UFC 204: Cool Customer Gegard Mousasi Finally Heating Up After Vitor Belfort TKO
For years, people have been waiting for Gegard Mousasi to break out.
Perhaps one of the most talented but least excitable fighters in the UFC is finally about to get his moment.
Mousasi launched himself into the thick of middleweight title contention at Saturday's UFC 204, stunning Vitor Belfort with a wicked head kick en route to a second-round TKO finish in Manchester, England.
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The win gives Mousasi three straight for the first time in his 10-fight UFC career. It's his longest consecutive run of victories since he went 6-0-1 across three different promotions between July 2010 and April 2013.
Given that Belfort came in ranked No. 5, this win also constitutes Mousasi's biggest triumph since coming to the UFC as part of the Strikeforce purchase nearly four years ago.
It comes at an advantageous time in the middleweight division.
After spending most of 2016 chasing its own tail, the next couple of months should give the 185-pound weight class some direction—or cast it even further into chaos.
Either way, Mousasi could seize the opportunity to climb the ladder.
Former champ Chris Weidman returns from a serious neck injury to fight No. 4 Yoel Romero next month at UFC 205. Two weeks after that, Luke Rockhold—the man who took Weidman's title—will rematch third-ranked Jacare Souza at UFC Fight Night 101.
The winner of one of those fights may turn out to be next for current champion Michael Bisping, who solidified his own reign Saturday by gutting out a unanimous-decision victory over a game Dan Henderson.
The odd man out, however, will need somebody to fight. When the championship carousel stops spinning sometime early in 2017, Mousasi may be the highest ranking middleweight coming off a win—and therefore will be in good standing to be the guy for the job.
On the other hand, Mousasi had a different sort of booking in mind in the wake of the Belfort TKO.
"It all makes sense for me," he told UFC color commentator Brian Stann in the cage, when asked which top contender might fit as his next opponent. "I'd rather fight soon, and Anderson Silva is a great fight for me."
Belfort, meanwhile, slips to just 1-3 since the UFC banned testosterone replacement therapy near the beginning of 2014. The former light heavyweight champion and perennial contender had been the poster boy for the controversial medical treatment during its heyday in MMA.
In the wake of its ouster, he has been considerably less fearsome.
Belfort was at the height of his powers during 2013, when he crafted three consecutive head-kick knockouts in UFC competition. But he took all of 2014 off after TRT was banned and has not been able to get back on track since.
He looked tepid during the nearly eight minutes he spent in the cage with Mousasi. Belfort flashed the hand speed that made him a UFC legend after coming to the Octagon in 1997, but the jaw-jacking power that had been his calling card during his best days was notably absent.
Mousasi—lauded as one of the middleweight division's most technically proficient fighters—looked content to pick his spots. He pressed forward with relentless but measured pressure, popping Belfort with a slick jab and whittling away at his base with low kicks.
The few times Belfort did try to come forward with one of his trademark barrages of punches, Mousasi moved him away and parried him without much trouble. Once he even waggled a finger at Belfort, as if to tell the 39-year-old Brazilian that his typical style of fighting wouldn't be successful on this night.
After scoring a takedown at the buzzer to end the first round, Mousasi chose to shoot again early in the second. This time, Belfort stuffed the try, but a few moments later Mousasi stunned him with a thudding kick to the head.
Seeing Belfort hurt, Mousasi moved forward with a suddenly harried series of power punches. Belfort tried to weather them, but he soon dropped to the canvas, where Mousasi pounced on him and advanced to mount.
Belfort tried his best to defend. Eventually, though, he wound up on his side, accepting a series of raining right hands until referee Mark Goddard called a halt to the action two minutes, 43 seconds into the second round.
The sudden fire Mousasi showed in the fight's latter stages was a welcome sight for fans who've long tabbed the 31-year-old striker as a sleeper contender at 185 pounds. Mousasi's calm—sometimes nearly morose—demeanor is something of an inside joke among hardcore MMA fans, so seeing him pour it on Belfort leading up to the stoppage was encouraging.
Mousasi now has three KO/TKO finishes in his last five victories.
He played it cool as ever on the mic after the bout, answering Stann's questions about his future with the kind of studied nonchalance spectators have come to expect from him.
At the postfight press conference, he began to flex a little personality. That's another good sign for people hoping to see Mousasi sprint up the ranks. Here's the video evidence, courtesy MMAFighting.com on Twitter:
Moving forward, Mousasi should have no shortage of options, especially if he continues to bring the heat in and out of the cage.
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