UFC Fight Night 85: As Hector Lombard's Title Hopes Dim, Neil Magny Rises

Perhaps we’ve all been guilty of sleeping on Neil Magny.

Or overestimating Hector Lombard.

Or both.

But no more.

If Magny’s come-from-behind victory over Lombard at UFC Fight Night 85 on Saturday doesn’t balance the scales between these two welterweight contenders, then nothing will.

Their back-and-forth battle was equal parts exhilarating and stomach-turning. Magny took a whale of a beating in the first round, dished out the same to a fading Lombard in the second and seemed intent on repeating his performance in third before referee Steve Percival finally woke from his stupor and stopped the fight.

It was the first time Lombard (34-5-1[2] overall, 3-3-1 UFC) had been finished in his 12-year MMA career. For the 38-year-old Cuban, the loss felt as though it rendered a verdict of sorts on his future as an elite fighter.

Meanwhile, the outcome left the 28-year-old Magny (18-4 overall, 11-3 UFC) once again streaking toward contender status in the crowded 170-pound division.

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“If I had my way, I guess I’d wait for a Top Five opponent and eventually make a title run before the year is over,” Magny said at the post-fight press conference. “That’s my goal.”

The former contestant on the 16th season of The Ultimate Fighter has been one of the UFC’s more active competitors for the last two years. He won seven consecutive fights between February 2014 and May 2015 prior to a disastrous loss to Demian Maia at UFC 190.

Because of Magny’s high-octane schedule, he’s put three straight wins between himself and that defeat. All told, he’s 10-1 since suffering back-to-back losses to end 2013. It’s possible he’s finally starting to change some minds about his character:

Magny’s previous win streak, while lengthy, could be at least partly dismissed because of the quality of his competition. He didn’t fight any top-tier welterweights while putting together those seven wins in a row, though he did tie the UFC record for number of wins in a calendar year (five) during 2014.

When he got summarily out-grappled by Maia in August 2015, it merely felt like confirmation Magny couldn’t hang with the best at 170 pounds.

His current run, however, has gone down against somewhat stiffer opposition. Prior to Lombard, he notched wins against touted prospects Erick Silva and Kelvin Gastelum—albeit both by split decisions. If there is any justice in the world, his win over Lombard should set him up for exactly the kind of test he said he wants.

Magny’s length, well-rounded skills and durability make him an interesting matchup for nearly anyone in his division—and all those qualities were on display on Saturday.

Early on, it seemed as though he would fall victim of Lombard’s fearsome power. The heavily muscled, 5’9” American Top Team product drilled Magny with a hard punch in the opening stages of the first and followed with a barrage of savagery that might’ve finished a normal man in a fight with a normal referee.

But Percival didn’t stop the fight, and the madcap effort of trying to finish took the wind out of Lombard. As lopsided as the first had been for him, the second was just as big for Magny.

With Lombard still dangerous but rapidly fading, Magny was able to sweep him from top position and unleash his own hellacious volley of unanswered strikes. Again, Percival elected not to stop the fight and Lombard survived to the end of the round, though he had endured record levels of punishment:

By the start of the third, it was clear Lombard didn’t have the gas to continue. When Magny mounted him and again began to rain down strikes, the referee finally decided he’d seen enough, calling a halt to the action just 46 seconds into the final stanza.

In the wake of the fight, Percival’s failure to act earlier earned him some harsh criticism from fans and analysts alike.

Even Magny offered his own critique after the contest.

“As much as we’re in this sport to win or whatever, it’s hard to sit there and put that kind of damage on a guy and not have it stopped,” Magny said. “The ref is in there to protect the fighter and [Lombard] wasn’t in a position to protect himself at all. The ref should have stepped in earlier, I thought, but that’s not my job.”

For Lombard, the loss seemed to confirm our worst fears.

He’d gone undefeated since dropping to welterweight near the end of 2013, but this was his first fight in more than 14 months after testing positive for anabolic steroids after his UFC 182 win over Josh Burkman. The victory was consequently converted to a no-contest.

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Lombard returned looking physically the same and also possessing the same lackluster cardio we’ve seen from him in the past. There may be no more terrifying fighter in the UFC for the opening five minutes of any bout. Against opponents who manage to weather the early storm, however, it’s rapidly becoming clear he doesn’t have the wind to go the distance.

That makes Lombard a pretty easy puzzle for top-level competitors to figure out. At his advanced age, it’s impossible to believe he’ll rise to a championship level so long as he remains so glaringly deficient in that important category.

For Magny, this smacks of a signature win.

He’ll move up from his spot at No. 9 on the UFC’s official rankings and perhaps even crack Bleacher Report’s consensus Top 10 when our lists are released in April. He deserves that meeting with the Top Five opponent he spoke about at the press conference.

It’s easy to imagine him scoring a date with Tyron Woodley—who has long been locked out of the title picture—or a former champion such as Johny Hendricks. It might even make sense to match Magny with the winner of Maia’s upcoming fight against Matt Brown at UFC 198.

In any case, he rolls out of this bout looking like the real deal.

And Lombard?

Maybe not so much.