5 UFC Fighters Who Should Be More Thankful
With Thanksgiving only a day away, there are several UFC fighters who should be a little more grateful this year.
You hear it time and time again: never leave the fight in the hands of the judges. Apparently that message hasn't resonated with Diego Sanchez. Like Sanchez, there have been a number of fighters this year who have been the recipients of controversial split decisions and questionable stoppages.
Yoel Romero, Johny Hendricks and Rafael dos Anjos have seen their stock rise, albeit without some suspect referee work or judging. As the maddening cliche goes, no one is perfect, and there could be cases made advocating for both men in each bout.
For this particular ranking, stipulations (top-10 seeding, title implications) surrounding bouts will be taken into account, but so will the validity of the ruling itself. Before we make it to the five fortunate men, let's take a look at a couple of honorable mentions.
Honorable Mentions
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Diego Sanchez (25-7) vs. Ross Pearson (16-8-1)
In typical Sanchez fashion, the 32-year-old turned this June 7 fight into a bloody brawl, and Pearson was more than happy to oblige. The sluggers went at it for three rounds on the UFC Fight Night: Henderson vs. Khabilov card, battering each other to a bloody pulp. Sanchez, however, appeared to be the one who suffered the most damage. But don't tell that to the judges.
In one of the most controversial scorecards in history, one judge scored the fight 30-27 for Sanchez, when most analysts believed the opposite. The Fight Metric stats show the Brit clearly got the best of the Mexican fighter in each round, including the dominant second round in which Pearson scored a knockdown and followed that up with a takedown later.
This fight will undoubtedly go down as upset of the year. However, the reason it doesn't crack the top five is because of its little impact on the 155-pound division.
Tony Ferguson (16-3) vs. Danny Castillo (17-7)
You could run some errands and be back before this August 30 fight was over. Heck, listening to fingernails screeching down a chalkboard might sound more enticing. All jokes aside, former TUF 13 winner Ferguson looked to make it three in a row against "Last Call" Castillo.
Ferguson managed to stay the aggressor even while on his back during this fight, which likely earned him the victory. The 30-year-old landed solid leg kicks and worked for multiple submission attempts. However, Castillo earned two takedown attempts, while utilizing his jiu-jitsu skills to neutralize Ferguson's escapes and making his own passes. The judges, as well as analysts, chose the activity of Ferguson over Castillo's ground game.
Not much of an upset, as neither fighter showed anything noteworthy, but it's still worth an honorable mention. Also, there was little divisional impact.
5. Josh Thomson vs. Bobby Green
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No surprise here, as yet again, Thomson (20-7-1) lost another crushing split-decision contest, this time on July 26 to Bobby Green. Dating back to his days in Strikeforce, he also lost a hotly contested war with current UFC lightweight title challenger Gilbert Melendez.
Green (23-6), who was ranked 13th in the lightweight division at the time, came into the fight a winner of seven straight. The 28-year-old mixed it up with good kicks and shots to the body. On the defensive end, Green withstood the high kicks and takedown attempts from Thomson, who appeared to be outmatched.
Thomson, as good as he is, is continuing to age and fought a fighter with a lot more quickness than he is used to. That quickness proved to be the deciding factor in the final round, which saw Green seize his opportunity, earning a takedown and cutting off Thomson's angles. The American Kickboxing Academy fighter hung around long enough to make the judges' call interesting.
The majority of the MMA world sided with Green in this bout but Thomson, as always, used his intelligence and toughness to compete. An entertaining fight, this call is a lot more understandable than those ahead. Divisional seeding was important in this bout as Thomson slid out of the top five, while Green made it up to No. 7.
4. Benson Henderson vs. Rafael Dos Anjos
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Benson "Smooth" Henderson (21-4) came into this August 23 fight looking to solidify his ranking as a top-three lightweight. His opponent, the Brazilian Dos Anjos (22-7), was just a few months removed from a lopsided loss to No. 2 lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Henderson couldn't mount much offense and missed a takedown attempt before Dos Anjos put him away with a knee to the head and a left hook moments later in the first round. The stoppage, while not too controversial, still drew some questions based on how quickly Henderson rose to his feet. The loss didn't exactly send the former 155-pound champion spiraling downward but it set him back nonetheless. Dos Anjos would leapfrog over Henderson in the lightweight rankings.
The win vaulted dos Anjos into top-contender status and a curious fight with Nate Diaz in December. Dos Anjos making quick work of Bendo checks in here due to the magnitude and controversial nature of the next three bouts. Henderson was legitimately out cold and couldn't afford to take more damage, but it still left fans wondering.
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3. Tim Kennedy vs. Yoel Romero
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Former Strikeforce competitor Kennedy (18-5) was looking to stifle the rise of Cuban wrestler Yoel Romero at UFC 178. Kennedy came into the bout a winner of four straight.
The 35-year-old middleweight took several hard shots from the southpaw Romero (9-1) early in the fight before blitzing him at the end of Round 2 to pull the fight closer. Romero appeared to be on shaky legs heading back to his corner and found himself some extra time to regather himself going into the final frame because of stoolgate.
Not long into the third round, Kennedy was dropped by a straight left, followed by a right, and was never able to recover before Romero swarmed him. Kennedy would later confront Romero backstage, while his camp planned to protest the loss. As with Henderson/dos Anjos, not much changed as a result of this fight in terms of divisional rankings but the controversy surrounding it will likely go unmatched for the remainder of the year.
2. Benson Henderson vs. Josh Thomson
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Thomson can't escape the crippling clutches of UFC judges. No other fighter in recent memory has had their fighting career altered by as many split-decision losses as the AKA fighter has. Henderson has also received flack for his lack of finishes in the UFC.
After debuting in highlight fashion, defeating Nate Diaz via a stunning head kick, Thomson met Henderson in January. Henderson had just come off his lightweight title loss to Anthony Pettis and was looking to rebound against one of the toughest 155-pound competitors.
The fight was a high-intensity, back-and-forth battle, with both Thomson and Henderson proving too tough for one another to control. The pair struggled to keep each other down for long, or take one's back, but it was Henderson who struck most significantly.
Perhaps one telling detail: Henderson's takedown accuracy was perfect compared to Thomson's, which was just 36 percent. Regardless, the majority of MMA analysts saw the fight as a victory for The Punk. Despite the loss, the 36-year-old Thomson hasn't lost much ground since and is still very much in the mix, sitting at No. 6 in the lightweight rankings.
1. Johny Hendricks vs. Robbie Lawler
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"Bigg Rigg" Hendricks (16-2) finally won the welterweight strap that evaded him for so long, which was woefully left around the waist of former champion Georges St-Pierre back at UFC 167.
The 31-year-old fought "Ruthless" (24-10) for the vacant title after St-Pierre's self-imposed retirement at UFC 171, and, boy, did they put on a show. Both welterweights traded blows for five rounds, with Lawler landing at a better clip in rounds three and four. As a matter of fact, Lawler boasted the more accurate significant strikes when all was said and done.
Where the two men differed were in the variety of strikes. Hendricks incorporated his legs, landing a quarter of his strikes with leg kicks. Lawler was able to neutralize the NCAA Division I wrestling game of Hendricks, making the Oklahoma native one dimensional and turning this into a Fight of the Year candidate.
This fight was a lot closer than the unanimous decision that was ultimately awarded to Hendricks, but the intelligent game plan of Bigg Rigg combined with the lack of any home run shots from Lawler is presumably what gave him the edge.
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