SUNDAY NEWS DIGEST 11/6: UFC Fight Night bonuses including Ferguson vs. Dos Anjos main event, UFC Super Bowl weekend, Tate predicts Rousey retirement

By Michael Hiscoe, MMATorch contributor

Tony Ferguson vs. Rafael dos Anjos (photo credit Etzel Espinosa © USA Today)

UFC FIGHT IN MEXICO CITY BONUSES

Last night’s UFC Fight Night from Mexico City offered a solid sampling of closely fought decisions, along with some devastating knockouts and dominant submission wins, giving UFC officials plenty to choose from when it came time to hand out post fight bonuses.

Ultimately, the fight of the night bonus went to the five-round main event between former UFC Lightweight Champion Rafael dos Anjos and the streaking Tony Ferguson. Ferguson won the bout 48-47 on all three judges’ scorecards. The judges had the fight even heading into the fifth round. Ferguson was aggressive in the final round, keeping dos Anjos backed up against the cage for much of the frame and staying busier while taking the best of what dos Anjos had to offer. By the time the final bell rAng, MMATorch’s Michael Grocke described dos Anjos as “out of it” and clearly lost the round and thus the fight that will likely propel Ferguson to a championship fight. This was his notching his ninth consecutive win, one of the longest currently in UFC (Jon Jones has 13 in a row). Grocke’s scorecard was identical to the three cageside judges, giving rounds two, four, and five to Ferguson.

The first performance bonus went to Ricardo Lamas, who may deserve a bonus just for the bad luck he’s had to deal with in the last month. Early in October, Lamas’ scheduled main event against B.J. Penn was cancelled and the card was scrapped all together. Lamas was able to find a relatively short notice fight against featherweight Charles Oliveira at last night’s show, but Oliveira weighed in the day before the fight nine pounds over the 146 pound limit. Lamas agreed to proceed with the fight but Oliveira was told he had to weigh no more than 165 pounds on fight night. Oliveira reportedly still had to cut weight to meet that limit, but did stay under the threshold, allowing the fight with Lamas to take place. After nearly pulling off a submission of his own in the first round, the likely depleted Oliveira was choked out in the second by Lamas, picking up the win and an extra $50,000 in the process.

The second performance bonus went to undercard fighter Douglas Silva de Andrade for his knockout win over Henry Briones. Grocke has the fight even heading into the third round when the Brazilian caught Briones with a spinning backfist that put him out. That’s two wins in a row for Silva de Andrade, who improved his record to 24-1.

Hiscoe’s Analysis: Ferguson doesn’t have to do anything else to prove his worth as a top lightweight at this point. The only problem is that lightweight is so deep, and with Conor McGregor inserting himself into the division, and potentially being a dual champion, that makes things not so concrete when it comes to matchmaking at the championship level. There’s also the issue of Khabib Nurmagomedov, who fights next week and is still ranked ahead of Ferguson in UFC’s official rankings, as well as the most recent MMATorch fighter rankings. Ferguson’s best path to a title shot would be to hope for an Eddie Alvarez win and a Nurmagomedov loss at UFC 205. Either way, he will be a very interested observer.

Charles Oliveira should not have been allowed to fight last night, it’s that simple. The fact that he would be allowed to fight 20lbs over the posted limit and that he was essentially encouraged to continue cutting weight the day of the fight is very troubling and not worth it. New rules have been implemented to discourage extreme weight cutting and dehydration, but they may need to institute guidelines regarding when a fight just has to be called off. I would say missing weight by 10 pounds would be a good place to start.

Last night’s show was a nice appetizer, but the real feast is on Nov. 12.

SUNDAY NOTEBOOK ITEMS…

-The UFC will be holding it’s annual Super Bowl weekend show in the same city as the big game in 2017. UFC will hold an FS1 show on Feb. 4 in Houston at the Toyota Center. The Super Bowl weekend show has traditionally been scheduled as a pay-per-view event, but this will be a free TV event.

-Miesha Tate told TMZ on camera that if Ronda Rousey loses to Amanda Nunes, she predicts that Rousey will retire.

-Check out video highlights of Friday AXS TV FIGHTS: CES MMA 39 at this link. In the main event, Wilfredo Santiago Jr. (7-3) landed a right hand to knock out Chuck O’Neil (17-9) just 41 seconds into the fight.

-Alliance MMA, which describes itself as “a mixed martial arts organization offering premier promotional opportunities for aspiring mixed martial arts fighters,” announced that its promotion, Hoosier Fight Club (HFC), signed a broadcast television agreement with Comcast SportsNet Chicago (CSN). The first aired event under the CSN agreement will be HFC 31, which will take place on Nov. 5 at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana, and will feature three title fights. Dennis Dombrow will defend his BantamWeight Belt against Cory Galloway, Michael Santiago and Bill Kamery will square off for the FeatherWeight Belt, and Gabriel Mota will face Jesus Razo for the first MiddleWeight Amateur Belt. CSN will broadcast HFC 31 on tape delay, and it is scheduled to air November 27th at 7:00 pm CST. CSN reaches over four million subscribers in Chicago and the surrounding areas.

NOW CHECK OUT YESTERDAY’S REPORT: SATURDAY NEWS DIGEST 11/5: Bisping doesn’t want to fight Romero due to lingering steroid benefits (w/Cervantes Analysis)


(MMATorch’s Daily News Digest features the top story of the day with added analysis, plus smaller tidbits in the News Notes section. Mike Hiscoe, who writes the News Digest Sundays through Thursdays, has a background in film criticism and previously wrote for the DVD Town and Movie Metropolis websites. His passion for Mixed Martial Arts goes back to 2005, but it was in the promotion for UFC 60: Hughes vs. Gracie that he really got hooked.”This is my house, I build it,” is still among the all-time great UFC promos. You can follow Mike on social media under the tag @mikehiscoe. He now provides his experienced writing and perspective on live MMA events for MMATorch.)

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