UFC 185 Results: Winners and Scorecards from Pettis vs. Dos Anjos Fight Card
It wasn't a good night to be a champion or a Pettis. In the main event, Rafael dos Anjos absolutely dominated Anthony "Showtime" Pettis and took the latter's UFC lightweight championship. With powerful takedowns and a sneaky left hand that routinely found its mark, dos Anjos gave Pettis a pounding.
BR MMA captured dos Anjos' crowning moment.
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Dos Anjos had nine takedowns against Pettis and out-landed him 90-54 in significant strikes. Even when Pettis was able to land a few notable kicks, dos Anjos shook them off easily.
Per MMA Fighting, Pettis talked about one particular damaging right hand that could have changed the fight early on.
Waiting in the wings is Russian wrestling extraordinaire Khabib Nurmagomedov. He has to face Donald Cerrone in his next fight, but he has been eyeing the 155-pound title for a while. After the bout, he took some time to troll Pettis and take aim at the new champion via Twitter.
To make matters worse for Showtime, his younger brother lost earlier in the evening via TKO. It was a rough night for the Pettis family.
In the co-feature, a new women's strawweight champion was crowned when Joanna Jedrzejczyk used a dominant striking performance and excellent takedown defense to stop Carla Esparza in the second round. It was Esparza's first title defense, but she looked terrible in stand-up exchanges and had no Plan B when she couldn't take Jedrzejczyk down.
Jedrzejczyk landed 55 significant strikes to just four for Esparza. A gassed Esparxza was a sitting duck for the relentless pursuit Jedrzejczyk applied en route to her TKO victory.
Just below the table is a breakdown of each fight.
| Larissa Pacheco vs. (No. 15) Germaine "The Iron Lady" de Randamie | Women's Bantamweight | De Randamie by TKO (second round) |
| Jake "The Librarian" Lindsey vs. "Irish" Joseph Duffy | Lightweight | Duffy by TKO (first round) |
| Sergio Pettis vs. Ryan "Baby Face" Benoit | Flyweight | Benoit by TKO (second round) |
| Jared "The Big Show" Rosholt vs. Josh "Cuddly Bear" Copeland | Heavyweight | Rosholt by TKO (third round) |
| Daron "Detroit Superstar" Cruickshank vs. Beneil Dariush | Lightweight | Dariush by submission (rear-naked choke) second round |
| Elias "The Spartan" Theodorou vs. Roger "Silverback" Narvaez | Middleweight | Theodorou by TKO (second round) |
| Ross "The Real Deal" Pearson vs. Sam "Hands of Stone" Stout | Lightweight | Pearson by TKO (second round) |
| Chris "Kamikaze" Cariaso vs. Henry "The Messenger" Cejudo | Flyweight | Cejudo by unanimous decision (30-27x3) |
| (No. 8) Roy "Big Country" Nelson vs. (No. 9) Alistair "The Reem" Overeem | Heavyweight | Overeem by unanimous decision (30-27x3) |
| (No. 1) Johny "Big Rigg" Hendricks vs. (No. 5) "The Immortal" Matt Brown | Welterweight | Hendricks by unanimous decision (30-27x3) |
| (c) Carla "Cookie Monster" Esparza vs. (No. 1) Joanna Jedrzejczyk | Women's Strawweight Championship | Jedrzejczyk by TKO (second round) |
| (c) Anthony "Showtime" Pettis vs. (No. 1) Rafael dos Anjos | Lightweight Championship | Dos Anjos by unanimous decision (50-45x3) |
Fight Pass Prelims
Target Practice
Germaine "The Iron Lady" de Randamie gave Larissa Pacheco a sound beating to open the Fight Pass prelims. The talented kickboxer hit Pacheco almost at will with nasty uppercuts and powerful right hands. De Randamie out-landed Pacheco 52-15 in significant strikes and was never threatened in the one-plus rounds the fight lasted.
Pacheco deserved credit for being game and tough, but it was good to see the referee rescue her from a more severe beating. De Randamie's striking was so on point, MMA Mania compared her to a Street Fighter legend:
After one of the shots de Randamie landed, I could have sworn I heard her scream "tiger uppercut!"
Boom! Head Kick
In the first round, the impressive Joseph Duffy continued to show just how dangerous he can be in the lightweight division. He delivered a titanic head kick that sank Jake Lindsey's battleship just less than three minutes into the fight. You can see how flush the shot landed in the image above from Vendetta Fighter on Twitter.
Duffy followed up with hard punches to the body before the referee stepped in to call an end to the assault.
The UFC's Twitter account gave Duffy props:
After the bout was over, Duffy warned that there is more to come from him:
Duffy is an impressive prospect. He improves to 13-1 with the win and continues to solidify himself as one to watch. Although he is primarily known for his submission skills after forcing Norman Parke and Conor McGregor to tap out in 2010, Saturday's display proves Duffy has a lot of weapons at his disposal.
Great Left Hook, Horrible Sportsmanship
Sergio Pettis was dominating Ryan Benoit for almost two rounds, but this is combat sports, and everything can change in an instant. Benoit dropped Pettis with a nasty left hook and then went in for the stoppage.
After the fight was stopped, Benoit erased some of the glory he earned from the comeback win with a deplorable show of sportsmanship.
Once the referee got between the fighters, Benoit kicked a downed Pettis in the butt in a disrespectful move. MMA Mad caught the act in this quick GIF:
Benoit will undoubtedly be hearing about this move for a while and deserves to face some disciplinary action. He did apologize afterward, but that was really tough to excuse.
After getting the boot from Benoit, Pettis is going to be kicking himself if he ever looks at the statistics from the fight. In the first round, Pettis out-landed Benoit 27-18 in significant strikes and spent one minute, 34 seconds in control compared to just 16 seconds for his opponent.
FX Prelims
Rosholt Beats Up the Cuddly Bear
After a first round that featured both Jared Rosholt and Josh "Cuddly Bear" Copeland landing big shots, the former took the fight to the ground, where he dominated.
Copeland couldn't stop Rosholt from taking him down in the second or third round. The last takedown proved to be Copeland's undoing as Rosholt pounded him until referee Dan Miragliotta stepped in to stop the bout.
Sherdog's Jordan Breen talked up Rosholt's ground-and-pound:
Rosholt's chin was checked a bit in the first round, but he fought through it by landing the two big takedowns that were the difference in the fight.
Dazzling Dariush
Coming into the bout, most would have told you that Daron Cruickshank was a better striker than Beneil Dariush. On Saturday, we were reminded that there's a difference between flash and substance.
Cruickshank has beautiful high leg kicks, but Dariush proved to be the more sound, cerebral and effective striker. He used a nasty left-leg body kick to wear down Cruickshank in the first round. When the second round rolled around, Cruickshank was gassed and hurt.
He started pursuing the takedown, and that was a bad idea. Dariush's grappling and submission skills are elite. He wasted no time showing his superiority, transitioning from move to move before taking Cruickshank's back and securing the rear-naked choke.
Fox Sports: UFC gave credit where it's due:
After three straight wins, Dariush looks ready for a top-10 opponent.
The Spartan Spanks a Silverback
Elias "The Spartan" Theodorou doesn't have an aesthetically pleasing game, but like DJ Khaled, all he does is win. He improved to 11-0 after he secured the second-round TKO win over Roger Narvaez.
A relentless diet of kicks broke down Narvaez...literally. In the second round, Narvaez attempted to block a kick from Theodorou and might have broken his arm in the process. From there, Theodorou went in for the finish and got it.
Theodorou landed 39 significant strikes to just 16 for Narvaez en route to the win. Submission Radio caught Theodorou's slick reference to Joe Rogan's television past during the post-fight interview:
Never Hook with a Hooker
The old-school boxing adage was proved true in the final FX prelim fight.
Ross "The Real Deal" Pearson vanquished Sam Stout with a destructive left hand to close out the preliminary fights on the card. Stout was throwing his own left hand at the time, but Pearson's found the mark first, and Stout went down.
He was out when he hit the mat, but Pearson had to drop another bomb to get the referee to stop the bout.
Pearson's win made it a perfect seven stoppages in the prelim fights. Ever the historian, Fox Sports' Ariel Helwani said Saturday's bouts hearken back to UFC 14:
The main card has some tough acts to follow.
Main Card
Cejudo Calms the Kamikaze
It wasn't a stoppage, but Henry Cejudo's win was as dominant as any victory that happened before it on the card. The 2008 Olympic freestyle wrestling gold medalist took Chris Cariaso down whenever he wanted to. In total, Cejudo secured six takedowns in all.
It wasn't just his wrestling that was dominant; his striking was exemplary as well. His 50 significant strikes dwarfed Cariaso's 11 in the bout.
After having some issues making 125 pounds, Cejudo has finally arrived in the flyweight division. It's early, but he looks like a real player. Josh Gross of Sherdog seems to agree:
The flyweight division is beginning to get interesting.
Overeem Shrinks Big Country
In one of the best showings of Alistair Overeem's career, the Dutch heavyweight picked Roy "Big Country" Nelson apart with a diversified striking performance.
He stayed away from Nelson's big right hand and landed a plethora of hard knees to the chest and chin. Overeem did get dropped in the third round on a left hook in the final 30 seconds, but Nelson didn't have the juice to follow up.
Overeem landed 66 significant strikes to just 48 for Nelson. Shaun Al-Shatti of MMA Fighting praised Overeem but acknowledged his questionable chin:
If Overeem could erase the last 15 seconds of the fight with Nelson, his night would have been flawless. Nonetheless, he has now won two in a row.
Hendricks Slams Brown
Johny Hendricks served notice to the rest of the welterweight division. He easily defeated Matt Brown on Saturday on the strength of spectacular wrestling.
The former 170-pound champion had nine takedowns and he spent 11:26 in top control. Brown is known for his brawling style, but Hendricks stamped out any wild exchanges with timely takedowns.
All statistic references per UFC.com.
Follow Brian Mazique on Twitter. I dig boxing and MMA.
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