UFC Fight for the Troops 3: Grades for Every Main Card Fighter
UFC Fight for the Troops is always a special event. How can it not be? It's more than another fight night; the event is always interspliced with real-life stories of combat and victory. Given that several fighters are military members themselves, you have a natural relationship that the UFC and its fans both inside and outside the armed services can support and enjoy.
Inside the cage, the previous two installments in this miniseries are memorable for some particularly, almost remarkably high degrees of violence. Remember Corey Hill? Or Steve Cantwell vs. Razak Al-Hassan? What about Josh Koscheck's career-highlight-reel KO on Yoshiyuki Yoshida, or Melvin Guillard's brutalization of Evan Dunham?
Would the third episode follow suit? I'll tell you this: It certainly had its candidates. Here are recaps of each performance and grades for every main card fighter.
Michael Chiesa: A
1 of 10
Division: Lightweight
Result: Michael Chiesa def. Colton Smith by submission (rear-naked choke), 1:41 of Rd. 2
Michael Chiesa is the Jerry Seinfeld of the UFC lightweight division. How can you not like him?!?
An amped and inspired Smith, an active member of the Army, came out ready to fight. A tough ground fighter, Smith landed an early takedown, but Chiesa was the better man once it hit the mat. Chiesa defended better, and he attacked better. In the second, Chiesa followed a nice judo toss by grabbing Smith's back and sinking on his signature choke, which he has now used to nab all three of his Octagon wins.
The humble and candid Chiesa just keeps earning fans, even when they're not against him from the outset.
Colton Smith: C-
2 of 10
Smith has laid some real rotten eggs in the UFC before. Like, "get the hazmat suits" kind of rotten. Remember that fight with Mike Ricci to win The Ultimate Fighter? Yeah, me neither. The secret is hypnotization.
This one wasn't so bad. Smith, who works for the Army, was clearly fired up and wanted to get the win in front of his colleagues. It just didn't go his way. The grappler got outgrappled.
Rustam Khabilov: A-
3 of 10
Division: Lightweight
Result: Rustam Khabilov def. Jorge Masvidal by unanimous decision
Khabilov doesn't have quite the resume (one whole loss, Rustam? How dare you) or the accolades of Khabib Nurmagomedov or some of his other Russian countrymen. Does Wednesday night move the needle? Probably not. But it was still a signature win for The Sultan of Suplex.
Hardcore fans understand that Jorge Masvidal is nobody's easy out. But Khabilov was smart about using the threat of his heavy takedown to set up equally heavy punches and clinched his way through Masvidal's pinpoint striking. He put things away in the third with a devastating spinning high kick, which floored (but didn't finish) his opponent. Still, that plus some ground control was enough to salt things away and put the UFC's latest Russian prospect at 3-0 in the UFC and a perfect six for his last six.
Jorge Masvidal: C+
4 of 10
Masvidal showed off a tough chin and is still 2-1 under the UFC banner. He put up a good fight, outstriking and even landing takedowns on the big grappler, but his biggest swings—that flying knee in the second, for example—just went begging or were simply countered by the Russian.
Give him credit for surviving, though; that spinning kick from Khabilov would have knocked out a rhinoceros.
Yoel Romero: A
5 of 10
Division: Middleweight
Result: Yoel Romero def. Ronny Markes by TKO, 1:39, Rd. 3
Can you believe how freaking athletic this guy is? Because I can't believe how freaking athletic this guy is.
Romero's a brick house in the Jeff "Snowman" Monson mold. Just a sphere of muscle. And yet, he didn't gas, at least not as badly as his opponent, another hulking 185er in Markes. The evidence lies in the finish, a thundering straight left that finally broke Markes.
Another highlight of the fight: that second-round takedown (throw down?) from the Thai clinch. Romero literally just grabbed Markes' head and threw him down. That's a man. The 36-year-old Olympic wrestler is still quite new to MMA at just 6-1. But do you want to fight him? Because I don't want to fight him.
Ronny Markes: C
6 of 10
Say this for Markes: He was darned aggressive. But the kinetic energy converted itself into sloppiness at times, and Markes wasn't able to string much of anything together on the feet. He showed some good wrestling but couldn't sustain much of anything on the ground either, at least not enough to seriously control the fight.
Say this for Markes: He made for a fun opponent for Romero but not necessarily a compelling one.
Alexis Davis: A-
7 of 10
Division: Women's bantamweight
Result: Alexis Davis def. Liz Carmouche by unanimous decision
It was the length of Davis that made the difference. She settled in after some first-half damage (including a substantial cut on the side of her face) and worked her leg kicks and straight punches from the perimeter to cruise to the decision over the diminutive Carmouche. Though Davis is mainly a grappler, she couldn't land a takedown and so contented herself to hobble Carmouche and take her second UFC win.
Liz Carmouche: C-
8 of 10
Carmouche fit the mold of a lot of the other fighters on this card who came up short. She's an easy fighter to like. She was game, she was tough, she was aggressive, she did some damage, but ultimately she was outfought by a better fighter.
Though Carmouche was prepared for Davis' takedown and defended it well, she had no answer for those big inside leg kicks, which made the difference in the fight and looked to do some kind of damage to her knee.
Tim Kennedy: A+
9 of 10
Division: Middleweight
Result: Tim Kennedy def. Rafael Natal by TKO, 4:40 of Rd. 1
Make no mistake: This was Tim Kennedy's card. And that stretches back to the weeks before it happened. The Army Green Beret begged to be a part of it, and did so in highly entertaining fashion through a persistent and hilarious series of tweets that might have establish him as one of the best follows on the UFC roster.
But even taking the emotion out of the thing, this was a pivotal moment for Kennedy. It was only his second fight in the UFC, and though he won his debut, it wasn't much of what you'd call a statement win.
He made that statement Wednesday.
After an emotional beginning—highlighted by Kennedy walking to the ring to Alice in Chains' stirring Vietnam war ballad "Rooster" and a booming chant of "Ranger Up!" in the opening seconds of Round 1—Kennedy seemed to intentionally try to keep himself calm for most of the opening stanza. But he opened up just a little bit in the round's final half-minute. Natal's hands were down a bit, the left hook was there, Kennedy fired it, it landed perfectly and Natal was out before he hit the ground (despite the official TKO ruling).
Tim Kennedy's here, and he has officially filled Brian Stann's shoes as the best U.S. military fighter in the game. If he keeps this up, he might be the best one ever.
Rafael Natal: B-
10 of 10
Natal looked to be squeaking out the first round, even landing a takedown on Kennedy. But that left hook with 20 seconds left changed everything.
In the slow-motion replay, you could see the Brazilian notice the incoming punch just an instant before it connected. If you could put a thought balloon over his head for that one millisecond, it might read as such: "Oh crap."
Scott Harris is a writer for Bleacher Report MMA. If you are so inclined, you are invited to follow him on Twitter.
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