Every year on the Saturday prior to Superbowl, UFC traditionally puts on one of the bigger cards of the year. Last year’s UFC 109 was a notable exception to the usually stacked line-up of the pre-Superbowl event. This year, Zuffa did not disappoint with UFC 126: headlined by a long-awaited middleweight title bout between champion Anderson Silva and challenger Vitor Belfort, and bolstered by a couple of high-profile light heavyweight bouts, one featuring two former champions and the other two top prospects.
Anderson Silva defends
It started out slow, as many of Anderson’s fights tend to, and ended with a flash of brutality in the first round as Silva knocked Vitor Belfort down with a front kick to the face and finished him with two quick punches on the ground. Silva retains his UFC title, and his #1 spot on both the middleweight ranking and the Division Dominance list. If the UFC welterweight champion and the #2 on our Division Dominance list George St. Pierre is successful in the upcoming defense against Jake Shields, a super-fight between Silva and St. Pierre seems inevitable. If GSP falters, Anderson’s next title defense will likely come against Yushin Okami – unless Silva decided to move up to 205 lbs.
Previously unranked for inactivity, Vitor Belfort returns to the middleweight ranking at #8. A rematch with Wanderlei Silva at the upcoming UFC in Brazil would be a great scrap.
Notable
Rising head and shoulders ahead of competition, Anderson Silva holds the records for most consecutive wins in the UFC at 13, and most consecutive title defenses (8). He is also only 1 title win away from also holding the record for most wins in title bouts (currently held by Randy Couture at 10).
Light-Heavyweight picture shifts
I expected the two featured light-heavyweight bouts to be fairly competitive, but this turned out not to be the case. Jon ‘Bones’ Jones took down Ryan Bader at will, finishing him with a modified guillotine choke in the second round. After the fight it was announced that the top contender and Jones’ training partner Rashad Evans suffered a knee injury, and Jones was offered to take Rashad’s spot in challenging Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua for the UFC title. Jones of course accepted, and after moving up 10 spots to #5 on the rankings he will now have the chance to become #1. Bader falls to #12; Stephan Bonnar has been rumored as his next opponent.
Though the Rich Franklin – Forrest Griffin bout was not as lopsided, Griffin used his noticeable size advantage to out-work Franklin in every aspect of the game, winning a unanimous decision. Franklin was able to steal a round on all three scorecards due to Griffin slowing down as the fight went on – likely a side effect of his long layoff from the Octagon. Griffin regains the three ranking spots he lost due to inactivity, and is now back at #6 LHW. He should next face the winner of the upcoming bout between Randy Couture and Lyoto Machida. Rich Franklin, who falls to #13, should take on the Couture-Machida loser.
Meanwhile, rumors are swirling about Thiago Silva having to withdraw from his planned bout with Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, and Rashad Evans taking Thiago’s place. Nothing has been made official yet in this regard. However all the fluctuations in the division forced Evans to drop a spot to #9 on the Division Dominance list, trading places with Jake Shields.
Further down the rankings, Kyle Kingsbury rose 26 spots to enter the light-heavyweight Top 50 at #43 after making quick work of Ricardo Romero. Kyle improves to 1-3 in the UFC and is on a three-win streak, while Romero falls to #84 with the first-round TKO loss.
Other action
In the welterweight division, Jake Ellenberger was outgrappled in the first round by Carlos Eduardo Rocha but managed to keep the fight on the feet in the latter rounds, winning a split decision. Ellenberger remains at #16 WW, while Rocha rises 18 spots to #71 – a rare case where the loser of a fight actually moves up in rankings. Meanwhile Mike Pierce moves up to #20 with a second-round TKO of UFC newcomer Kenny Robertson. Robertson falls 16 spots to #119; he has been released from the UFC roster after the unsuccessful debut.
Former WEC lightweight contender Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone moves up to #22 with a submission win over Paul Kelly in Cowboy’s UFC debut. Kelly falls to #95, surpassed by his compatriot Paul Taylor who moves up to #91 with a knockout over Gabe ‘Godzilla’ Ruedigger. Formerly ranked at #189, Ruedigger drops out of our lightweight Top 250, and likely out of the UFC as well.
Featherweight Chad Mendes outstruck and outwrestled Michihiro Omigawa en route to a unanimous decision and possibly a future title shot against the winner of Jose Aldo vs. Mark Hominick. Mendes rises 5 spots to #3, while Omigawa falls 8 spots to #12. This is Omigawa’s third UFC bout and third loss inside the Octagon, though the first two were as a lightweight in 2007 and 2008, before his rise to prominence as a featherweight in Japan.
At bantamweight, former WEC champion Miguel Torres rises a spot to #5 with an uneventful unanimous decision win over Antonio Banuelos, who falls to #24. Miguel fought strategically, utilizing his reach advantage to keep Banuelos at bay with his jab for most of the fight – not quite the barn-burner that I expected based on both fighter’s WEC bouts. And another Japanese legend fell short in his UFC debut as Norifumi ‘Kid’ Yamamoto was outworked for three rounds by Demetrious Johnson. Kid falls to #48, while Johnson rises to #16 MW.
Last week in rankings
I didn’t publish this column last week, though there were a couple of important ranking fluctuations. Most notably, Strikeforce middleweight champion Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza and welterweight champ Nick Diaz moved into the Top 5 of their respective weight classes with successfull title defences – Diaz defeating Evangelista Santos, and Souza taking out Robbie Lawler. And in the heavyweight (and up) division, former UFC champion Tim Sylvia fell to #39 when he was stopped by ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ alum Abe Wagner in just over 30 seconds. Sylvia has been trying to mount a comeback to the major leagues after winning his last four bouts, but showing up at 311 lbs (that’s 45 lbs over the heavyweight limit!) then getting TKO’d in the first round likely dashes any hope of a return to UFC or even a Strikeforce debut. Wagner moved up to #29 with the victory.