CLOSE BUT NO UFC BANTAMWEIGHT TITLE

TJ Dillashaw vs. Joe Soto, UFC 177

UFC debutant Joe Soto wasn’t far from his Hollywood ending at UFC 177, sometimes seriously troubling UFC 135lb champion TJ Dillashaw in the stand-up even though he was a last-minute, last-resort opponent. Soto had expected his first UFC fight to be on the preliminary portion of UFC 177, until 24 hours prior when he was asked to take Renan Barao’s place in the main event after the Brazilian knocked himself out cutting weight.

Thought a guy whose signature on his UFC contract was barely dry should be no match for his division’s number one? Come on, since when did you think mixed martial arts played by the rules? Often beating Dillashaw to the jab, first-ever Bellator featherweight champion Soto landed several hard shots and bloodied the champion’s face as Dillashaw unsuccessfully looked for the home run hit through the opening rounds.

However, Soto’s storyline slowly dipped south through rounds three and four, as his output lessened and Dillashaw found his rhythm. Then it came to a very definite halt in the fifth when Team Alpha Male’s top gun dizzied the challenger with a right head kick and sent him down and out with a right hand. Still, lasting until the fifth and giving the gold-wearer serious food for thought on the way? Not bad for a guy who hadn’t even broken some bantam top-30 lists.

BACK IN BUSINESS

Michael Bisping, UFC Fight Night 48

Hard to believe, but before kickboxer Michael Bisping TKO’d Cung Le in Macau in August, he hadn’t got a strikes stoppage victory since he beat up Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller way back at the TUF 14 Finale in Las Vegas in 2011.

But if there was any question about his stand-up abilities before Macau, it was likely answered by Le’s face afterward. Looking more like the Elephant Man-esque Sylvester Stallone at the end of the first Rocky movie than the cleaner post-street fight Sly of Rocky V, Cung’s swollen face showed every one of Bisping’s punches and kicks after the Brit won, via a clinch knee, in the fourth round.

The problems really started for Le in the second when a Bisping jab closed his right eye, and his face began to spring leaks faster than Jon Jones deletes offensive Instagram posts. A well-timed flurry in stanza four sealed the deal, however, and just like that Bisping was back in business.

BEST DEBUT

Alan Jouban, UFC Fight Night 47

Former model Alan Jouban made up for nearly getting KO’d by Seth Baczynski by neutralizing his opponent’s ability to stand – all in the first 4:23 of his UFC career. After some tentative, though technical, striking Jouban got dropped by a Baczynski left while throwing in the pocket. But after successfully tying his fellow welterweight up to save his own faculties, Jouban would eventually catch ‘The Polish Pistola’ with his hands down. First with a batch of hooks then two of the southpaw’s short, angular left uppercuts. The last of which cut Baczynski’s strings and put his limp body on a collision course with the canvas. Make yourself at home, Alan.

OFF WITH YOUR HEAD

Yancy Medeiros, UFC 177

Someone call a chiropractor, because the mad, neck-cracking reverse bulldog choke Yancy Medeiros tapped Damon Jackson with in the opening bout of UFC 177’s main card looked painful as hell. The cage getting in the way of Jackson’s attempt to spin out of a standing guillotine lead to the upturned finish – imagine a front/elbow-up guillotine but with the victim on his back and the aggressor sat out onto his hip. With Jackson in prime position, Medeiros summoned a mammoth squeeze, extending Jackson’s neck while constricting his carotid arteries, and his foe fell asleep in the fraction of a second between submitting and Medeiros releasing the hold. From now on we’re spelling ‘discomfort’ as, ‘reverse bulldog choke.’

MOST ENTHUSIASTIC CELEBRATION

Ross Pearson, UFC Fight Night 47

Ross Pearson probably gave himself a hernia while expressing his TKO win over Gray Maynard at UFC Fight Night 47. After pounding the former lightweight title challenger into defeat, Pearson popped up off the canvas screaming with hands balled into fists and pretty much every muscle in his body engaged.

Pearson smelled blood in the second when he clipped Maynard across the jaw with a straight right as the wrestler was stepping in. ‘The Bully’ wobbled to the fence where a jab, straight right and left hook put him on the mat for Pearson’s right hands to finish the job. Flights for cornermen to Maine? Couple of grand. New haircut for the fight? A few bills. Bit of your insides bulging out your torso because the win just felt that good? Priceless.

BEST SUBMISSION

Ben Saunders, UFC Fight Night 49

To help gauge how impressive Ben Saunders’ omoplata submission was at UFC Fight Night 49, ruminate on this: in over 2,880 UFC fights in 21 years, not a single one of them has been finished with the tough-to-snag shoulder lock. In his first UFC fight in over four years, six-foot-three Saunders quickly wrapped up opponent Chris Heatherly in a triangle. But as his comparatively stubby five-foot-eight opponent wriggled out, ‘Killa B’ transitioned to the low percentage omoplata. And you could see on Saunders’ face that when Heatherly wasn’t able to escape within the first few moments he knew he had a chance of finishing with the hold. A few adjustments and a helping left hand forced the tap at 2:18 of round one. As the voice on Mortal Kombat would say: impressive.

REFUSE TO LOSE

Tim Boetsch, UFC Fight Night 47

‘Hello, I’m Tim Boetsch, UFC middleweight, and I simply refuse to lose.’ If you ask us (and you really should consult FO before you make most life choices) that needs to be ‘The Barbarian’s introduction when he meets new people. Family barbecue? Greeting the person who sits next to him at the movies? It doesn’t matter, everyone needs to know Tim Boetsch is a man who scored two UFC victories when it looked most improbable.

He did it in 2012 in the last round against Yushin Okami, and at UFC Fight Night 47 recently when he U-turned what, after the first five minutes, looked likely to be a clinch-based 15-minute destruction from Brad Tavares. Taking advantage of a second-round referee restart caused by an uneventful Tavares over-under attack, Boetsch’s left and right hooks each separately felled Tavares out of nowhere. Moments later the Barbarian was walking off with a cracking new icebreaker.

MEANT TO DO THAT

Luis Palomino, World Series of Fighting 12

The last time Peruvian lightweight Luis Palomino was in these pages it was because he submitted to Pat Curran’s Peruvian necktie chokehold in 2011 (the irony). Now it’s because in beating Lewis Gonzalez at World Series of Fighting 12 in August he pulled off the classic knee-to-head-that-was-meant-to-be-a-high-kick knockout. Palomino, 23-9, dominated Gonzalez on the feet through round one as he used chopping low kicks to set up his hands. Except in the last minute of the first he used one to launch a left head kick, which became a high knee when Gonzalez shot for a takedown at the exact same time. Lucky, or accidentally precise?

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