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UFC 247 is in the books and well, if there’s a more controversial event in 2020 I’d be surprised. The pay-per-view – which went down in Houston, Texas – saw numerous examples of questionable judging, and it all culminated in the main event when Jon Jones defended his UFC Light-Heavyweight crown against Dominick Reyes.
Elsewhere, Valentina Shevchenko confirmed her status as one of the best pound-for-pound female fighters on the planet, while we got big wins for Justin Tafa, Dan Ige and Derrick Lewis.
Here are the best and worst moments from UFC 247: Jones vs. Reyes.
#1 Worst: The decision in the main event
I don’t usually start these pieces with a ‘worst’ moment but unfortunately, the decision in last night’s main event overshadowed everything else on the card by a great deal.
It’s been over a decade since we last saw Jon Jones come away from the Octagon with a loss to his name – and even that was a bogus disqualification – but UFC 247 should’ve marked the first time he was properly defeated in professional MMA.
Underdog challenger Dominick Reyes took the fight to ‘Bones’ from the off, outlanding him in significant strikes and even stuffing his takedown attempts, and essentially, ‘The Devastator’ had the champion in the most trouble we’d seen him in since his first fight with Alexander Gustafsson back in 2013.
Sure, Jones came back in the fourth and fifth rounds, looking like the fresher man and putting Reyes under a lot of pressure, but when the fight ended, it looked to me like the challenger had won the first three rounds quite clearly, and we’d have a new champion.
Instead, the judges all went for Jones – with one somehow deciding the fight had gone 49-46 in his favour. Quite how they decided this I’m not sure – the third round was somewhat close, but to give Jones four rounds is insanity.
The fact that this wasn’t the only piece of errant judging on last night’s show says a lot, too; Dana White can state that Texas’s athletic commission needs to improve, but if that’s the case, the world’s best MMA promotion shouldn’t be putting on big shows there. Essentially, Reyes should be a champion right now and the fact that he isn’t is a travesty.
#1 Best: Shevchenko proves her dominance again
Most UFC fans had accepted the greatness of Valentina Shevchenko going into last night’s show; the current UFC Flyweight champion had already made two successful defenses of her title prior to last night, and faced with a seemingly overmatched contender in Katlyn Chookagian, the big question was whether ‘The Bullet’ could destroy her like she’d done to Jessica Eye – or whether she’d simply outclass her in dull fashion as she’d done with Liz Carmouche.
Well, thankfully the outcome was the former; Shevchenko comfortably outstruck ‘Blonde Fighter’ for the first two rounds, barely even allowing her to land a strike, before taking her down in the third and advancing to a crucifix, where she landed enough unanswered shots to force a TKO.
Can anyone defeat Shevchenko at 125lbs? Personally I don’t think they can at the minute at least. The division is arguably the thinnest in the UFC – aside from Women’s Featherweight – and when you add in the success that ‘The Bullet’ had at 135lbs, she might be the most dominant champion in the promotion, period.
Last night was another example of her domination, and hopefully for her, she manages to become a little more popular – with both the fans and the UFC – than the equally dominant former men’s Flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson was. If she keeps performing like this, she’ll be well on her way.
#2 Best: Tafa gets it done quickly
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the Heavyweight clash between Juan Adams and Justin Tafa; both men were coming off losses, and neither had really shown any skills that suggested they could make it to the elite level in the UFC, meaning the best I was hoping for was a quick and violent KO from either man.
I was picking Adams to win based on his powerful wrestling game, but instead Tafa caught him with some clean punches early in the fight, and they were enough to put ‘The Kraken’ out for the count. The win was the first for the Aussie in the UFC, and it was definitely a memorable one.
Does it make ‘Bad Man’ a contender in the division? In all honesty no; he’s still wildly unproven and Adams may well be gone from the UFC following his third loss in a row, but it was still nice to see a vicious knockout in a fight like this after a run of decisions on the card, meaning it’s an easy thumbs up from me.
#2 Worst: Bektic flatters to deceive
When Mirsad Bektic was signed by the UFC back in 2014, the word was that the promotion had inked a potential future champion at 145lbs. Bektic looked to have all of the tools – the size, power, athleticism, wrestling and striking – to reach the top of the mountain, and after some injury problems derailed him early on, his wins over Godofredo Pepey and Ricardo Lamas appeared to have him well on the way.
Unfortunately, Bektic was KO’d in his last fight by Josh Emmett – a fighter far more limited than the Bosnian – when he chose to trade punches with a known knockout artist. It felt like a bump in the road, and last night’s fight against Dan Ige was supposed to get him back on track. Well, that didn’t happen and it’s hard not to blame Bektic’s approach to the fight.
The Bosnian essentially appeared to be able to outgrapple Ige at will – but chose to trade punches with him far too often, and ended up on the wrong end of a split decision. The frustrating thing is that it looked like Bektic’s fight to lose at times, and sure enough he somehow found that path.
It’s never good to see a fighter with elite-level potential not quite living up to it, hence why this fight – which was a pretty outstanding one – ends up in the ‘worst’ section of this piece.
#3 Best: Lewis pulls out another big win
Was last night the best performance from Derrick Lewis that we’ve ever seen? Not by a long shot. ‘The Black Beast’ found himself taken down and controlled by the much smaller Ilir Latifi on numerous occasions, again showing a distinct lack of technical defense on the ground, but in the end, he did enough to pull out the victory.
In essence, this was a classic Lewis fight; how Latifi survived his barrage of punches is anyone’s guess, particularly in the third round when the big man really opened up on his Swedish foe, but while ‘The Black Beast’ couldn’t get the finish, it didn’t really matter.
Perhaps the most important thing? Outside of the two fighters in the main event, Lewis was perhaps the most popular man on the card. While he may never hold UFC gold, the likelihood is that he’ll occupy the kind of spot that fighters like Donald Cerrone and Alistair Overeem have for years – reliable and beloved action heroes who can step into a main event at a moment’s notice – and he’ll make plenty of money doing that, too.
