5 Lessons Learned from UFC Fight Night 135
Unless you’re a diehard fan of the University of Nebraska’s football team, the city of Lincoln likely does little to electrify you. However, Justin Gaethje on Saturday returned to the winner’s circle with a devastating first-round knockout, proving once again why “The Highlight” is one of the most fitting nicknames in MMA and reaffirming himself as arguably the most thrilling fighter in the entire sport.
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Elsewhere, middleweight prospect Eryk Anders is just getting his career started, and despite a dramatic head-kick knockout of Tim Williams, “Ya Boy’s” performance showed that the former University of Alabama linebacker is still a work in progress. Meanwhile, as he approaches 16 years as a pro MMA fighter, Rani Yahya made a statement that he’s more relevant than ever.
Experience isn’t everything, though, and certainly some of the
referees and judges were vivid reminders of that truth. Maybe some
of them will even read this and share in the education, with five
lessons learned from
UFC Fight Night 135:
‘The Highlight’s’ Reel Rolls On, But For How Long?
Although Gaethje’s UFC tenure began last summer with the two most thrilling fights of 2017, headed into his showdown with Vick, he was 1-2 in the promotion and looking to rebound from the first two defeats of his career: back-to-back stoppage losses to Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier. As with any highly touted free agent acquisition who has made his name outside the UFC, if said fighter slips even slightly, there will some howling and handwringing about whether he was any good in the first place. In nuking Vick in less than 90 seconds, that narrative is put to bed, at least temporarily.
Rest assured, it will be temporary in Gaethje’s case. After all, part of what was fueling that narrative before the bout wasn’t just an abstract idea about whether or not the Trevor Wittman pupil was overrated prior to entering the UFC. No, a huge part of why Gaethje went from even money to winding up the betting underdog by fight time is public concern that his savage, brawling style has already started to take some tread off his tires at just 29 years old. If anything, him slumping Vick onto his face in just 87 seconds was almost a relief, as it gave Gaethje a night off from his regular brand of carnage.
Vick, a 6-foot-3 lightweight with rangy striking and nasty chokes, represents a serious win for Gaethje. However, the fact remains that Gaethje fights at 155 pounds, perhaps the best weight class in MMA and a division replete with tons of dangerous, dynamic fighters who can dish out damage. Gaethje has freely admitted that due to his style, it’s inevitable he’ll wind up on the wrong end of a war again in the future. UFC Fight Night 135 suggests Gaethje is still as dynamic as ever and no lightweight is safe in the cage with him. Nonetheless, in the long term, that lack of safety may apply to Gaethje himself.
Jugger-not Any More, Fortunately
Even in front of his Nebraska faithful, Ellenberger couldn’t avenge his twin brother’s December 2014 loss to Barberena, as “Bam Bam” busted him up in less than three minutes. After a 13-year, 46-fight career, with 21 of those bouts taking place in the UFC, it made all the sense in the world for Ellenberger to leave his gloves in the cage. Fortunately, he did just that.
“I’ve got to say there’s no better place for me to set the gloves down and say it’s time to move on than the same place where I started, here at home in Nebraska with my family, my friends,” Ellenberger said afterward. He stated his retirement wasn’t planned ahead of time, but he simply knew the moment was right in defeat. Ellenberger is still just 33 years old, but he’s now 2-9 in his last 11 bouts and has suffered four straight knockout losses. “The Juggernaut” is not only no longer the competitive force he was five or six years ago, but he clearly can’t stand up to the strikes coming his way like he could in his prime. Worse for Ellenberger, he has never been a defensive master. At his best, he was a bruising wrestler who relied on his sledgehammer left hand and powerful takedowns. Plain and simple, Ellenberger’s style was not aging well, and things were only going to get worse. Fortunately, Ellenberger was heady enough to get out with some measure of dignity and health before that inevitability came to pass.
Anders: Still Under Construction
When we look back at Anders’ nasty soccer kick clobbering of Williams in the future, we probably won’t remember a lot of the finer details apart from the awesome -- and almost illegal -- finish. Well, that’s actually the concern in this particular case. Sure, he got the W and did it in style, but Anders’ uneven performance was a reminder that “Ya Boy” is still early in his MMA maturation process.
Sure, Anders was 5-0 as an amateur before turning pro and has been fighting for over six years now. On top of that, the only misstep so far in his career was a split decision loss to former UFC light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida in February -- a fight in which he probably deserved the nod. However, even though Anders is already good enough to hang with upper-echelon middleweights, he is such a phenomenally gifted athlete that it seems like he is can still blossom into an even better fighter with some technical and strategic fine tuning.
The ex-Alabama linebacker entered the Williams bout as a -1400 favorite but started lackadaisically, allowing the journeyman to counter him clean for seven minutes or so, until he got more active with his kicking attack. Too often Anders looks like the athlete-playing-fighter and that he is actively thinking about how to approach an opponent rather than it being instinctual. Nonetheless, there’s no cause for alarm yet since Anders has already gotten this far with a standard set of tools and exceptional athleticism.
The Restricted Constrictor
Poor Yahya gets no respect. He has been under UFC or World Extreme Cagefighting contract for over 11 years and is one of the most skilled and accomplished submission grapplers on the planet. With his masterful 91-second heel hook of Luke Sanders -- wow, that leglock defense seems to be a real issue for Sanders -- Yahya has just one loss in his last nine fights. Yet here he is jerking the curtain in Lincoln against a fighter who is now 2-3 inside the Octagon; and you thought Raphael Assuncao’s quest for a title shot was a prejudicial and arduous one? It’s cold and dark underneath the bantamweight rocks that MMA’s foremost snake enthusiast is living.
Though he has been fighting since 2002, Yahya is still only 33 years old, and his training with American Top Team has seen him make massive strides in the takedown and conditioning departments. Yahya, who missed weight in three separate divisions earlier in his career, used to have a notoriously terrible diet, eating like a spoiled child through camp and then needing to rely on IVs to replenish himself. That went hand in hand with his often-suspect cardio, especially as Yahya would haphazardly shoot repeated, unsuccessful takedowns on stronger strikers and wrestlers. Now, he has a far more professional and composed game, which makes him a more viable threat to Top 20 bantamweights -- if he can ever face one.
Experience Doesn’t Always Cure Incompetence, Though
Another major MMA card, another bit of dodgy officiating. Sure, questionable refereeing and judging is part of all combat sports, and UFC Fight Night 135 did not have any “Robbery of the Year” contenders.
For years when discussing a panacea for poor officiating, many MMA fans thought that as the sport progressed, commissions took the issue more seriously and particularly and believed the situation would improve when more former fighters became active officials. On the whole, I think it has. However, let UFC Fight Night “Gaethje vs. Vick” remind you that experience alone cannott atone for the sins of poor judgment.
I happened to score Andre Fili 29-28 over Michael Johnson and Angela Hill 29-28 over Cortney Casey-Sanchez; according to MMADecisions.com, my scorecards are in tune with the majority of MMA outlets. What’s notable here is that in both cases local Nebraska judges Kristy Gynan and Matt Prieto had the dissenting scorecards, only to be overruled by -- Who else? -- two good old Marc Ratner buddies in Sal D’Amato and Glenn Trowbridge, who get a truly preposterous amount of out-of-state UFC judging gigs. Both have been lousing up scorecards and careers for years, with no end in sight.
Meanwhile, the bit of horrible officiating that will stick in your mind came from local referee Brandon Pfannenstiel in his first-ever UFC assignment, as he allowed Cory Sandhagen to nearly pummel Iuri Alcantara to death and then was promptly relieved of his duties for the rest of the night. Why do I bring this up? Pfannenstiel had his first amateur bout in December 2007 and then put together a 7-1 pro record in his fighting career; any seasoned fighter should’ve been able to realize how badly Sandhagen was destroying Alcantara. While there are plenty of success stories of pro fighters turning into great officials -- see Herb Dean, Marc Goddard, Leon Roberts, Keith Peterson, Vitor Ribeiro and Kenichi Serizawa, and, hey, Frank Trigg is even earning his stripes now -- no amount of pro fighting experience alone can make up for a lack of aptitude.
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