UFC Fight Night 25 Shields vs. Ellenberger: The Real Winners and Losers

UFC Fight Night 25: Shields vs. Ellenberger is in the books and it’s that time again for us to take a look at the real winners and losers from the big event on Spike TV.

Tonight’s fight card was full of great action, including the main event between welterweights Jake Shields and Jake Ellenberger whose stylistic matchup had a lot of experts scratching their heads on who would have their hand raised at the end of the night.

As with every event, we can always go back and look at the official record books which will tell us who walked out of the event with a “W” and who walked out with an “L.” But the official record book doesn’t always tell the whole story.

Like we’ve seen many times in the past, there were actually quite a few unofficial “winners and losers” from tonight’s fight card. Let’s take a closer look at the event. 

Winner: Evan Dunham

The first big winner from tonight’s fights was Evan Dunham, who was victorious in his fight with Shamar Bailey, where he earned a unanimous decision.

Dunham was coming off of tough back-to-back losses to Sean Sherk and Melvin Guillard. The loss to Sherk was very controversial in that most fans believed that Dunham actually won the bout. But when the judges’ decision came in, it was Dunham who walked out of the cage with a loss.

But worse yet was his crushing loss to Melvin Guillard at UFC Fight for the Troops. That loss was likely the toughest moment of Dunham’s career so far, so this bounce-back win tonight will be a great step in the right direction. 

Loser: Cody McKenzie

Cody McKenzie has a very loyal group of fans who seem to follow him everywhere he goes. Even when it looked like McKenzie was in trouble during tonight’s fight, fans could be heard loudly cheering and chanting for the former The Ultimate Fighter star.

McKenzie looked good early in tonight’s fight, scoring with some nice kickboxing, but ended up finding himself in numerous tough positions throughout the fight with jiu-jitsu expert Vagner Rocha. Though he displayed some impressive submission defense, he eventually was submitted with a rear naked choke.

The loss was McKenzie’s second, both of which came came in his past two fights. 

Winner: Vagner Rocha

Vagner Rocha carried an impressive 6-1 MMA record into his UFC debut against Donald Cerrone at UFC 131. But hyped-up as he was going into his first bout on the big stage, Rocha was unable to stop the attack of the “Cowboy,” who won a unanimous judges’ decision.

Tonight, though, would be Rocha’s night.

Just over three months after his UFC 131, Rocha scored an impressive submission victory over the slippery and skilled ground practitioner Cody McKenzie.

But it wasn’t just that he won the fight that was impressive. It was the way he seemed to dominate a fighter who has won nearly every fight in his career by way of guillotine choke.

Rocha actually slipped out of the “McKenzie-tine” early in the bout only to find himself with his own hand raised via submission in the end.

The impressive performance should catch the attention of the UFC matchmakers. 

Loser: Dongi Yang

Undefeated Korean Top Team member Dongi Yang made his UFC debut at UFC 121 when he lost a razor-thin split decision to former The Ultimate Fighter participant Chris Carmozzi. Tonight, he fell further down the rankings with his second loss in the UFC, again to a former The Ultimate Fighter participant, this time Court McGee.

Yang’s judo skills were on display tonight as he prevented numerous takedown attempts from McGee while seemingly winning at least the first round.

But it was in the second and third rounds when the training regimens of these two competitors came into play. While Yang huffed and puffed through the later stages of the bout, it was McGee who looked almost to be in the same shape as he was when he stepped into the cage.

At that point, the fight slipped away from Yang, who was just physically unable to keep up with his opponent.

Yang now slips to 1-2 in the UFC and while he is not in any imminent danger of being cut, will need to step things up in his next fight, namely in the cardio game.

Winner: Court McGee

The Ultimate Fighter just keeps putting out great competitors and tonight Court McGee proved to be one of the better up-and-coming middleweights in the UFC when he battled through a tough fight against Dongi Yang.

McGee struggled early and seemed almost flustered that he couldn’t bring the fight to the ground, but in the end it was his tremendous cardio work from camp that was likely the biggest reason he was able to walk away with a win.

Yang actually connected with a big left hand during the fight that knocked McGee down. As he got back to his feet, he also took a pretty big flying knee right to the side of his face. But not even those two brutal shots were enough to put away The Ultimate Fighter season 11 winner.

Tonight’s victory showed that there may be tough times that a fighter goes through during his bouts, but having top-level cardio can often overcome those things. 

Loser: Jake Shields

Perhaps the biggest loser of the night was former Strikeforce middleweight champion and recent UFC welterweight No. 1 contender Jake Shields.

Shields joined the UFC in late-2010 when it was determined that there were essentially no other viable contenders for his championship in Strikeforce.

After an unbelievable streak that spanned some six years without a loss and included victories over Dan Henderson, Carlos Condit and Yushin Okami among others, Shields seemed to be an obvious candidate for the elite in the UFC welterweight division.

But after a surprisingly difficult contest against Martin Kampmann in his debut for the promotion, Shields fell flat against champion Georges St.-Pierre at UFC 129, losing a unanimous decision.

Tonight, though, was perhaps the most crushing loss of Shields’ career when he was knocked flat out against up-and-coming welterweight prospect Jake Ellenberger in the main event. Shields was so out, in fact, that he continued to try to fight the referee out of pure instinct for quite awhile after the stoppage.

Props to need to go to Jake Shields, though, who lost his father during this training camp. It takes a true warrior to put aside personal situations and still achieve his peak physical condition. His hand wasn’t raised at the end of the night, but Shields’ determination is extremely admirable. 

Winner: Jake Ellenberger

It didn’t take much thought to come to the conclusion of who the biggest winner of tonight’s UFC Fight Night was. Jake Ellenberger was absolutely perfect on this, the biggest night of his mixed martial arts career thus far.

The 26-year old welterweight earned himself a huge bump in the rankings tonight when he knocked out one of the top fighters in the world, Jake Shields, less than a minute into the first round of their bout.

Everyone watching knew what the game plans were for these two fighters. Shields wanted to bring the fight to the ground, Ellenberger wanted to keep it standing.

The stylistic matchup was intriguing because both fighters are at the top of their game and both have been putting together an amazing record against top-level fighters for quite awhile.

It was Ellenberger who was able to implement his game plan as Shields never even truly had a chance to get the fight on the ground. Ellenberger showed his strength in the early moments of the fight when Shields went for a takedown, but was thrown almost effortlessly onto his back.

As Shields looked for another takedown a few moments later, Ellenberger smashed him with a huge knee that landed perfectly before he finished things up with a flurry of left hands to the side of his opponent’s head.

This victory marks the biggest moment in Ellenberger’s career and could very well have earned him the next shot at the UFC welterweight championship after St.-Pierre vs. Condit later this year.

Losers: Nick Diaz and BJ Penn

An unexpected set of losers from tonight’s fights may actually be two guys who are not even fighting tonight: Nick Diaz and BJ Penn.

Diaz and Penn are now set to fight one another at UFC 137 next month. The fight came after Diaz was booted from his original main event title fight with Georges St-Pierre because he had made a habit of not appearing in scheduled media sessions.

Still, Diaz vs. Penn was unofficially set to be a No. 1 contender's bout of some sort given the hype surrounding the bout.

But after tonight’s dominant performance by Jake Ellenberger, there is a very real chance that they may be skipped over on their way back into the title picture. Only time will tell what happens, but things just got a lot more cluttered at the top of the division.

Loser: Spike TV

They’re not really required to, but the lack of promotion for tonight’s event on Spike TV was very surprising.

It could have been that there were just too many other combat sports events going on tonight including a Bellator event and of course the Floyd Mayweather vs. Victor Ortiz boxing fight, but tonight’s event just didn’t seem to have the same type of hype surrounding it that a typical UFC event does.

It could be that the card itself didn’t have many big names on it outside of the main event between Shields and Ellenberger (who are only slightly above-average names themselves), it could be the competition the show was facing or it could be that the UFC and Spike have finally collectively grown sour with one another.

Regardless of the reason, though, tonight’s event just didn’t have the typical UFC atmosphere.

For the UFC, the move to FOX just can’t come soon enough.