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Despite a lack of name value, UFC Fight Night 150 ended up being a hell of a show when it came down to it. Practically every fight on the main card delivered some great action – even the opener between Roosevelt Roberts and Thomas Gifford, which probably didn’t belong on a UFC main card in 2019 – and the main event ended in a massive upset.
As always it wasn’t quite a perfect show, primarily because of the UFC’s choice of co-main event, but we’ll get to that a little later. Overall though, this card has to go down as a success for the promotion.
Here are the best and worst moments from UFC Fight Night 150: Jacare vs. Hermansson.
#1 Best: Hermansson becomes a true contender
Despite some really impressive performances as of late – most notably his submission of David Branch just under a month ago – Jack Hermansson was flying under the radar for me at least, largely because he hadn’t really fought any other top 185lbers outside of Branch. So when he was faced with Jacare Souza last night – a man who on paper at least, had every advantage over him outside of a long reach – it didn’t seem possible for him to win.
That wasn’t the case at all in the end. Hermansson pushed an insane pace against the Brazilian veteran, throwing a ludicrous amount of strikes over all 5 rounds, and in particular he had Jacare in serious trouble in the first, hurting him badly with punches and even coming close to becoming the first man to submit him in MMA with a modified guillotine.
The third round didn’t really go his way as Jacare began to take over with some heavy strikes, but the fourth and fifth rounds were all Hermansson as he managed to wear out the veteran with his pressure, keeping the Brazilian at the end of his punches.
Apparently, Jacare was going to be granted a title shot with a win here; whether the same goes for Hermansson is probably unlikely given this is his first really big win, but he’s clearly a title contender now and the fact that this fight was fantastic helps his cause too. ‘The Joker’ has arrived, big time.
#1 Worst: Greg Hardy, in general
The MMA fanbase as a whole gave a groan when the co-main event for this show was announced; a Heavyweight tilt featuring former NFL star Greg Hardy against the returning Dmitri Smoliakov. As we’ve been over before, Hardy’s UFC debut in January against Allen Crowder was disastrous and made it pretty clear that he wasn’t ready for that kind of spotlight yet, but it seems like WME are determined to keep on pushing with him.
The big question for me is why? If Hardy were a popular guy that the fans want to see succeed, then it’d be understandable that the UFC would want to bring him along slowly and push him as a star. But he’s not; instead he’s a guy with a very chequered past that the fans all know about, and whenever he’s seen, he’s greeted with vicious boos. And not the kind of tongue-in-cheek boos that the likes of Colby Covington get, either.
The fight last night was terrible – Smoliakov looked physically capable of facing up to Hardy but simply wilted under the former NFL player’s punching power, and while the newly-monikered ‘Prince of War’ picked up his first UFC win, it clearly came over a massively overmatched and hand-picked opponent.
The UFC needs to get the message that nobody wants to see this man succeed inside the Octagon, and the sooner they feed Hardy to a more popular – and more talented – Heavyweight like Curtis Blaydes or Tai Tuivasa, the better.
#2 Best: Teixeira shows there’s life in the old dog yet
I’ve got to admit, I thought Glover Teixeira was way past his prime at this point – pushing 40 years old – and after his disappointing loss to Corey Anderson last year I saw him as too slow and shop-worn to deal with the better up-and-comers of the 205lbs division – fighters like Ion Cutelaba, in fact. And at the beginning of their fight last night, it looked like my thoughts were probably right.
Cutelaba looked far faster than Teixeira and had him on the back foot from the off; he stopped all of the Brazilian’s takedowns and even had him on the verge of being finished after a nasty spinning backfist. But he couldn’t quite put Glover away and despite taking a ton of punishment, the Brazilian remained in the fight.
By the second round, the veteran turned the tables. Cutelaba began to slow down and suddenly it was Teixeira putting the pressure on him, walking him down and delivering the bigger punches. And once Glover got the Moldovan fighter on his back, the fight was largely over, as the tired prospect simply couldn’t defend against the veteran’s top-class Jiu-Jitsu game.
This was a fantastic performance from Teixeira – probably his best since his win over Rashad Evans back in 2016 – and despite marking his 17th UFC appearance, with almost a decade of Octagon action under his belt – he’s clearly still a relevant contender in the division.
#2 Worst: Jacare loses out in style
Okay, so nobody could ever complain about the quality of the main event fight between Jacare Souza and Jack Hermansson; it was fantastic from start to finish, and will probably be up there with 2019’s best 5-rounders when all is said and done. Unfortunately though, the fact that Jacare came out on the wrong end of the result means that he’s probably out of title contention now – maybe even for good.
Normally that wouldn’t be too noteworthy, but all the reports coming into this event suggested that Jacare – who was initially pegged to face Yoel Romero in a likely title eliminator before the Cuban’s injury – was only cajoled into taking the fight with Hermansson due to the UFC offering him a supposedly guaranteed title shot with a victory.
On one hand, it’s a good thing that the UFC can influence their fighters in that way – we wouldn’t want MMA turning into boxing with fighters ducking and dodging up-and-comers to preserve their reputations – but this was a pretty bad slice of luck for the Brazilian veteran, who will probably never earn the UFC title shot he’s craved for so long now.
#3 Best: The UFC’s matchmaking for this card
I actually criticised the UFC’s choice of main card fights in my preview for this show, as I felt that Andrei Arlovski vs. Augusto Sakai should’ve been one of the showcased bouts. As it turned out though, the Heavyweight fight was pretty slow, while all of the fights that were shown on the six-fight main card turned out to be great.
The best two, outside of the main event? Cory Sandhagen vs. John Lineker and Mike Perry vs. Alex Oliveira were both pretty awesome. The former featured some questionable judging – I thought the fight was a clear win for Lineker, who I felt took rounds 1 and 3 while Sandhagen probably edged the second, but regardless of the result it was a ton of fun. How Sandhagen managed to survive some of Lineker’s clubbing blows is anyone’s guess.
As for Perry vs. Oliveira, it was sloppy, wild, and downright messy at times, but it was absolutely non-stop action from start to finish and both men showed a ludicrous amount of heart to last the 15 minutes – particularly Oliveira, who dislocated his toe prior to the third round and simply had his corner pop it back into place.
How far either man can go in the division is anyone’s guess – both seem limited in terms of the elite level – but who cares when they fight like this? One thing’s for sure – I’ll never complain about them being on a UFC main card going forward!
