UFC 122 Results and Reaction: Dennis Siver Chokes Out Andre Winner

Seems Andre Winner couldn’t live up to his last name this time around.

He gave a hell of a try, but Dennis Siver impressed greatly in his hometown at UFC 122.

The fight wound up being one of the only finishes on the card, but it was exciting for its duration in every sense of the word.

Unofficially becoming the “co-main event” of the evening due to an unfortunate set of circumstances regarding the Alessio Sakara-Jorge Rivera fight, Siver and Winner went at it in the first round, exchanging everything from leg kicks to jabs and just about everything in between.

Siver fired first, before the two exchanges a series of leg kicks, and before missing what could have been a nice head kick to Winner had it not been blocked.

At first, it seemed like that would be all Siver could do, as Winner’s reach helped him land some serious shots to Siver in subsequent exchanges, and Siver was unable to take the fight to the ground.

That of course was all before he dropped Winner with one shot.

Winner looked to be out of it as Siver kept on delivering more and more punishment to Winner, but Siver could do little to nab himself a stoppage by strikes.

So what did he do from there?

He leaps on the back of Winner–-who had the height and reach advantage coming into this fight and actually attempted to fight the choke off.

Thought it was a valiant effort on the TUF 9 finalist’s part, he eventually had to give in and tap out to the rear naked choke applied in the closing moments of the fight.

A replay showed an absolutely fatal error on Winner’s part: Winner basically walked into the shot that led to the barrage of strikes and the rear naked choke.

With the UFC/WEC Merger and the number of Lightweights in the division now, speculation has translated to believe that the fights are so important now in the 155-pound division, the wins mean just so much more for every Lightweight.

See, even though a win may not exactly put them in line for either the winner of  Edgar-Maynard or the winner of the Unified Title bout between the UFC 125 winner and the man who walks out of WEC 53 as champion, to lose a bout could mean that one may be in danger of being put on the proverbial “chopping block”.

Winner had come off of a loss before taking this fight, but one has to wonder if perhaps this second straight loss has had Dana White conveniently remembering where he left his little box of pink slips.

If it hasn’t, Winner has to figure out where he slipping up and he has to do well to dry that spot up, because one more slip and he’s through with the UFC.

As for Siver, it’s too early to say that this win earns him the winner of the Unification bout, but give him another two to three fights in the company against more high-level guys and then maybe the next time I open up an article, I’ll be sure to make it so that the first sentence says the following:

“The UFC needs to give Dennis Siver a shot at the UFC Lightweight title.”

Call the win over Winner impressive, but let’s wait and see what Siver can do against the upper echelon before we start hopping on the bandwagon.