let me express that same sentiment from another angle: Jon Fitch is Jon Fitch. Jon Fitch is a grinder who exerts his will by gaining and holding control and fending off submissions and whatever else.
If he can't do it, he won't win. It's either enough or it isn't. Fitch is still a very, very good fighter, but I think Maia may have exposed him more definitively than anyone has before.
How can you not be happy for Antonio Silva? Alistair Overeem had been scoffing in his face since the UFC announced the fight. And he was doing it during the fight, too. The Reem had quite the permasmirk going, holding his hands down and practically blowing kisses to "Bigfoot" in the center of the cage.
Then came those heavy blows in the third round, and finally the smirk was gone. Silva went crazy, shouting, it seemed, as much in catharsis as in triumph.
And to be honest, The Reem's got no one to blame but The Reem. He didn't seem to take Silva seriously until it was too late, at which point Silva appeared to Overeem as an angry Viking riding a unicorn, and Overeem was giving a speech alright, except he was in his underwear.
What a poor fight for Rashad Evans. Little action, little urgency, little damage done from either side. Lots of apathy, though. And even worse, Alistair Overeem, his teammate in the Blackzilians camp—the camp Rashad Evans helped create—had been knocked out cold 15 minutes earlier.
That's what Jacob Volkmann with his speeches, Alistair Overeem with his disrespect and Rashad Evans with his Anderson Silva/middleweight talk were doing. (Maybe Yves Edwards was doing it, too.)
I'll be honest: I had Frankie Edgar winning the fight. Aldo did more damage, especially with some of those patented banshee leg kicks during the first two rounds.
Edgar, as he always does, came on as the fight wore on. I believe he did enough to win the final three rounds and the fight.
Still, though, it was a very, very close fight. Edgar, as he always is when this happens to him (which is always), was gracious in defeat. And I think he summed it up succinctly in his comments to broadcaster Joe Rogan immediately after the fight: "Jose Aldo's the winner."
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