The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale didn’t disappoint with the UFC’s last show on Spike TV in 2010 providing fight fans with plenty of action.
In a back-and-forth main event, Jonathan Brookins came back from a disastrous first round to outpoint Michael Johnson, winning the reality show’s lightweight tournament.
In the first round Johnson tore into Brookins, dropping him early and dominating throughout with a punishing and varied striking offense. Worryingly for Brookins, Johnson was also able to rebuff his repeated takedown attempts. Showing tremendous resilience Brookins came back strong in the second round, getting an early takedown and using his superior wrestling to maul Johnson on the ground, punishing him throughout with superior ground and pound. Brookins completed his comeback by taking most of the third round and deservedly becoming the latest winner of The Ultimate Fighter.
Stephen Bonnar, who also appeared in the TUF 1 finale in the show’s first season, continued his recent return to form against Igor Pokrajac.
Bonnar’s suspect chin was once again on display with Pokrajac hurting him whenever connecting cleanly, but the newly focused veteran showed a greater willingness to fight smart to overcome this weakness. With excellent clinch striking, wrestling and grappling, Bonnar was able to dominant all three rounds, coming close to finishing on several occasions. There was, however, controversy in the refereeing of the fight with first Pokrajac and then Bonnar being deducted a point by referee Steve Mazzagatti for landing illegal blows.
That was nothing to the controversy surrounding the judges’ decision in the Leonard Garcia vs. Nam Phan bout, with the fans loudly booing the decision of two judges to award the fight to Garcia. One can only sympathize with the fans, as while the opening and closing rounds were close and could easily have been awarded to either fighter, Nam Phan clearly took more of the fight overall after dominating in the second round. Dropping Garcia with a side-kick after rocking him with a couple of uppercuts, Phan came very close to finishing the fight with a rear naked choke.
The poor decision overshadowed a superb televised debut for the UFC featherweight division, with WEC mainstay Garcia and Phan putting on the type of fast-paced, all-action fight that fight fans can look forward to seeing on UFC events in 2011. In a sign of things to come, the two featherweights won the Fight of the Night Award.
In the other two fights on the card, Ricky Story defeated Johny Hendricks and Demian Maia defeated TUF 3 winner Kendall Grove. Both fights went the distance with Story being able to out-power and out-strike Hendricks while Maia was too slick on the ground for Grove.
