UFC 225 Results: The Real Winners and Losers
The UFC pulled out all the stops for Chicago.
Robert Whittaker has emerged as a bad man and one of the UFC's best—the perfect combination of tactics and violence. But despite fighting Saturday at the top of a loaded UFC 225 slate, the middleweight champion didn't put his title on the line.
Why? The erstwhile challenger, Yoel Romero, missed weight by 0.2 pounds. It might not sound like much, but it was enough to render the bout a non-title affair.
I'm not mad at him, though. Romero has the strength of a street-level Marvel hero and the skill set of an Olympian. (He won a wrestling silver in 2000.) I'm afraid to be mad at him.
These two met nearly a year ago. Whittaker somehow gutted through an early leg destruction to outlast Romero. That was for the interim title. The belt has eluded Romero to date, and that can't be a familiar feeling to a guy who eats crossover utility vehicles for breakfast. A win here wouldn't change that, but it would lock in a high-stakes rubber match.
Who won Saturday? And who shined on a stacked card in the City of Broad Shoulders? Oh, hey, what about that CM Punk guy? Could he really get a win in the UFC and his hometown? Converted hobbyist Mike Jackson may have been his best chance at a victory.
Plenty of other big names showed up, some of which have been dormant of late. Alistair Overeem, Rashad Evans, Joseph Benavidez and Clay Guida were all in action.
As always, the final stat lines only revealed so much. These are the real winners and losers from UFC 225.
Winner: Robert Whittaker
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The main event was an outstanding fight. After five rounds, Whittaker and Romero were bloodied and almost semiconscious in the cage. They both looked like losers, but that's when you most wish they could each be winners.
Whittaker retained his middleweight belt with a split-decision victory. But it did not come easy.
"He hits like a truck. I know he looks weak," Whittaker joked with broadcaster Joe Rogan in the cage after the fight. "He packs some power. He caught me in the fourth and the fifth, and I just came back. I was just trying to survive. ... I hit him a lot. I thought I controlled three of the five rounds, but it was anybody's guess."
The bout started slow but came on like a freight train.
After a feeling-out first round, Whittaker began to pump his jab. Romero had his hands high, but the jab found its way through. Down the stretch of the second frame, a jab seemed to catch Romero in precisely the wrong place, and almost instantly his right eye was puffy and closing fast.
The third round was one of 2018's best.
With one eye swollen shut and his cardio pipeline not far behind it, Romero landed a huge right hand on Whittaker's jaw. The champ hit the ground. Summoning the dregs of his energy, Romero charged after him, wildly raining punches and anything else he could think to throw. But Whittaker showed the toughness he displayed in their first match when he injured his knee.
The champ held his ground and fired back, trying a takedown to slow the action and eventually landing heavy step-in elbows that gave Romero something to think about.
Over the final two rounds, Whittaker stopped using his right hand, instead using the left and throwing more kicks, particularly to Romero's legs. Whittaker told Rogan he fractured it in the third and said it was "numb up to my elbow." These were two wounded MMA warriors by the end of the fight.
In the fifth, Romero rocked Whittaker again. With this corner beseeching him to find a way to finish the bout, Romero was on top of a turtled Romero and pounding. But Whittaker held on, pushing his head under the kneeling Romero's legs to shield himself. He took heavy knees and punches later but staggered to his feet and staved off the big shots on what looked to be sheer instinct. Romero, meanwhile, was gassed and appeared to be almost confused about what to do or how to end the fight.
Ultimately, Whittaker held on for the close win, but it may have been a pyrrhic victory for the Australian. He understated the damage he'd received after but still made it clear the war had taken a toll.
"I'm going to let my body heal," Whittaker told Rogan when asked about a third Romero fight. "I'm going to get myself right, talk to the team and see where the journey takes us."
With this fight, the first bout and some troubling health concerns in between, Whittaker has earned rest. Here's hoping for all our sakes he can return to 100 percent and head back to the UFC to make more magic.
Winner: Colby Covington
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Colby Covington is your new UFC interim welterweight champion.
After his win over Rafael dos Anjos, people who don't care for his brand of racist trash talk will have to find a new strategy to deal with him besides hoping it and he will go away.
Covington isn't going away. Against former lightweight champion dos Anjos, he imposed his will and pressured his opponent over five impressive rounds for a unanimous-decision win.
His striking output was constant, varied and thrown with danger. Covington's strongest weapon, though, was repeatedly powering dos Anjos back against the chain link and holding him there. He did so as he prevented dos Anjos from circling out, and as the minutes piled up, dos Anjos lost steam.
In contrast, Covington stayed fresh throughout. He had better conditioning and strength. That's a great combination.
Dos Anjos hit takedowns during the stretch and landed solid shots, too. His overall output was good throughout. But it was Covington's night.
Dissection of his smack talk and the motives for same will wait for another day. As long as he keeps winning, he'll have the luxury of relishing the boos and soaking up the adulation of those who believe his vitriol is some kind of scripted, pro-wrestling-style marketing plan.
Covington has coined a term for his detractors: virgins. For the time being, those detractors will need a new term for him: champ. He earned the interim title, and that is the hard truth of it. Covington is a hell of a good fighter.
A showdown with lineal champ Tyron Woodley waits in the wings.
Losers: CM Punk and Mike Jackson
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I understand the CM Punk intrigue. I respect him for getting in there to fight in the face of long odds and an even longer learning curve.
I respect Mike Jackson. He, too, stepped in despite being more of a media member like me than a serious pro fighter.
These are regular guys, and their courage is admirable. But courage isn't the problem. It's the "regular guys" part. This was a putrid fight between two dudes who don't belong at this level. Jackson dominated and styled on Punk to win a decision. Each judge gave him a 30-26 score.
There's no need to go back over the action in detail. The closest round was the first, before Punk got tired. Punk even got a takedown. Still, Jackson cruised on output.
Punk was dog tired for the rest of the contest. His punches and kicks started slow and only got slower. He couldn't control the fight anywhere, be it on the feet, in the clinch or on the ground.
But Jackson couldn't take full advantage. Or, rather, he wouldn't. At least once, he stiffened Punk with a punch on the feet. He never followed up. He used flashy head movement to dodge Punk's own punches. Inside Punk's semi-existent guard, Jackson was a kid in a sandbox, pointedly looking away from Punk time and again before lacing in another shot. He let Punk grab the body lock so he could pummel under and swim out.
Jackson didn't look that great, either. He didn't have big power in his punches—and, don't forget, surrendered a takedown to CM Punk. This guy isn't beating anyone in the UFC besides the guy he just beat. And instead of getting the finish he could have gotten, he chose to play Anderson Silva with an out-of-breath pro wrestler. His reward for that? Needing the judges to decide the contest.
Assuming I've made my point, I'll stop here. It's time we all moved on.
Winner: Holly Holm
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Holly Holm is a great fighter. She just seems to bite off more than she can chew sometimes, and she has lost four of five as a result. Her last fight was a perfect example, when she moved up a weight class to featherweight and was dominated by Cris "Cyborg" Justino—and became the first person to go the distance with Cyborg since 2008.
On the other side, Megan Anderson made her UFC debut Saturday after a successful run in various other promotions. The Australian-American muay thai striker also is, at 6'0", one of the tallest fighters in women's MMA.
Anderson is nobody's grappling wiz; all four of her wins in the all-female Invicta FC, where she fought before the UFC, came by knockout. She uses every inch of her frame to land heavy shots from long range then crashes inside to finish the job.
She had no reason to think Holm would deny her opportunities. The former boxing champion has earned a reputation for kicking, punching, circling, rinsing and repeating in the UFC. The approach has served her well in spots, although it became repetitive and predictable recently.
Holm had a surprise for everybody. She pulled Anderson to the ground, kept her mounted and stayed busy with punches and top control. It neutralized Anderson's size and skills, and it was something Holm had never shown before.
That led her to the unanimous-decision victory over a promising newcomer.
Rogan asked her the logical question after the fight: Will she stay at 145 pounds or return to her natural bantamweight? Holm answered in a way that didn't surprise her fans nearly as much as the new ground game.
"The 135-pound belt is dear to me. I want it back," she told Rogan. "It's like losing my pet or something. My heart hurts. So I do want to go back to that, but I want to feel like I want to challenge myself. ... You have to take great risks to get great victories."
Go ahead and book that rematch.
Winner: Curtis Blaydes
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They call him Razor for a reason.
It was the biggest fight of Curtis "Razor" Blaydes' UFC tenure when he faced top contender Alistair Overeem. An unabashed wrestler, Blaydes did his thing early, keeping Overeem and his vaunted kickboxing under wraps and tiring the Dutchman.
Halfway through the third, Blaydes launched a sequence that fans of the heavyweight division will remember for quite some time. A heavy Blaydes knee landed square on Overeem's forehead. Stunned, Overeem wheeled back, and Blaydes attacked. After some punches, Blaydes hit a double-leg takedown to get The Reem on the mat; a mount quickly followed.
That's where he proved his nickname.
Blaydes landed a series of crushing elbows, including one that sliced open Overeem's forehead, causing Overeem to bleed like he never has, at least not in recent memory. It looked like he had been cut by a "Razor." Referee Dan Miragliotta had seen enough and waved off Blaydes and his razor-sharp elbows.
After the fight, Blaydes told Joe Rogan "it's my turn" to challenge for the heavyweight title. We'll see what happens after champ Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier tangle next month. In the meantime, Overeem sits at No. 2 and Blaydes sits at No. 4 in the official UFC rankings. There's no apparent reason those numbers couldn't be switched.
Loser: Rashad Evans
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Anthony Smith is a good fighter. He's underrated. He's 5-2 in the UFC and a winner in four of his last five.
But Smith didn't win Saturday's Fight Pass headliner. Evans lost it.
He was lackadaisical from the beginning. Off a leg kick, the former light heavyweight champion grabbed Smith and pushed him against the fence. He didn't seem to notice that his head was perfectly set in the trajectory of Smith's knee. The latter noticed, and he did something about it.
The knee landed flush, but it didn't look particularly hard (thought that's easy for me to write). Evans fell to the mat like he was fighting Lyoto Machida seven years ago. It was over in 53 seconds.
Evans never seemed to drop into gear. It's a continuation of his five-year run of injuries and futility. He has competed five times since 2013—all losses. His move down to middleweight didn't help anything. Now, all he can hope to be is someone who puts over younger, abler competitors.
He has had a great career. He has faced and beaten a who's who of his contemporaries. It would seem he has plenty of interests and opportunities outside of fighting, not least of which are his broadcasting duties with Fox Sports 1—and he should consider exploring those more. This is only going to get worse.
Winner: Up-and-Down Careers
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Or maybe this should be a "Loser" slide.
The careers on display here couldn't have been more double-sided if Harvey Dent ran in with a chair. Charles Oliveira submitted Clay Guida on the undercard, but if you look at the checkerboard patterns of both careers, it shouldn't have been that surprising. Allow me to explain.
A knee-jerk reaction to Oliveira's career is to say it hasn't lived up to early expectations. But the guy's still 23-8. It's the inconsistency that gives the impression of underachievement. He's 3-4 in his last seven, having alternated wins and losses save for two defeats in the middle.
Guida's ledger is similarly inconsistent, as he's traded wins and losses in ones and twos for the past seven years.
Guida was coming off a victory; Oliveira was coming off a loss. And you see what happened.
That's right: The immutable forces that maintain balance in the universe prevailed once again, when Oliveira choked out Guida in a crisp two minutes, 18 seconds. The up-and-down trend continues. One might wonder whether Oliveira may have finally figured it all out while Guida is starting to show his age (36), but at this point we should all know better.
UFC 225 Full Card Results
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Main Card
Robert Whittaker def. Yoel Romero by split decision (48-47, 47-48, 48-47)
Colby Covington def. Rafael dos Anjos by unanimous decision (49-46, 48-47, 48-47) (becomes interim UFC welterweight champion)
Holly Holm def. Megan Anderson by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-26, 30-26)
Tai Tuivasa def. Andrei Arlovski by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Mike Jackson def. CM Punk by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-26)
Preliminary Card
Curtis Blaydes def. Alistair Overeem by TKO, 2:56, Rd. 3
Claudia Gadelha def. Carla Esparza by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
Mirsad Bektic def. Ricardo Lamas by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 30-27)
Chris de la Rocha def. Rashad Coulter by TKO, 3:53, Rd. 2
Anthony Smith def. Rashad Evans by KO, 0:53, Rd. 1
Sergio Pettis def. Joseph Benavidez by split decision (28-29, 29-28, 30-27)
Charles Oliveira def. Clay Guida by submission (guillotine choke), 2:18, Rd. 1
Dan Ige def. Mike Santiago by TKO, 0:50, Rd. 1
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