UFC 188 Results: The Real Winners and Losers from Velasquez vs. Werdum Card
The Baddest Man on the Planet.
If you were exposed to any part of the UFC's marketing push for UFC 188, which happened Saturday night in Mexico City, you heard that phrase. If you were more deeply immersed in the MMA news cycle, the phrase burrowed into the folds of your brain like a car insurance commercial.
But how true was it?
Cain Velasquez, the man stuck with the ubiquitous tag, was once a seemingly indomitable force. But the heavyweight champ had fallen on hard times of late.
Injuries kept the champ on ice for nearly two years before he finally made it to UFC 188. Since recapturing the heavyweight title from Junior dos Santos in November 2012, he has only fought twice.
As a result, the UFC handed an interim championship to Fabricio Werdum after he defeated Mark Hunt at UFC 180. At UFC 188, Velasquez and Werdum fought for the real title. No more interims.
Would rust be a factor? Would Werdum stand up to the so-called baddest man and wrest away that title?
And what about the co-main event, which made a long-desired matchup between lightweight action fighters Eddie Alvarez and Gilbert Melendez, former champs in Bellator and Strikeforce, respectively?
As always, the final stat lines only reveal so much. These are the real winners and losers from the 11-fight card in Mexico City.
For the literal-minded among us, full results are available on the last slide.
Winner: Fabricio Werdum
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And new!
Velasquez held the lineal heavyweight title for two-and-a-half straight years. On Saturday, about halfway through the third round, he landed one of his signature double-leg takedowns.
But the challenger was waiting.
Unbeknownst to himself at the time, Velasquez was plowing right into the guillotine choke of one of the best jiu-jitsu fighters on earth. Werdum squeezed, and Velasquez tapped.
We have an undisputed champion.
What set it up, though, was Werdum's early striking. As Velasquez appeared to tire, Werdum stayed poised, landing sharp punch combinations that cut and then staggered the champion.
The attacks stung badly enough that Velasquez and his team chose to try more takedowns. That led to the fateful move.
After the fight, Werdum noted his early arrival to high-altitude Mexico and credited that decision with his being the fresher fighter on Saturday.
"I've been here for 30-40 days, because the altitude is very hard. I had a big dream, and it happened today," Werdum told broadcaster Joe Rogan in the cage after the fight. "I knew he was going to take down my legs. I just waited for my moment."
Werdum comes across as a nice guy as well as an excellent fighter. And his win sets up all sorts of interesting matchups. Werdum vs. Dos Santos 2, anyone?
But that's for another day. For now, all hail the champ. He earned it.
Loser: Cain Velasquez
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Velasquez isn't much for emotion, but he didn't need to be in order for any fan to see the sadness on his face as Bruce Buffer read the official decision.
"I'm sorry," he told Rogan, over and over, in English and Spanish. "It's more motivation for me to go on getting better."
Maybe. But other than that knockout he received from that Junior dos Santos overhand thunderbolt back in 2011, Velasquez has never felt a loss. That sequence lasted, say, four seconds. This one lasted seven minutes.
Werdum beat Velasquez to the punch throughout and then tamed the bull with the guillotine choke. But what might have been most stunning was how visibly tired Velasquez became. Yes, Mexico City is high up—far higher than Denver—but Velasquez is famous for his conditioning.
Did it make a difference?
"Two weeks I was out here training before the fight," Velasquez told Rogan. "But I guess it wasn't enough."
Winner: Eddie Alvarez
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This is why heart is more than some cuddly intangible. Eddie Alvarez overcame a broken nose suffered in the first round to come back and defeat a personal rival in Gilbert Melendez by a thin split decision.
It was the first UFC win for Alvarez, who has only fought twice in the Octagon after a long title reign in Bellator.
Early on, it looked like the former Strikeforce lightweight champion Melendez was outclassing him. A short elbow appeared to fracture Alvarez's nose, and things got worse when he blew his nose, which caused his left eye to swell shut within seconds.
A doctor examined the injury. There was no way Alvarez could see, but he stayed in and hung tough.
"Tough" being the operative word.
The second round slowed to a crawl and was the most difficult round to score of the three. The third was clearly for Alvarez, as he scored more often as Melendez began to gas.
It was a close fight and certainly not the energizing slugfest most people expected. Still, as the cliche goes, a win is a win. And Alvarez found a way Saturday night.
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Loser: Nate Marquardt
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That was embarrassing.
On more than one occasion, Nate Marquardt fell to the ground in slow motion. The first time, it was from a punch. The second time, it was from a knee.
The first time led to opponent Kelvin Gastelum to pounce on top of him and land about 40 unanswered ground strikes from side control. Marquardt never figured out a way to stop the barrage, simply covering up and waiting for it to stop. Referee Dan Miragliotta stood by, apparently trying to win a statue contest.
In the second round, Marquardt crumpled in stages after a knee to the midsection. It had the optics of someone lying down; that's how slowly it happened. Gastelum swarmed on him again, with Marquardt again going fetal.
It wasn't much better in the spaces between. Marquardt stood and flicked limp punches toward Gastelum. He may not have landed anything of consequence. He was inert from start to finish.
Marquardt is now 36 years old and a loser in five of his last six fights, dating back to January 2013 in Strikeforce. I can't tell him what to do, but unless it comes out that he had an epic case of Montezuma's revenge, it's evident he doesn't have much of anything left to give.
Winner: Yair Rodriguez
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Talk about announcing your presence with authority.
For the first time since winning the featherweight bracket of The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America, Yair Rodriguez stepped into the UFC cage. The Mexico native took on shoe-leather-tough American Charles Rosa.
Rodriguez swarmed from the first horn, attacking with flying knees and wild kicks as the home crowd wildly cheered him on. Ground exchanges were all crazy scrambles, with Rodriguez squirming out of leg locks on multiple occasions.
It was an exciting moment, with the 22-year-old's creative, high-octane striking leaving an impression on more than just Rosa's head, which toward the end was masked in blood from a scalp cut.
Could Rodriguez be the next new star the UFC can use behind Velasquez to gain a stronger foothold in fight-happy Mexico?
As Luke Thomas of MMA Fighting put it, "Rodriguez certainly has his issues, but yeah, he's a legit, world-class talent."
Loser: Henry Cejudo
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There were no mitigating issues with his cut to 125 pounds this time. He went three rounds with a solid opponent in Chico Camus and then took a unanimous-decision victory. Afterward, the American of Mexican descent gave a humble and engaging post-fight interview in two languages, smoothly shifting between Spanish and English with no need for an interpreter.
But he was a loser because he's no closer to the title than before the card began. He might even be farther away.
The fight was not what you would call scintillating. Cejudo had every single one of his takedown attempts stuffed; that's not what you're looking for out of an Olympic gold medalist (Cejudo won the freestyle wrestling gold in 2008). His striking was wild and inaccurate, and the full effort was generally uninspiring.
The real winner here might be John Dodson, who, despite a fairly lackluster performance of his own lately, may now be in the catbird seat for a rematch with champion Demetrious Johnson.
As for Cejudo? He still moves up. But a tough match with someone like Joseph Benavidez might be his reward. Another shot at gold will probably have to wait.
Winner: Patrick Williams
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The early prelims were snoozy. Gabriel Benitez battered a tough but sloppy Clay Collard. Cathal Pendred threw his usual grindfest for a decision over a tentative Augusto Montano. Johnny Case overcame an eye poke to top-control his way to a unanimous nod over a show-boating but actionless Francisco Trevino.
But then Patrick Williams woke up the crowd, bum-rushing TUF: Latin America winner Alejandro Perez, dropping him with a straight right and twisting up a guillotine choke that left Perez gazing sightlessly up at the lights.
The win came in only 23 seconds. According to Michael Carroll, a stat keeper for UFC stats provider FightMetric, the win set a new UFC record for the fastest submission in the bantamweight division.
UFC 188 Full Card Results
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Main Card
- Fabricio Werdum def. Cain Velasquez by submission (guillotine choke), 2:13, Round 3 for UFC Undisputed Heavyweight Championship
- Eddie Alvarez def. Gilbert Melendez by split decision
- Kelvin Gastelum def. Nate Marquardt by TKO (retirement), 5:00, Round 2
- Yair Rodriguez def. Charles Rosa by split decision
- Tecia Torres def. Angela Hill by unanimous decision
Preliminary Card
- Henry Cejudo def. Chico Camus by unanimous decision
- Efrain Escudero def. Drew Dober by submission (guillotine choke), 0:54, Round 2
- Patrick Williams def. Alejandro Perez by submission (guillotine choke), 0:23, Round 1
- Johnny Case def. Francisco Trevino by unanimous decision
- Cathal Pendred def. Augusto Montano by unanimous decision
- Gabriel Benitez def. Clay Collard by unanimous decision
Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. For more stuff like this, follow Scott on Twitter.
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