UFC Fight Night 60 Results: Real Winners and Losers from Thatch vs. Henderson
We were in some rarefied air Saturday night for UFC Fight Night 60.
No, really. Broomfield, Colorado, is 5,420 feet above sea level. That's more than a mile. That sort of altitude leaves even the best athletes searching for breath.
So when Benson Henderson stepped in to face Brandon Thatch on two weeks' notice—and in the process jumped up to the welterweight division for the first time—the thin Rocky Mountain air was immediately the thickest narrative thread.
Henderson is nobody's fool. Sure, the man enjoys a challenge, but the former UFC lightweight champion didn't attain his position with recklessness. If he felt serious doubt in his viability at welterweight, it stands to reason he wouldn't have accepted this fight.
On the other side of the cage, Brandon Thatch has what you might call a quality. He has tons of charisma and uses aggressive muay thai to break and turn heads. In short, Thatch may be a star in the making.
Both of these guys are native Coloradans. Does that mean they would perform better at this elevation? How would Henderson look at 170 pounds and on such short notice? Could Thatch get the biggest win of his life? Who would leave the arena on the shoulders of their statesmen?
That was only the main event of a card that held its share of twists and turns from injuries and missed weight. As always, the final stat lines only reveal so much. These are the real winners and losers from UFC Fight Night 60.
Winner: Benson Henderson
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Benson Henderson on Saturday night reminded everyone why he was once—and maybe still should be—considered one of the very best fighters in the world.
At first, it was a bit of an optical freak-out to see Henderson, who is usually the larger man in a lightweight contest, give up as much size, length and strength as he did to Thatch, who wouldn't look out of place at middleweight.
Early on, Thatch battered Henderson in exchanges. Though Henderson got his licks in, Thatch landed heavier strikes, particularly his punches and kicks. Thatch was aggressive but not quite to the extent he had been in previous contests.
Entering the championship rounds, Henderson hit his stride. The tide turned for good when he used head movement to set up a level change and a beautiful takedown. A tiring Thatch gave up his back, and Henderson ultimately got the choke. The end came toward the end of the fourth round.
It was a masterful performance; there's no other way to say it. Could his future now be at welterweight, where he gives up so much size but makes up for it in speed and pure smarts? Henderson seems to have another 170-pounder in mind as an opponent: Rory MacDonald.
"I hear there's a big MacDonald up in Canada who needs a fight," he told broadcaster Jon Anik in the cage after the fight. "If he wants it, I'm game."
Me too.
Loser: Brandon Thatch
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In 13 professional fights, Brandon Thatch has been out of the first round twice. Those were the only two fights he has lost.
Thatch clearly hits hard and is a smart, polished fighter. He's also large and will remain large even when he's not facing a converted lightweight.
But he fell victim to one of MMA's favorite cliches: the one about deep waters. That's where Henderson took him, and that's where Henderson drowned him.
Thatch will learn from this and be back. Chalk this one up as a good lesson for a promising student.
Winner: Max Holloway
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The 23-year-old Max Holloway seems to get better with every fight. Against Cole Miller, he was a perfect blend of patience and aggression, opening up as the fight wore on to punish Miller with sharp combos and kicks to the body, among other attacks (including an accidental head butt, which Miller never seemed to fully recover from).
After the win, broadcaster Jon Anik told Holloway that UFC matchmakers had him penciled in for UFC on Fox 15, a card happening April 18 in Newark, New Jersey. The opponent? One Mr. Cub Swanson.
Holloway's reaction? "Let's do this."
It's a deserved step up for Holloway, given that he has now won five in a row and is 8-3 in the UFC.
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Loser: Weight-Cutting (Again)
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Let's hear it for symmetry! For the second straight UFC event, two fighters missed weight. And not by a little, either. And another one got sick at the last second, with steep weight cuts looking like a possible culprit in each case.
At UFC 183, flyweight John Lineker and welterweight Kelvin Gastelum missed their targets by five and 10 pounds, respectively.
Saturday night, lightweight James Moontasri missed the mark by three pounds, and then middleweight Patrick Walsh came in 6.5 pounds over. Then, just before weigh-ins, featherweight Nik Lentz was forced to withdraw from his bout with Levan Makashvili. The same fate befell fellow featherweight Jimy Hettes at UFC 183, who had to pull out after passing out just before the event began.
Walsh and Moontasri were fined 20 percent of their purses. That might hurt a bit, but that sort of penalty isn't serving as a deterrent. What, exactly, can be done to ensure every fighter makes weight?
Winner: Neil Magny
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Can Neil Magny please get a real opponent now?
With his sixth consecutive win, Magny continues to be, by the numbers, the hottest fighter in the welterweight division. He used his rangy limbs, both in space and in the clinch, and then went for the takedown and the finish.
As the first round ended, you could tell Kiichi Kunimoto didn't want to be in Colorado anymore. Meanwhile, Magny very much wanted to be there, with it being his home state and the crowd being really vocal for him and all.
The fight nearly ended by TKO at the end of the second round, but Kunimoto barely survived into the third, where he promptly tapped to a rear-naked choke.
Magny is probably not a title challenger, but the UFC should at least give him an opponent that fans have heard of. That might be a nice reward for his taking—and winning—six contests in the past 12 months.
Losers: Dan Kelly and Patrick Walsh
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This fight was a perfect symbol for everything that wasn't fun on this card. It was short on contenders and long on unproven quantities, and it was all exacerbated by the thin air, which compelled most fighters into exhaustion and sloppiness.
And it's hard to imagine anything much sloppier than this fight, which never should have seen the light of a main card. For 15 grueling minutes, Dan Kelly, a 37-year-old four-time Olympic judo player, winged slow hooks at Patrick Walsh, who did the same thing, only with an obnoxious smirk on his face, which was made particularly obnoxious by the fact that he had missed weight by over six pounds.
There was no ground action at all. And no one even threw a kick! Seriously. Not one kick. The fighters seemed gassed before the contest even started. And as the fight drew to a close and the decision was read, the boos rained down. It didn't matter which name Bruce Buffer said (it was Kelly, for the record).
It's like my colleague Steven Rondina pointed out: Kelly and Walsh are in the UFC, but Ben Askren is not? This is a world I never made.
Winner: Ray Borg
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Statement made: Resistance is futile.
Ray Borg's ultra-dynamic grappling is well beyond his 21 years. And after a bit of a false start against Dustin Ortiz in his UFC debut, the young flyweight now has two straight submission wins. Saturday night, he finished a slick kimura on a game but overmatched Chris Kelades.
Some observers, like broadcaster Brian Stann, suggested Borg could be ready for a fast track to the title. Personally, I don't think wins over Kelades and Shane Howell get you there. And it would be nice to see the UFC avoid the mistake of needlessly rushing another exciting prospect into the fire of contendership.
Still, Borg proved he's ready for a real step up. And no one is ever that far away in the shallow flyweight division.
UFC Fight Night 60 Full Results
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Main Card
- Benson Henderson def. Brandon Thatch by submission (rear-naked choke), 3:58, Rd. 4
- Max Holloway def. Cole Miller by unanimous decision
- Neil Magny def. Kiichi Kunimoto by submission (rear-naked choke), 1:22, Rd. 3
- Dan Kelly def. Patrick Walsh by unanimous decision
- Kevin Lee def. Michel Prazeres by unanimous decision
- Ray Borg def. Chris Kelades by submission (kimura), 2:56, Rd. 3
Preliminary Card
- Efrain Escudero def. Rodrigo de Lima by unanimous decision
- Chas Skelly def. Jim Alers by TKO, 4:59, Rd. 2
- Zach Makovsky def. Tim Elliott by unanimous decision
- James Moontasri def. Cody Pfister by submission (rear-naked choke), 1:49, Rd. 2
Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. For more stuff like this, follow Scott on Twitter.
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