Last night was a very entertaining night of fights that ended with a very controversial split decision win for the UFC Welterweight title.
We will begin with the headlining fight of the prelims. Donald Cerrone who was on a two-fight losing streak coming into his fight with Evan Dunham and he desperately needed a win last night and he got it. He was able to out-strike and out-grapple Dunham and eventually finish him on the ground with a beautiful triangle choke in the second round. The question now becomes what should Donald Cerrone do now after his win? Should he continue to fight at 155 or should he make the move to 145 as he had stated he would do win, lose or draw?
The first fight on the main card was a fast-paced fight between Tim Elliot and Ali Bagautinov. It was an interesting fight in which both men participated in excellent striking exchanges which involved Tim Elliot landing more volumes of strikes and Bagautinov landing the more devastating strikes. It was a match in which I had Bagautinov winning rounds 1 ad 3, but felt the fight could go either way depending on what the judges saw was more important, volume or clean, power strikes. In that fight the judges chose accurate, clean, power strikes. The question for this match up would be how many wins would Bagautinov be away from a title fight and who will he face next?
The next fight was the first of three fights at 170 lbs on the main card. Tyron Woodley faced Josh Koscheck in a match that ended in the first round by way of TKO. Koscheck hurt Woodley early in the round with a straight right hand that made Woodley begin to step backwards, but Woodley survived that and some impressive grappling from Koscheck in order to rock Koscheck with a right hand and send him flat on his back. The question I have is how would Woodley perform is he is given a top ten opponent for his next fight?
After that match was GSP's training partner, Rory MacDonald taking on Robbie Lawler in the second welterweight fight of the main card. After promising to be more exciting than his last fight, we saw MacDonald do exactly the same thing he did in his last fight, which was boring us to death. Robbie Lawler won a split decision after he out-struck MacDonald and kept pressure on him the entire fight. There were moments when MacDonald did get the better of Lawler, but those moments were few and very short. What will happen to Rory MacDonald after putting out two terrible performances? Also will this win put Lawler in the top 5 in the UFC's Welterweight Division? Also who will Robbie Lawler face next?
The co-main event of the evening included a bout between friends and coworkers, Rashad Evans and Chael Sonnen. It was a match up in which Rashad quickly put away Chael Sonnen on the ground due to strikes. Who will the UFC put against Evans who has recovered from his two-fight winning streak? Does Evans still have the ability to become the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship again?
In the main event we saw a very close match in which we could have seen either man get their hand raised at the end of the fight, but Georges St-Pierre retained his title by split decision. The fight was too close to call, but (contrary to popular belief) I did score the fight for the champ giving him rounds 1,3 and 5. There is also controversy as to whether or not Johny Hendricks tapped out to a submission in the first round of the fight. Video below:
I think that it is obvious to see that Hendricks didn't tap, but many people are entertaining this notion of GSP having a submission ignored. After the fight St-Pierre hinted at possibly needing some time away to deal with some things in his personal life. Dana White had a conversation with the champ and says that GSP will overcome his personal issues and will not be retiring. He also stated that GSP owes Hendricks a rematch they look forward to putting that together.
Below is a prediction on how I felt that the event would play out and the actual results that occured:
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