HYDEN’S TAKE: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from UFC Fight Night 114 including Rashad vs. Alvey, Moreno vs. Pettis

UFC Fight Night 114 was this past weekend, let’s get to the rundown.

UFC Fight Night 114

GOOD – Alejandro Perez vs. Andre Soukhamthath: This was a nice, solid fight that Perez won by split decision. It was close and well-contested. A fine opener.

BAD – Sam Alvey vs. Rashad Evans: This was just a dull and boring fight. There wasn’t much action and things never seemed to get going. Alvey won by split decision, but neither guy looked good here. I’ll never tell a guy to retire, except for health reasons, but Evans should really consider it. He didn’t get hurt in this fight, but if he keeps going, the chances of that happening increase with each fight. If he wants to keep going, so be it, but there’s a small pool of fighters he could possibly beat at this stage of his career. Rashad Evans has held UFC gold and fought some of the best fighters of all-time, and now he’s losing split decisions on one of the openers to a underpromoted FS1 card.

As long as the UFC doesn’t put him in there against a heavy hitter, he should be fine and can fight as long as he wants, but he’s still got to be really careful.

GOOD – Humberto Bandenay stops Martin Bravo: Bandenay caught Bravo with a powerful knee to the head that ended things quickly. The whole fight took less than thirty seconds. Bigtime finish by Bandenay and good win for him.

GOOD – Niko Price stops Alan Jouban: They traded shots for a while until Price dropped Jouban with a power punch. Jouban tried to fight him off, but Price overwhelmed him and forced the ref to step in. Big win for Price as he moves to 11-0.

GOOD – Randa Markos vs. Alexi Grasso: Markos is tough, but Grasso showed good grit and determination. This was a really close fight, and that was reflected in the judges scores, as Grasso won the split decision. Grasso rebounds from her last fight, a loss to Felice Herrig. This win should give her more confidence and she can continue to try to rise her way up the rankings in the strawweight division. Good win for her.

GOOD – Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis: Things started slowly, but then heated up in about the third round. In the first round, Moreno used his grappling and was able to control Pettis. In the second round, neither man did much, but Pettis did a little more. In the third round, however, Pettis opened up and started going after Moreno. He hit him with punches and kicks from different angles. Moreno had some success of his own, but he was far too plain and vanilla in his approach. He seemed content to just throw one punch at a time. That worked occasionally, but it usually led to him getting attacked by Pettis first.

Given all that, it was no surprise that Pettis won the decision. He was just more aggressive and did the most damage. Considering the state of the flyweight division, I don’t think it’s long before we see Pettis fighting UFC Flyweight Champion Demetrious Johnson for the title. DJ has cleaned the division out, there’s not exactly a long line of challengers for him. So we might see Pettis getting his title shot next, or he might have to win one more time to get it. Pettis wasn’t ranked very highly in the division prior to this fight, but who else is going to get the shot? Like I said, DJ has dominated the division for so long that maybe the UFC decides it’s time for a fresh face for a challenger? It’s not like they don’t have a history of giving title shots out to surprising challengers. Pettis getting a title shot isn’t the craziest thing they could do. This was a card low on name value, but it delivered a fun and entertaining event.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: HYDEN’S TAKE: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from UFC 214 including Woodley-Maia, Jones-Cormier, Lawler-Cerrone, Cyborg-Evinger