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Urijah Faber's big moment came and went on Saturday at UFC 132 against Dominick Cruz with him falling just short in his quest to become the bantamweight championship. He did have moments where he looked good, like he could steal three rounds and win the fight, but it was not meant to be.

He lost a unanimous decision on scores of 50-45, 49-46 and 48-47. The judge who scored the fight 50-45 should be stripped of their license because they have no idea how to score a fight, because there is no way that Cruz won all five rounds but that's another story.

It was clear to everyone watching the fight that Cruz had won. He did more over the course of five rounds to earn a decision in the fight. It wasn't one-sided by any means, but he was the winner and the judges made the right decision.

Apparently the decision wasn't as clear if you were standing in the cage because "The California Kid" thinks that he did more than enough to earn the win.

"Things that worked for me – I think we're both reaction fighters," Faber said at the post-fight press conference. "I was trying not to react too much to his movement – just kind of stalk him and take his best shots and land the heavier shots.

"I know I landed some heavy shots in there and rocked him a couple of times, and apparently it wasn't enough, so I'll have to see exactly what happened.

"He used the kicks quite a bit, but I was blocking a lot of them. Even the high kicks – not one connected. A couple of the low kicks connected, but I think the main factor must have been the amount of punches because that's the only thing that I can think of."

If you look at the stats from the fight, they do tell an interesting story. According to Compustrike, Cruz landed 99 total punches to Faber's 74. Faber landed 45 power strikes to 38 for Cruz.

But that's just one part of the story. Even when Cruz got knocked down he didn't look to be in trouble. He just got up and reset himself. Neither guy was close to ending the fight, so you have to judge based on skill and technique. In doing that you will see that Cruz clearly won. You could have made a case that it was three rounds to two, but it looked more like four rounds to one.

Faber might think that he did enough to win the fight, but when he does back and looks at the tape he will see that Cruz was the better man.

Melvin Guillard has made quite an impression on UFC brass having won his last five fights, including a ferocious knockout of Shane Roller in the first round of their fight at UFC 132. All of this has led some to wonder whether he is in line to face the winner of the Frankie Edgar-Gray Maynard fight.

You can make a compelling argument for him, and on the list of best 155-pound fighters it doesn't take long before you get to his name. In fact if you ask Guillard, he will tell you that he is the best 155-pound fighter in the world right now.

"I am the best 155-pounder," Guillard said in an interview with MMAjunkie.com. "I'm a finisher. No disrespect to Frankie Edgar or Gray Maynard, but they proved it in the last fight when they fought each other. Gray had him on his heels and didn't finish. I'm a finisher. I go in for the kill. I smell blood."

If you believe that finishing people is a prerequisite to determining who is the best fighter, you could make a legitimate case for Guillard as the best in the division.

Edgar and Maynard have no power to speak of and aren't exactly killing it in the submission category, either. Jim Miller has a lot of submission wins in his career, but has only three in 10 UFC fights. He isn't a knockout artist by any means. Ben Henderson, Anthony Pettis and Clay Guida are exciting to watch and could make a case as being right up there with Guillard in the finisher category.

But as far as guys with true knockout power, there is no one in the division that can touch him. He has seven knockouts in his UFC career, including three in his last four fights. He is as fast as anyone and can make good fighters, like a Shane Roller, look completely inept in the cage.

Edgar is still the class of the division until someone beats him, but Guillard is rapidly approaching in the rear-view mirror.

George Sotiropoulos was in must-win mode at UFC 132 against Rafael dos Anjos. He was coming off a crushing unanimous decision loss to Dennis Siver in February and needed a win if he had any hopes of keeping his name in the crowded lightweight title picture.

So when the bell rang, Sotiropoulos, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and wrestling expert, should have been attacking and trying to get the fight to the ground. Instead, dos Anjos caught him with a big sweeping right hand to the jaw and he collapsed like he was dead.

And that is the end of Sotiropoulos as a contender in the lightweight division. There are few weight classes in MMA that are as crowded near the top as the 155-pound division and every win is so critical and every loss is so crippling. When you lose two fights back-to-back, you have a lot of work to do in order to even get back on the totem pole, let alone a shot at the title.

It doesn't help Sotiropoulos' case that another lightweight, Melvin Guillard, made such a strong impression on everyone with his lightning quick knockout of Shane Roller right after Sotiropoulos was knocked out.

There are at least seven guys that are ahead of him in the division (Guillard, Gray Maynard, Jim Miller, Clay Guida, Ben Henderson, Anthony Pettis, Dennis Siver) and it's going to take a long time for everything in the division to sort itself out.

Sotiropoulos will have to go back to fighting some lesser known guys or mediocre guys for the time being until he proves that he can still go with the cream of the lightweight crop.

At age 33, Sotiropoulos' prime years are slipping away from him. The first loss against Siver wasn't a career killer, but this loss coupled with that one makes Sotiropoulos look more and more like a placeholder in UFC and not a real contender.

If there's one UFC event that I'm really looking forward to, it's UFC 135.  There, newly crowned light heavyweight champion Jon "Bones" Jones will defend his title for the first time against veteran Quinton "Rampage" Jackson.

After a long layoff, Jackson is slowly climbing back up the ranks in the light heavyweight division.  He lost his first fight back to Rashad Evans, but then scored unanimous decision victories over Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida and Matt "The Hammer" Hamill.  His performance against the latter was so dominant that UFC president Dana White chose to give the controversial fighter a title shot.

As much as I love Jackson, and yes that means I'll be rooting for him at UFC 135, I'm not optimistic about his chances against Jones.  He is a great brawler who has really improved his ground game in the past year, but Jones is just a monster.

First of all, Jones is 6'4" to Jackson's 6'1".  On top of that, he has a 10 1/2 inch reach advantage.

Most important, however, is Rampage Jackson's similarity to Jones's last opponent, Ryan "Darth" Bader.  Like Bader, Jackson is a wrestler with a standup game that isn't too shabby.  Bader was submitted in Round 2 of his fight with Jones.

Given how Jones's long arms are a weapon hard to defeat, Jackson had better pray he gets one of them in an armbar and then start cranking away.  Otherwise, he will walk out of the octagon without the belt and have no choice but to fight Rashad Evans again.

Oh well.  At least an awesome feud would be rekindled.

- Josh Benjamin

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Another UFC event has come and gone, and 132 was a good one.  We saw some great knockouts, a fighter believed to be done pull off a great submission, and a main event for the ages.  Overall, each fight taught the fans something.

Let's start with the welterweight match between the versatile Carlos Condit and Judo fighter Dong Hyun Kim.  I thought that this fight would go the distance and that Kim would regularly take it to the ground to grind out either a submission or a victory by decision.

Instead, Condit looked great despite being taken down once.  He recovered quickly and eluded Kim long enough before nailing him with a flying knee and subsequent punches to get the TKO.  In doing so, Condit showed the fans that he is a force to be reckoned with in the welterweight division and just maybe he could get a shot at reigning champion Georges St. Pierre.

The next fight featured UFC veteran Tito Ortiz taking on up-and-comer Ryan Bader in a light heavyweight match.  Fighting for his job, Ortiz needed a win.  Miraculously, he submitted Bader in the first round and scored his first win since 2006.

Despite being written off, it appears that Ortiz still has some gas left in the tank.  Bader, on the other hand, will be fighting for his job soon.  He has lost two fights in a row, both by submission, and his greatest weakness has been exposed.  If he wants another title shot, he needs to win his next few fights handily.

In the lightweight division, kickboxer Dennis Siver (pictured) took on Matt Wiman.  The German sensation won his fourth fight in a row as he fought Wiman to a unanimous decision victory.  Siver has controlled each of those last four fights, so perhaps it is time to consider him for a title shot.

The co-main event of the evening was a great one.  MMA legend Wanderlei Silva made his return after missing over a year due to injury against dangerous middleweight Chris "The Crippler" Leben.  Instead of being a great show, Leben made short work of Silva and knocked him out in 27 seconds.

Afterward, fans could not help but wonder if the former PRIDE star was done fighting.  He is still marketable, but he seems to be struggling with the new generation of fighters.

Finally, the main event gave fans something to cheer about.  Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz fought one another for the Bantamweight Championship.  It was the second time these two would face each other, the first time being at WEC 26 back in 2007.  There, Faber submitted Cruz 1:38 into Round 1 as he defended his featherweight belt.

Last night, however, the tables were turned.  Cruz defeated Faber via unanimous decision to keep his bantamweight belt and keep the feud going.  Yet, anyone who thinks this beef is over is dead wrong.

What should happen next with these two fighters is a rubber match.  Each has won once, so a third fight is needed ASAP to settle the feud once and for all.  It would end a great rivalry, but also be a great fight.

- Josh Benjamin

Brian Bowles is a former WEC bantamweight champion. He has one loss in his career – to current UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz. He has won his last two fights, both under the UFC banner, with a submission win over Damacio Page at UFC on Versus in March and a decision victory over Takeya Mizugaki at UFC 132 on Saturday night.

There was some talk that with a good performance Bowles would be in line for the next bantamweight title shot against Cruz if he had a good showing against Mizugaki. But he didn’t have a particularly good showing, though he did get a win, and it sounds like UFC is going in another direction for the next contender.

From MMAJunkie.com:

"They do this to me every press conference," White joked with UFC matchmakers Joe Silva and Sean Shelby when questioned by MMAjunkie.com. "They want me to make the whole next card."

At that point, it was Shelby, the matchmaker responsible for booking the UFC's featherweight and bantamweight matchups…who offered another possibility.

"Could be Demetrious Johnson (10-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC)," Shelby told MMAjunkie.com.

While I can appreciate UFC wanting to get new blood into the bantamweight title picture, I think that Bowles’ resume is more impressive than Johnson’s, and he warrants more consideration for a title shot right now.

Mizugaki and Page are two top 10 fighters in the bantamweight division, though they aren’t exactly title contenders, and Bowles has beaten both of them in the last four months.

Johnson has beaten an overrated Miguel Torres, who was trying to change his style in that fight which ended up costing him the fight, and Norifumi Yamamoto, who is 1-3 in his last four fights.

I like Johnson and think that he will be a title contender eventually, but his resume as a UFC fighter isn’t as good as Bowles’.

Yes, Bowles did not have a great showing at UFC 132. But sometimes the fighter with a lackluster showing before a title fight will be that much more motivated to prove that he is worthy and he does something special.

But for now Bowles will have to wait and see where things go.

On January 1, South Korean Judo fighter Dong Hyun "Stun Gun" Kim defeated Nate Diaz at UFC 125.  In his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, he made a surprising comment.

"My name is Stun Gun," Kim shouted to the crowd.  "I want GSP!"

GSP is, of course, UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, who is currently on a nine-fight winning streak.  He will next face current Strikeforce welterweight champ Nick Diaz at UFC 137.

Last night, Kim took on Carlos Condit in what was expected to be an epic fight.  All signs pointed to the winner of this bout taking on the winner of St. Pierre vs. Diaz.

About three minutes into the fight, Condit tagged Kim with a flying knee and subsequent punches to score the TKO victory.  If he does indeed fight St. Pierre, the champ will be in for a rude awakening.

Keep in mind, of Condit's 27 wins, 13 have come via knockout and 13 more have come by submission.  He is four inches taller than St. Pierre and both have equally long reaches.

Combine that with St. Pierre's reputation for not finishing fights where he has a clear advantage, and it's perfectly logical that Carlos Condit could take the belt from him.

If this fight actually happens, the oddsmakers in Las Vegas are sure to have a field day.

- Josh Benjamin

Carlos Condit was the WEC welterweight champion before he joined UFC in 2009. He has compiled a 4-1 record in his time with UFC, but has yet to get a shot at the welterweight title. All that figures to change after his brilliant and exciting performance at UFC 132.

Going up against undefeated Dong Hyun-Kim, Condit earned the “Knockout of the Night” bonus with a flying knee and a vicious barrage of punches on the ground that caused Kim’s eyes to roll back into his head.

The welterweight division is bereft of contenders thanks to Georges St-Pierre’s dominance. Nick Diaz had to come over from Strikeforce just to get St-Pierre another fight this year, that’s how dire things were on the UFC side.

But Condit has never complained, never whined, never argued with anyone about getting passed up for a title shot. Now, he is in prime position to get the next shot thanks to his success in the octagon. He wants to take another fight instead of waiting for the winner of Diaz-GSP.

 "I do want to fight again in 2011," Condit said at the post-event press conference. "I know the timeframe may not work out for me to get the next shot, but I want to fight again before the end of the year."

It’s a risky proposition, but with the way that Condit has been going you can’t blame him for wanting to continue doing what he has to in order to get his title shot.

UFC president Dana White had high praise for Condit at the post-show press conference.

 "To be honest, of all the knockouts of the night, his was the most impressive, by far," White said. "How easily he did it, how technical it was, he fought an incredible fight.

"He's looked great in his last two showings. He's proven himself to be one of the best 170-pounders in the world... It was a big win for Carlos Condit."

The title shot is there for Condit’s taking and he has done everything that he can to make it his own. It’s just a matter of time before he is fighting for the welterweight championship.

UFC 132 was the most important mixed martial arts event of the year. Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber, two longtime WEC veterans, were headlining the card in the first ever bantamweight championship fight, and their performance would go a long way to determining the fate of the weight class for a long time to come.

And all things considered, they did a fantastic job of selling the 135-pound division to all the casual MMA fans who were watching this show.

Cruz retained the championship in a fairly one-sided fight, but the atmosphere was absolutely electric for all five rounds. Cruz was a hated man because of his brash, cocky attitude and Faber was a star playing the perfect babyface.

If things had gone bad in this fight, UFC would have had a difficult time trying to market this weight class to fans for a long time. Dana White and Joe Silva would have to stack the undercard just to pop a decent buyrate for pay-per-views.

Now, UFC has two new stars on its hands with Cruz and Faber. Cruz is an exciting and charismatic fighter who the fans love to hate. Faber has a great personality that the people gravitate towards, and even in defeat he was still loved by the people.

It will take time to get the rest of the bantamweight fighters over with a big audience, but the first fight is always the most important, and all things considered it was a rousing success. People on Twitter were clamoring for a rematch, even though I don’t agree with that sentiment, the fact that people want more from these fighters and this division is a HUGE positive for UFC.

There is nothing more that these two men could have done to sell the bantamweight division. They put on a great fight for five rounds, and the people were into everything that they did. This division, and these two fighters, will have a good, long future in UFC.

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A Cinderella story for the ages occurred last night at UFC 132.  Tito Ortiz, known to fans as "The Huntington Beach Bad Boy," took on Ryan "Darth" Bader as he searched for his first win since 2006.  With a loss, Ortiz would have been cut from the UFC and probably run out of MMA completely.

That all being said, Ortiz was a heavy underdog going into the fight, with most anticipating the younger and faster Bader would take him to school.  Instead, the unthinkable happened.  Ortiz nailed Bader with an uppercut, knocking him to the ground, and then jumped in with a tight guillotine choke.  Bader tapped out 1:56 into Round 2.

Now, the question remains: what happens next for Tito Ortiz?  While the win is good for him, he is still 1-4-1 in his last six fights.  Yet, if he is to fight again, I have just the match.

The one draw on Ortiz's record came against Rashad Evans at UFC 73.  Evans is set to face Phil Davis in August at UFC 133, with the winner expected to face the winner of the light heavyweight championship bout between Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Jon "Bones" Jones.

I say regardless of the outcome of Davis vs. Evans, let Ortiz and Evans have a rematch.  If anything, it would give Evans another tuneup fight before taking on Jones or Rampage.

Either way, Ortiz must remember that he is on borrowed time right now.  His win last night was nothing short of luck and in my opinion, he's still washed up.

I suppose only time will tell.

- Josh Benjamin

Last night, former PRIDE legend and fan favorite Wanderlei Silva made his long awaited return to the octagon.  It was Silva's first fight since February 2010, when he earned a unanimous decision victory over Michael Bisping at UFC 110.  The long gap between fights can be attributed to the middleweight first breaking three ribs during training, and then needing knee surgery.

The man known as "The Axe Murderer" went up against Chris "The Crippler" Leben last night in what was expected to be a great fight.  Instead, it was over in less than a minute.

Ring rust reared its ugly head as Silva just got owned.  Leben knocked him out in just 27 seconds and the fans roared.

Given the outcome of the fight, the question presents itself: is Wanderlei Silva done as a fighter?  I hate to say it, but my answer is yes.

Silva is still young at 35 years old, but his record going back to September 2006, when he was in PRIDE.  He has gone 2-5 since losing to Mirko "Cro-Cop" Filipovic and while the win over Bisping was great, Silva just looks old compared to today's up-and-comers.  I know that ring rust was definitely a factor in this bout, but his record going into it works against him.

It would be a shame to see Silva retire considering how he was once a god among men in MMA.  Yet, with veteran fighters struggling to compete with some of the younger guns in the UFC, don't be surprised if Silva retires sooner rather than later.

- Josh Benjamin

Whether you love him or hate him, and most people fall into the latter category, Dominick Cruz is still the UFC bantamweight champion following a dominant victory over Urijah Faber at UFC 132.

The thing that really separated these two men was that unique fighting style that Cruz employs to frustrate his opponents. He is so unique in the way that he attacks that no one can get a good read on what he is going to do, though Faber did seem to be the first person to have any real success against it.

But how long will that style carry Cruz in mixed martial arts?

It’s great to be so different from everyone else, but eventually fighters learn to read the way that you fight and can attack based on some tendency that a fighter has.

Back when Chuck Liddell was in his prime, everyone thought that he was unbeatable because of that rabid punch that he threw to knockout all of his opponents. But as time passed, fighters caught wind of what to look for before he threw that punch and they were able to avoid. Suddenly Liddell was beatable for the first time ever.

Cruz’s style is more complex than Liddell’s, but the premise remains the same. There is going to come a time when his stamina will not be there and he will get caught with a punch or kick and fall in defeat.

Granted, Cruz is only 26 and has plenty of good years left in him. But it’s not as if he is dominating his opponents with a lethal punch combination; he is getting by with cardio. As a fighter gets older, the cardio and stamina is always the first thing to go.

Every fighter has a shelf life on top, but Cruz’s will be shorter than most people because he isn’t getting by just overpowering people in his division. He had to come up with a new fighting style to take control of the 135-pound division.

Think back to February just before UFC 126. Ryan Bader was undefeated and going up against Jon Jones to determine who the next big thing in the light heavyweight division would be. Jones won that fight easily, and Bader’s future, while still bright, looked a little unclear.

Fast forward to today and Bader’s future is completely up in the air. At UFC 132, he was submitted early in the first round against Tito Ortiz, a man who hasn’t won since 2006 and was fighting to save his career.

Bader is still a very good wrestler, but his star has completely faded and there is no telling how long it will take him to get back into the mix in the light heavyweight division.

All of the hype that was surrounding him five months ago is gone and if he loses one more fight he could find himself out of a job.

The problem is that he was so hyped up and made out to look like a future star in the division, I admit I fell into the trap, but he hadn’t actually beaten anyone of real substance prior to fighting Jones and Ortiz. His best win was against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, who is a decent fighter but hasn’t been relevant as a top fighter in years.

Bader can still be a good competitor in the division, but the odds of him being a championship contender or a top guy look to be slim following two consecutive losses.

They say that the easiest way to tell if an athlete will be great is how he responds to adversity. Bader’s first test following adversity didn’t go so well, and now his future looks bleak. He lost to an over-the-hill fighter and didn’t have one moment where he looked good.

All that work that he put into improving his striking to become a more complete fighter doesn’t look like it means much against better competition.

Bader looks more and more like a placeholder in the light heavyweight division than a guy who will seriously challenge for the championship. All that hype that he had five months ago has faded away. All that remains is a once-hot prospect left searching for answers.

There is a saying in sports that there is no such thing as a bad win. The person who came up with that saying clearly wasn't familiar with MMA, because Dennis Siver was victorious at UFC 132 but he did not do himself any favors in the lightweight division.

Siver won a very controversial decision over Matt Wiman. Wiman left Siver's face a bloody mess thanks to a combination of punches and elbows on the ground. Everyone in the MGM Grand and watching around the world thought that Wiman had the fight won, but when the verdict was rendered it went for Siver.

Despite what audiences may say, based on the parameters of the 10-point must system, Siver's win wasn't as shocking as you might think.He got destroyed in the second round, but the first- and third-rounds were very close and could have gone either way.

It was Siver's fourth consecutive win, but it was by far the least impressive win that he has had in quite some time. The lightweight division is so crowded, and it got a little more crowded with Melvin Guillard's exciting knockout of Shane Roller, and a performance like this can set you back for a long time.

For what it's worth, Dana White did have Siver winning the fight on points.

"You guys are going to laugh at this one – but me, Lorenzo and Justin Bieber had scored that fight, and I actually had [Siver] winning the fight," White said. "I gave him the first and third, and there's no doubt who won the second round."

Ignoring the fact that Justin Bieber is scoring fights with Dana White, it doesn't sound like he was too confident in his decision but he does stand by it. That shouldn't be enough to push him over other, more deserving challengers, but it is good for him to have his boss in his corner.

Every fight in the lightweight division is so important because there is so much clutter at the top, and one mediocre performance can drop you so far down that it can take a long time before you are able to pull yourself back up.

Siver will still be in the mix with the other contenders (Clay Guida, Jim Miller, Anthony Pettis, Ben Henderson, Gray Maynard, Guillard) but he is near the bottom of that particular barrel.

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Urijah Faber had to know that prior to UFC 132 his fight with Dominick Cruz was the biggest of his career, and he couldn’t have been more right for a number of reasons. Sadly, the fight didn’t go the way that he was hoping and his position in UFC now goes up in the air.

Over the course of five rounds on Saturday night, Cruz picked Faber apart much in the same way that he has everyone else throughout his illustrious career. He was able to walk away with a unanimous decision victory.

Faber, meanwhile, is in a very precarious position. He is a star, as evidenced by the huge reactions that he got during the weigh-in on Friday and the fight on Saturday, but it’s going to be difficult to sell him as a title contender after he was handily beaten by Cruz.

Don’t get me wrong, Faber did look good in spots during this fight, but he never really came close to ending it, and there was no doubt that Cruz was the winner when all was said and done.

After the fight was over there was a lot of clamoring on Twitter to see a rematch between these two men and I didn’t understand it. It was a fun fight, sure, but it was one that Cruz clearly won. He proved that he was the better man, and now he moves on to other challengers.

If this was anyone other than Faber people wouldn’t be as high on a rematch. That’s just the kind of star power that he has.

“The California Kid” doesn’t need the championship to sell a fight, which is good because he won’t be a title contender again for a very long time, if ever.

He can and will be a featured fighter on main cards for a long time to come, but he will not fight for the bantamweight title.

This loss was really damaging to his career in UFC. If it had been a close fight, you could see him getting another title shot. But since Cruz won quite handily, Faber is left as a big draw in the bantamweight division, though not a title contender anytime soon.