UFC Fight Night 144 Results: The Real Winners and Losers
Allow me to inject myself into the narrative for a moment.
If you've ever read anything I've written before on Raphael Assuncao, you know I believe him to be richly deserving of a UFC bantamweight title shot. More than deserving actually. Based on his achievements—four straight wins and 11 of his past 12 over some of the best in the division, with his only defeat coming to champ TJ Dillashaw, whom he has also defeated—it is long overdue.
As we know, in the UFC, deserve has got nothing to do with it. That's why we have winners and losers and real winners and losers. The UFC is not a strict meritocracy; it never was. Performance is critical, but you have to move the units.
Assuncao, for all his defensive greatness and laser precision in all phases, is not a high-output, finish-seeking kind of fighter. There are long periods of action as he waits on counters or mounts up riding time on the ground. The steak is there; the sizzle is not.
That makes Assuncao a fascinating stress test. The closer his title shot case gets to airtight, the more it opens the UFC's flank to claims it does not necessarily give the best fights to the best fighters. Here in the brand-new ESPN era, such observations may start to become more important.
Saturday night at UFC Fight Night 144 in Brazil, UFC brass must have been rooting for Marlon Moraes. Assuncao is the only man to beat Moraes in four UFC contests. He's a dynamic fighter with wood-chipper muay thai and aggressive jiu-jitsu. He's the kind of guy the promotion would love to have waiting in the wings for Dillashaw or whomever may emerge whenever Dillashaw's business with Henry Cejudo is over.
If Assuncao beat Moraes again, though, that would have effectively sealed off Moraes from contender status. With Dominick Cruz again sadly on the shelf with injury, no other fighter would have a claim as strong as Assuncao's.
On Saturday, we found out whether Moraes could break through or whether Assuncao could tie the rope a little tighter around the matchmakers' hands.
As always, the final stat lines only reveal so much. These are the real winners and losers from all across the card at UFC Fight Night 144.
For the literal-minded among us, full card results appear at the end.
Loser: Raphael Assuncao
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Well, there goes that.
All credit in the world to Moraes, who was the better man Saturday. He put the wood to Assuncao and never let up. Two lightning-bolt right hands put Assuncao on the mat, a sharp elbow opened him up and a guillotine choke finished him off. It was over in 3:17.
"I'm the best in the division, and you know who I deserve," Moraes told broadcaster Michael Bisping in the cage after the fight. "Our champion went down a weight class, but I'm ready. ... Hey, TJ, I don't know if you deserve to fight with me after your last performance, my friend."
As good as Assuncao is and as interesting a case as he presents, this may be the last time we seem him in such a high-profile slot for a while. The trap door just fell out from underneath him. Will he get a rubber match with Moraes? Not in this life. If he's lucky, he will get the winner (or the loser) of March's bout between Pedro Munhoz and Cody Garbrandt.
In contrast, Moraes is all but assured the next title shot after Dillashaw and Cejudo are sussed out. Hats off to Moraes. He deserves the big chance. So did Assuncao.
Winner: Jose Aldo
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Jose Aldo ain't going nowhere.
The former featherweight king faced retirement questions throughout fight week. He will face them no more. As a delirious crowd willed him on, Aldo charged down Renato Moicano, sweeping him up into a funnel cloud of strikes that forced a second-round TKO stoppage.
"I wanted to vary my shots," Aldo told Bisping in the cage after the fight. "Hit him high, hit him low."
Mission accomplished. After a feeling-out first round, everything was still very much in the air. At 5'11" Moicano is a skyscraper of a featherweight, standing four inches taller than Aldo, though he didn't use the advantage to any great effect.
Maybe he was saving it for later. We'll never know. Along with leg kicks, the body shot is Aldo's trademark weapon. He used it this time to start the beginning of the end. Moicano tried time and again to get away, to reset. Aldo was having none of it. A left, then a right, then a knee, then an uppercut, then a left, then an uppercut. You get the idea.
To negate the height advantage, Aldo left his feet more than once, slamming home shot after shot. His face was strained, the tendons visible in his neck. This was a fury that isn't always evident in the defensive-minded Aldo. Moicano is still a good fighter, and credit him for never going down (the ref stepped in to stop it as he leaned against the fence). But no one was going to survive Aldo on Saturday in front of that raucous hometown crowd.
Speaking of crowds, afterward Aldo jumped over the fence and into the people. Nothing bad happened, and it's not the first time Aldo has done that, but after that whole Conor-Khabib thing, you had to imagine the sight prompted the medical staff to take a few calls from the luxury suites.
This was a former champion with a statement to make. Statement made. We'll back off on the retirement talk, boss. Keep doing it like this, and you can do it for as long as you want.
Winner: The Demian Maia Playbook
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I don't need the 41-year-old playing on Sunday. Give me the 41-year-old who fought tonight.
This is far, far easier said than done, but you still wonder about the tape Lyman Good was studying in the run-up to his fight with Demian Maia. The NFL playoffs? The new season of The Punisher? Whatever it was, he didn't seem to have any answer for Maia, who didn't exactly add a lot of wrinkles to the playbook.
Cut off the cage, shoot for the double-leg, spread out the legs, climb on the back, lock on the choke, squeeze and force tap. This time, it happened in 2:38. Every fight fan knows the Maia process, as clean and classic as a counter trey. In all seriousness, Good probably knew it better than anyone, and it's a testament to Maia that he keeps making hay with those signature moves, no matter how many times he dials them up
Loser: Charles Oliveira's Eyes
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After the fight, Charles Oliveira told Bisping he was unsure whether he could continue.
"I thought I would not go back [into the fight]," Oliveira said in a post-fight statement. "I was not seeing anything, but the doctor came in and began to calm me."
It came courtesy of a deep and cringeworthy eye poke in the first round from opponent David Teymur. A second eye poke followed. The referee rightly took a point, but that didn't clear Oliveira's vision, which plagued him for the rest of the contest.
Ultimately, the forces of good prevailed. Oliveira cornered Teymur against the fence and unloaded with massive punches from both sides. Everyone knew it was over when Oliveira got hold of the neck. He dragged Teymur down, locked in his position, cranked the neck and forced the tap.
Oliveira added to his historic UFC-best total with this 13th submission win. He was once a widely hyped prospect. Then he fell victim to greenery and inconsistency. Now, with his fourth straight victory—all of them submissions—the 29-year-old lightweight may have finally found his stride.
Now if he can just find his eyes in there, we will be all set.
Winner: Johnny Walker
5 of 8
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem.
That is, if we compete in the UFC light heavyweight division. Johnny Walker has landed after his second knockout in as many UFC contests—this one a spectacular 15-second finish of Justin Ledet.
After dancing all the way up to and into the cage, Walker showed how serious his skills are with a side kick to Ledet's midsection, followed by a hook kick to the side of the head and a spinning backfist to follow up. Ledet crumpled. A few moments later, he was flipping and break-dancing his way across the canvas.
It almost had a different ending. Just before the end, Walker charged toward the fallen Ledet and inexplicably fired a soccer kick directly at Ledet's skull. The kick missed by a hair, but for one breathless instant, it was nearly the worst kind of highlight—particularly on the heels of that Greg Hardy disaster in the UFC's first event on ESPN. Nah. Didn't need a sequel there.
But it missed, so we're free to focus on Walker. In his UFC debut, he finished Khalil Rountree inside two minutes with a nasty clinch elbow. And now this. He has two knockouts over two solid fighters in a combined 2:21 of cage time.
Walker is aggressive, powerful, skilled and clearly hungry for the spotlight. In the UFC's most talent-starved division, matchmakers ought to feed him.
Loser: Sarah Frota
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Weight-cutting is difficult business. It can arguably be as bad as the fight itself—maybe even worse in certain cases. If a rank-and-file fighter misses by a pound, it's not the end of the world. These things happen.
But when you miss by seven pounds? Well, that's a different kettle of fish.
Sarah Frota didn't appear to give her cut an honest try. She tipped the scale at 123 pounds, seven pounds over the 116-pound upper limit for a strawweight non-title fight. That's a pretty substantial difference anywhere, but it becomes massive when you are in the UFC's smallest division.
When Frota stepped in against favored and ballyhooed Livia Renata Souza, the size difference was painfully obvious. Known for knockouts, Frota looked to put her physical edge to work with big punch combinations.
It didn't go her way.
Souza showed why people are so excited about her fledgling UFC run. The former Invicta champ used nifty trip takedowns and dominant ground control—very nearly choking out Frota in the final seconds of Round 2—to secure the win and make it two-for-two in the Octagon. It was a close fight, and to her credit, Frota did show why she was previously undefeated, but Souza rightly gained a split decision.
If Frota gets a second chance in the UFC, her weight cut will be watched closely. For now, she may have learned a lesson about the size of the dog in the fight.
Winner: Suriname
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Big heavyweight Jairzinho Rozenstruik landed a big punch-kick combination that seemed to brutalize Junior Albini in slow motion and notch him a knockout win in his UFC debut on Saturday.
Rozenstruik competed under an unfamiliar flag Saturday, that of Suriname, a tiny nation in the northeast corner of South America. Bigi Boy is the first Surinamese fighter to enter the UFC Octagon.
We'll see what he can do for an encore, but in the meantime, at least there wasn't a need to watch Albini's shorts for the full 15 minutes. Someone, please help this man.
UFC Fight Night 144 Full Card Results
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Main Card
Marlon Moraes def. Raphael Assuncao by submission (guillotine choke), 3:17, Rd. 1.
Jose Aldo def. Renato Moicano by TKO, 0:44, Rd. 2.
Demian Maia def. Lyman Good by submission (rear-naked choke), 2:38, Rd. 1.
Charles Oliveira def. David Teymur by submission (anaconda choke), 0:55, Rd. 2.
Johnny Walker def. Justin Ledet by TKO, 0:15, Rd. 1.
Livia Renata Souza def. Sarah Frota by split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28).
Preliminary Card
Markus Perez def. Anthony Hernandez by technical submission (anaconda choke), 1:07, Rd. 2.
Mara Romero Borella def. Taila Santos by split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28).
Thiago Alves def. Max Griffin by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28).
Jairzinho Rozenstruik def. Junior Albini by TKO, 0:54, Rd. 2.
Geraldo de Freitas def. Felipe Corrales by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26).
Said Nurmagomedov def. Ricardo Ramos by TKO, 2:28, Rd. 1.
Rogerio Bontorin def. Magomed Bibulatov by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28).
Scott Harris covers MMA and other things for Bleacher Report.
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