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UFC 235 is in the books and the most stacked show of 2019 thus far turned out to be an entertaining – if weird – one for the most part. Sure, it won’t go down as an all-time great card, and probably won’t even be considered up there with the best of the year come December, but there were definitely a few talking points.
We saw one title change and one champion defend in pretty dominant fashion, the debut of Ben Askren end in controversial fashion, and a bunch of other moments that were both cool and head-scratching.
Here are the best and worst moments from UFC 235: Jones vs. Smith.
#1 Best: Usman shows he’s the best at 170lbs
Kamaru Usman came into his UFC Welterweight title challenge against champion Tyron Woodley as an underdog, but by the end of the fight it was pretty clear exactly who the world’s best fighter at 170lbs was.
While ‘The Nigerian Nightmare’ wasn’t able to secure a finish, there aren’t many times in UFC history that a reigning champion has been dominated quite as badly as Woodley was last night. Simply put, Usman outclassed him.
In my predictions article earlier in the week I questioned how Woodley – with his penchant for backing up and looking to counter-strike – would deal with Usman’s insane pressure game and powerful wrestling, and the answer turned out to be that he couldn’t deal with either at all.
From the opening moments of the fight right until the end, Usman was all over him, pinning him into the cage, beating him down with body shots and even taking Woodley down – something few people had ever done before.
If anything, the scores of 50-44, 50-44 and 50-45 didn’t do Usman’s dominance justice. Prior to the fight, Joe Rogan was attempting to push Woodley as the greatest Welterweight of all time. That’s obviously nonsense as Georges St-Pierre is clearly the only fighter worthy of that title, but if Usman can continue to dominate his future opponents in this way then he could easily find himself in the conversation soon. He’s an absolute monster.
#1 Worst: Weird refereeing mars Askren vs. Lawler
The long-awaited UFC debut of Ben Askren didn’t take long to become a farce, unfortunately. It was a hugely exciting fight, but whether it should’ve ended in the way it did – and whether it should’ve ended in favour of Askren – is massively up for debate.
It could definitely be argued, for instance, that referee Herb Dean should’ve called the fight off when Lawler slammed Askren onto his head and then followed up with some bombs in the opening seconds of the fight.
Dean let the fight go, though, and to be fair to Askren he showed insane toughness to be able to get back to his feet after the barrage. Even more miraculously, Askren managed to secure a bodylock on Lawler and eventually found his way into a rear waistlock, where he applied a bulldog choke to the former champion.
Seconds later, the fight was over, as Herb Dean felt that Lawler had been choked unconscious. That clearly wasn’t the case, though, as ‘Ruthless Robbie’ quickly popped up to his feet and seemed fine. Quite what really happened is anyone’s guess – Lawler’s arm did appear to go limp for a second, but by the point that Dean stepped in he appeared to be moving again.
It’s hard to truly criticise Dean for the gaffe as MMA refereeing is an incredibly difficult job at the best of times, but in hindsight he should probably have given Lawler more time to escape the position – or be choked unconscious – before he stepped in. As it is now, questions still abound over how good Askren can be at the UFC level. Perhaps a rematch would work?
#2 Best: Johnny Walker is incredible
When the UFC signed Johnny Walker in mid-2018, I figured he’d be a decent-at-best addition to 205lbs, the kind of action fighter who’d lose as many fights as he’d win, generally put on a fun show and probably last in the promotion for a couple of years before washing out. Well, that idea’s been proven massively wrong.
Walker is already 3-0 in the UFC with three finishes worthy of anyone’s highlight reel; a crushing elbow knockout of Khalil Rountree, a hook kick into a spinning backfist KO of Justin Ledet, and now last night’s insane flying knee knockout of prospect Misha Cirkunov. And incredibly, he hasn’t even spent 3 minutes inside the Octagon yet!
When you add in the fact that the Brazilian has a strange form of charisma that clearly draws the fans in, we should probably expect the UFC to get behind Walker big time when it comes to promotion in the next few months.
Sure, his weird celebration – the ‘worm’ dance – injured his shoulder last night, but if he’s back sooner rather than later, I’d be surprised to see him in anything other than a semi-main event in his next fight. Hell, if he keeps this up he could be fighting for the title before 2019’s out.
#2 Worst: Jones plays with his food
Over the course of his UFC career, fans and analysts could accuse Jon Jones of a lot of things, but one thing that he could never really be accused of was not putting overmatched opponents away.
Vicious finishes were almost always part of his regular arsenal, but for some reason last night, despite clearly outclassing Anthony Smith, it felt like Jones never had a lot of urgency in looking for a finish.
Whether he felt like he needed more time in the Octagon or whether he injured himself during the fight is anyone’s guess, but really it wasn’t even like Smith survived a ton of punishment. He was clearly beaten, but was never close to being finished – outside of the illegal knee Jones landed in the 4th round, a move that cost him two points on the scorecard, not that it mattered.
Most fans recognised that Smith was probably overmatched going in and a violent finish for Jones probably would’ve helped him to regain some of the fans he lost through his various PED issues in 2017/18. In the end though, due to a listless performance that felt like a predator playing with its food, this was a missed opportunity for Jones – and made for a forgettable main event.
#3 Best: Diego keeps on ticking
You’d probably find it hard to track down a UFC fan who doesn’t believe Diego Sanchez is one of the all-time greats of the promotion, particularly when it comes to putting on entertaining fights, but you’d also be hard pressed to find a lot of fans who believe he should still be fighting in 2019.
Last night was Sanchez’s 29th appearance in the Octagon – he debuted back in 2005, 14 years ago – and in recent times, ‘The Nightmare’ has taken some horrendous knockouts.
Last night though, he proved there’s life in the old dog yet. Faced with rising prospect Mickey Gall, Sanchez did take some punishment early on, but he survived, kept pushing forward and in the end, Gall simply couldn’t keep up with his pace.
By the time Diego gained a dominant position and began to destroy Gall with punches and elbows in the second round, it felt like 2006 all over again – and it felt great.
Sanchez is one of my three favourite fighters of all time (for those wondering, the other two are GSP and Alistair Overeem) and so as such a longtime fan, it was awesome to see him win in this way.
He’s actually now on the first 2-fight win streak he’s had since 2010/11, and assuming the UFC don’t match him with any concussive strikers next time out, it’s not inconceivable that he could make that a 3-fight run. And who would ever have expected that?
#3 Worst: Garbrandt’s fight IQ costs him again
Former UFC Bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt came into his fight last night with Pedro Munhoz as a pretty heavy favourite, despite losing by knockout in his previous two fights to TJ Dillashaw.
After last night though, it’ll be hard to trust ‘No Love’ against another top fighter at 135lbs going forward, and that’s something that would’ve seemed impossible when he defeated Dominick Cruz back in 2016 to win the title.
Essentially, Garbrandt snatched defeat from the jaws of a potential victory last night, and in a lot of respects, he only has himself to blame. The general consensus was that he’d become too emotionally invested in his rivalry with Dillashaw, and that caused him to get too wild in his punching and allowed Dillashaw to find the killer shot and knock him out. That wasn’t meant to be an issue against Munhoz, well, until it was.
Late in a competitive first round, Garbrandt appeared to take an accidental headbutt – and that was all it took to trigger a rage inside him that made him swing wild punches at Munhoz with no semblance of defence. Munhoz obliged in the firefight – trusting in his chin more than Garbrandt’s – and seconds later, the former champion was unconscious again.
Garbrandt can recover from this, but I suspect he needs a total change of style if that’s to be possible. The likelihood of him fighting for the title again anytime soon now seems slim, though, and unfortunately it feels like his decision-making is as much to blame as his chin.
