The Real Winners and Losers From UFC Fight Night 212
Into every jam-packed Saturday sports night, a little UFC must fall.
The mixed martial arts conglomerate was up against it with a full roster of playoff baseball, college football and championship boxing emanating from around the globe to begin the weekend, but nevertheless plowed through with an 11-bout card from the Nevada desert.
Flyweights Alexa Grasso and Viviane Araujo headlined from the Apex facility as the company was busily packing its bags and heading overseas for next weekend's pay-per-view production from the Fight Island venue in the Middle East.
A crew of Brendan Fitzgerald, Dominick Cruz and Paul Felder handled business from the announce table while Charly Arnolt worked the room for breaking news and feature pieces and Din Thomas chimed in intermittently with technical analysis. The B/R combat sports team was in place as well to compile its definitive list of the show's real winners and losers.
Scroll through to see how we saw things and drop a line or two of your own in the comments.
Loser: Main-Event Mayhem
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One thing's for sure. It won't make any year-end highlight reels.
Flyweights Grasso and Araújo went the five-round main-event distance for the first time in their respective careers but didn't provide more action than a typical three-rounder, grinding instead to a tactical unanimous decision that went to the fifth-ranked Mexican.
Grasso earned counts of 50-45, 49-46 and 49-46 on the three cards, with the final two tallies matching B/R's count of four rounds to one in her favor.
"Of course I did enough to win," Grasso said. "I trained really, really hard. I knew she would try to take me to the ground. She's a tough warrior and a tough opponent."
It's her fourth straight win, and she's the only top-five fighter who hasn't already gotten a title shot against 125-pound champ Valentina Shevchenko. But she wasn't adamant about calling out the champion, instead leaving her future in the hands of matchmaker Mick Maynard.
The streak is the second-longest in the division behind Shevchenko's nine.
Stats cited on the broadcast indicated Grasso landed 96 significant head strikes to Araújo's 83 and 19 leg kicks to Araújo's seven. The Brazilian held a slim 19-15 edge in significant body strikes and scored the fight's lone two takedowns, though she wasn't able to inflict significant damage or chase any submissions while the fight was on the ground.
It was Araujo's third loss in eight UFC appearances.
"I could do this again," Grasso said. "I think I have upgraded myself to five rounds, but this is a challenge, you need to grow."
Loser: Bantamweight Boss
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Jonathan Martinez heard all the hoopla.
Opponent Cub Swanson was a veteran of more than 20 UFC fights, he'd been enshrined into the fight wing of the company's Hall of Fame and he was moving down from featherweight with an eye on a final title run at age 38.
Martinez, though, had some other plans.
The Texas-based 28-year-old worked well from distance in the first round and strafed his opponent with whip-crack kicks from his left leg. He upped the tempo of those attacks in the second round and had Swanson wincing badly after one particular shot to the inside of the left leg, and a follow-up shot to the same place proved decisive in drawing a TKO.
Swanson crumpled to the mat after the second kick landed and was defenseless as Martinez swooped in with a quick barrage of ground strikes that prompted a wave-off from Herb Dean.
It came at 4:19 of the round and was Martinez's fourth straight win and eighth in 11 UFC fights.
"That is an emergent performance right there from Jonathan Martinez," Felder said.
"You do something like that to a veteran and you're going to be getting some bigger names in your future."
The result followed chalk when it came to old-young matchups, continuing a trend in which the younger fighter in a bout with a 10-year age difference had won 67 percent.
Swanson, who's beaten high-profile names like Dustin Poirier and Charles Oliveira, is 13-9 in the Octagon but just 3-6 since a four-fight win streak in 2016-17.
"I'm really emotional. I worked so hard for this and it's starting to pay off," Martinez said. "We've been working on a lot of different tools. I'm trying to get better every day. I came in here and I had a job to do."
Winner: "Atomic" Bombing
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As nicknames go, "Atomic" is a pretty bold choice.
But Alonzo Menifield had no problem backing it up on Saturday.
The burly Texan lowered the boom on Canadian opponent Misha Cirkunov, stiffening him with a leaping left hook and then rendering him senseless with a right uppercut and follow-up ground strikes on the way to a stoppage in just 88 seconds.
It was a second straight win and sixth in nine UFC appearances for Menifield, and it gave him 10 KOs and 10 first-round finishes out of 13 career victories.
Cirkunov has lost seven of nine, including six by finish, since winning his first four in the Octagon after his arrival in 2015. He was left prone on the floor for several moments following the wave-off by referee Mark Smith and was unable to come to the center of the cage for the official announcement by Joe Martinez.
"This is a war and I love it," Menifield said, "and I feel good now especially that he got up."
It was his first appearance since shifting his full-time base of operations to train with Pat Barry and he was quick to credit his gym team following the victory.
"Stop hiding my abilities. Pat Parry is bringing them out," he said. "More of that is going to come, for sure. More of this. Straight to the wall, that's what we do. Whatever opponent is up for it, let's go. On to the next."
Loser: Main-Card Mainstream
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Just when you thought it was safe to wager on big favorites, it wasn't.
Bantamweight Victor Henry arrived to Saturday's main card as the surest of sure things and went off as a -435 proposition against 40-year-old Brazilian veteran Raphael Assunção.
He was the biggest favorite on the five-bout show, but when push came to shove it wasn't as sure as it appeared on the DraftKings line.
A loser in four straight fights and admittedly nearing the end of an 18-year career, Assuncao reverted back to the clinical, patient style that had fueled his greatest successes and rode it to a shutout unanimous decision to cash out as a +350 underdog.
"There's too much emotion right now. A lot of emotion," said Assunção, who dropped to his knees and openly wept upon hearing the official announcement. "I've been through some tough times in my career and in my life. I was thinking of retirement. I don't want to make any decisions right now, but it's getting close."
Assunção won 11 of his first 12 bouts after arriving to the UFC in 2011 and has defeats of both Aljamain Sterling and TJ Dillashaw on his resume—not to mention Jorge Masvidal—but had been finished three times since last winning at UFC 226 in 2018.
He scored consistently with counter strikes as Henry pressed the action through the first round, then got his foe to his back after Henry had missed on a spinning kick two minutes into the second. He landed a series of hard right hands and scored another takedown later in the second and was able to avoid Henry's desperate aggression in the third.
His 12 bantamweight wins are second-most in the division's history.
"I went back to the coaches and I was like, 'Hey guys, I wanna go back to what I used to do," Assunção said. "It's sometimes not the best fight for the fans, but I kinda wanted to go back to that style. I changed my style because I thought 'I've got to be exciting' and it didn't work out for me."
Winner: Pristine Preliminaries
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The UFC's present isn't bad, and the future is looking awfully bright, too.
Japanese flyweight Tatsuro Taira is just 22 years old but has looked up to the task in two straight octagonal outings, following up a Fight Night decision win five months ago with an impressive second-round submission of CJ Vergara on Saturday night.
Taira was a grappling ace in the opening round and maintained that edge into the second five-minute session, ultimately changing his focus from a choke to an armbar and getting the surrender with 41 seconds remaining.
It was Taira's 12th straight win as a pro, including 10 straight in an Asian run that began in 2018, and dropped Vergara to 1-2 in the UFC after he'd graduated from Dana White's Contender Series in 2021.
"I was really focused on finishing, and I'm really glad I did it," Taira said. "But I think I can do better, and I'm really looking forward to getting the opportunity to do that."
Taira was the first of two straight unbeaten fighters to appear and win on the preliminary show, preceding Piera Rodriguez's unanimous decision defeat of Sam Hughes in a three-round strawweight bout.
Rodriguez earned 29-28 margins on all three official scorecards to get to 9-0 as a pro and 2-0 in the UFC after her own stint on the Contender Series show in 2021.
The 29-year-old Venezuelan edged Hughes by an 83-69 margin in significant strikes over 15 minutes and scored each of the fight's five takedowns on 11 attempts, racking up nearly two minutes of control time and successfully defending Hughes' lone attempt.
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Alexa Grasso def. Viviane Araujo by unanimous decision (50-45, 49-46, 49-46)
Jonathan Martinez def. Cub Swanson by TKO (leg kicks), 4:19, Round 2
Duško Todorović def. Jordan Wright by TKO (elbows), 3:12, Round 2
Raphael Assunção def. Victor Henry by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Alonzo Menifield def. Misha Cirkunov by KO (punches), 1:28, Round 1
Preliminary Card
Mana Martinez def. Brandon Davis by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
Jacob Malkoun def. Nick Maximov by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Joanderson Brito def. Lucas Alexander by submission (rear-naked choke), 2:02, Round 1
Piera Rodriguez def. Sam Hughes by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Tatsuro Taira def. CJ Vergara by submission (armbar), 4:19, Round 2
Pete Rodriguez def. Mike Jackson by KO (knee), 1:33, Round 1
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