UFC Fight Night 139 was this past weekend. Let’s get to the rundown.
UFC Fight Night 139
GOOD- Michael Trizano vs. Luis Pena
Trizano won the split decision in a very tough fight to score. Depending on what you favor you could have had Trizano winning big or Pena pulling it out. Nice win for Trizano.
GOOD- Maycee Barber stops Hanna Cifers
Barber kept landing big shots but Cifers showed good toughness and battled back. There’s only so much you can do, though, and eventually you just take too much abuse and that’s what happened about two minutes into the second round. Big win for Barber.
GOOD- Beneil Dariush vs. Thiago Moises
Dariush completely and utterly dominated this fight. Two of the judges gave him a 10-8 score for two rounds while the other gave him one 10-8 round. That’s how complete a domination it was. It was like a triple cap in Call of Duty but you hold it the whole match. Moises was really stepping up in competition here and it showed. Good win for Dariush.
GOOD- Raquel Pennington vs. Germaine de Randamie
This was another pretty complete victory. De Randamie was able to stop Pennington from getting off much offense at all. She got stifled pretty much the entire time and wasn’t able to do anything she wanted. De Randamie took all three rounds for every judge en route to the decision win. Nice win for de Randamie and a tough loss for Pennington.
GOOD- Donald Cerrone submits Mike Perry
Cerrone landed some good shots but Perry got a takedown. Cerrone reversed and was on top but they battled a bit before Cerrone took Perry’s back. He lost it and Perry got on top so Cerrone grabbed an armbar. Perry then slammed Cerrone to the mat but Cerrone held on and Perry tapped to the belly down armbar. That was crazy and I wouldn’t be surprised if Perry had a broken arm. Big win for Cerrone, who said he wants to drop down to lightweight and challenge UFC Lightweight Champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.
GREAT- Yair Rodriguez stops “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Yung
This had one of the craziest finishes of all-time. I think I scored it much the same as everyone else and had Zombie winning the first four rounds and the fifth as well until the finish. Zombie was just taking every shot Rodriguez threw at him and hitting him with big shots of his own. The toughness was definitely on display here.
Zombie kept rushing in during this fight and landing shots. He would take some but nothing seemed to faze him much. Until literally right at the very end of the fight, he rushed in and got knocked out cold by an elbow from Rodriguez with one second left in the fight. That’s the damnedest thing you’ll ever see in your life. Here was a guy who completely dominated the fight for 24:59 but lost in the final 0:01. That’s unreal. Nobody can ever get knocked out later than this.
I would strongly urge anyone who hasn’t seen this moment (or even if you just want to relive it) to search it out and watch it. This is absolutely insane. Rodriguez couldn’t even stand after the fight and said he hurt his foot. A ridiculous finish like this after what was already a great finish in the Cerrone-Perry fight is an awesome way to end this card.
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There’s been talk that the UFC plans on shutting down the flyweight division. This would be moronic in my opinion, but I suppose it fits with the M.O. the UFC seems to want to employ lately, where it’s all about the money and who cares about anything else? The flyweight division isn’t a big draw, though it absolutely could be. However, it would require a Conor McGregor type to bring in the eyeballs because we all know the UFC is incapable of promoting anyone themselves apparently.
Dave Meltzer has said that UFC 230 has an estimated buyrate of 250,000. The main event of UFC 230 was UFC Heavyweight, and UFC Light Heavyweight Champion until UFC 232, Champion Daniel Cormier defending his title against Derrick Lewis. That’s a good deal less than the 385,000 buys for Cormier’s UFC 226 title victory over Stipe Miocic.
There have been eleven pay-per-view events for the UFC this year. They are-
UFC 229: Khabib vs. McGregor – 2,400,000
UFC 226: Miocic vs. Cormier – 380,000
UFC 220: Miocic vs. Ngannou – 380,000
UFC 223: Nurmagomedov vs. Iaquinta – 350,000
UFC 227: Dillashaw vs. Garbrandt II – 300,000
UFC 222: Cyborg vs. Kunitskaya – 260,000
UFC 230: Cormier vs. Lewis- 250,000
UFC 225: Whittaker vs. Romero – 250,000
UFC 228: Woodley vs. Till – 130,000
UFC 221: Romero vs. Rockhold – 130,000
UFC 224: Nunes vs. Pennington – 85,000
The ten non-McGregor events combined to do a bit over 2.5 million buys. That means that Khabib-McGregor did almost as many buys as ten other shows combined. That’s crazy. I know that McGregor is a rare breed and it’s unfair to expect others to live up to his popularity, but it shouldn’t take so many events to equal one person’s buyrate potential. I know Khabib Nurmagomedov helped with the buyrate for UFC 229 but we all know that McGregor is the straw that stirs the drink. If you look at that list, there’s some big names on there, there’s some great fighters on there.
NEXT: ROUNDTABLE – DOES JON JONES HAVE A CASE FOR GOAT STATUS?
I don’t know, I just look at that list and feel like the UFC is under performing at their job. I don’t think getting rid of the flyweight division is going to help. I think a fundamental change in the way they do things would be more helpful.
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank
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