UFC 179 has come to a close and although the main card started out not very great, the main event topped off the pay-per-view fantastically, as Jose Aldo defended Chad Mendes in an all out war and ‘Fight of the Year’ candidate.
UFC 179: Top 3 surprises
Every event has some surprises that develop throughout the event, whether or not it’s a specific result, something that happens, or really anything that’s surprising. Here at MMASucka.com after every event we usually go through the biggest three surprises of the event, in this case UFC 179.
1. Phil Davis dominated Glover Teixeira in the co-main event, even though Teixeira was the heavy favourite to win
Glover Teixeira fought underdog Phil Davis in the co-main event of the evening, and the result definitely shocked me a fair bit. I expected a very dominant performance from Teixeira, and I expected him to get back on track, heading towards the title again, held by Jon Jones. I expected him to be able to defend Davis’ takedown attempts and keep the fight standing for the majority of the fight, and even possibly pickup a late TKO finish. Nonetheless, absolutely none of what I expected happened. Phil Davis dominated the entire fight, constantly taking Teixeira down and pressuring him a lot, basically smothering him. It wasn’t the most entertaining fight, but Davis got the job done in one of his best performances of his mixed martial arts career.
2. Many Brazilians fell short at UFC 179
At international UFC events, most of the fights have one countrymen involved, which is obviously who the crowd cheers for. In our case, UFC 179 took place in Rio de Janeiro so the card had 11 Brazilian fighters, exactly half. Often times, the matchmakers will give a few of the countrymen easier fights to please the crowd, which isn’t completely right, but it’s better for the business. Anything can happen in MMA, therefore of course there’s never a time when every single hometown hero wins their bout, because the other fighter pulls off an upset, or what not. Nonetheless, over half of the Brazilians who fought this past Saturday, as only five added a win to their record. I was pretty surprised by this, just because like I said often times most of the fighters from that country will pull off the win. If you were going by my picks (which are terrible, by the way), I picked eight out of the 11 to win, which I would say is pretty average. You can’t expect every fighter from there to win, of course.
3. Lucas Martins received a 30-27 from one judge, in a split decision loss against Darren Elkins
This was probably one of the most shocking things from UFC 179. We all know MMA judging can be bad at times, well, most of time, actually. It’s hard to find a card where there isn’t one bad judging call. Often times, the countrymen will be favoured, which obviously isn’t right. The person who should win the fight, favourite or not, in hostile territory or not, should win the fight, no questions asked. In a fight where you wouldn’t miss much if you went to use the washroom or clean the dishes, Darren Elkins clearly beat Lucas Martins. It wasn’t pretty at all, very boring. That doesn’t matter though, the fight wasn’t close at all and obviously in Elkins’ favour. Well, when I heard Bruce Buffer score it 30-27 for Martins, I wanted to shoot the television. First off, how can there be a split decision where one judge scores it three rounds to none for a fighter, and two other judges score it three rounds to none for the other fighter? That doesn’t make any sense, unless they weren’t watching the same fight. Besides, it’s even worse because Elkins dominated the Brazilian, Martins. That’s why the judging for that fight was so surprising, and really ridiculous. It wouldn’t have been right for a judge to score it 29-28 for Martins, either.
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