Making the Grade: Passes/fails for UFC Fight Night: Magny vs. Gastelum
Neil Magny made the most of his main event fight against Kelvin Gastelum on Saturday night with a split decision win after just accepting the five-round bout two weeks ago.
Magny was a heavy underdog going into the fight, but he showed tremendous poise and grace under pressure through the first three rounds as he out-struck and out-wrestled Gastelum. The final two rounds didn't exactly go his way, but Magny never allowed himself to get into any kind of trouble he couldn't escape and he leaves Mexico with a signature win to add to his record.
Ricardo Lamas was another big winner Saturday with a shutout performance over Diego Sanchez, who was making his featherweight debut. Lamas used a strong striking game mixed with a little bit of flash over three rounds to get the job done against one of the toughest fighters on the UFC roster.
But we already know the results from Saturday night so we're going to dig a little deeper into this card to see what passed and what failed in Mexico. This is Making the Grade for UFC Fight Night: Magny vs. Gastelum.
PASSES
The Busiest Man in MMA
Neil Magny's string of activity over the past two years is kind of hard to imagine considering most fighters in the UFC are hustling just to step inside the Octagon three times in any 12-month stretch. Magny has managed to fight a total of 10 times in the past years while racking up an impressive 9-1 record along the way.
When Magny took UFC matchmaker Joe Silva's call this time, he was asked to step up on short notice to fight Kelvin Gastelum in a five-round fight in Mexico with just about two weeks to go until show time. Magny didn't hesitate and despite being a decided underdog, he ended up pulling out a split-decision win.
Magny may still be an outlier to the top 10 of the welterweight division and whether he's a threat to the top fighters in the world at 170 pounds remains undecided, but he's certainly willing to step into the fray on almost no notice and face the best in the world. That's an admirable quality regardless of how high Magny climbs in this weight class.
The Homecoming for Erik Perez
A couple of years ago when the UFC first explored a push into Mexico, bantamweight fighter Erik Perez was touted as the next big thing, and he hoped to become a serious contender and a star in his home country.
Fast-forward a couple of years, a couple of losses, and a couple of injuries later and Perez sat on the sidelines through the first UFC shows in Mexico while fighters like Cain Velasquez and Yair Rodriguez became the household names for MMA in Latin America.
Perez finally got the chance to fight on home soil on Saturday night, and he picked up a win in the featured prelim on FS1. The moment was extra special because Perez didn't just get to fight in his home country, but he returned in his hometown as well and his emotions erupted after his hand was raised in victory.
Perez still has a lot of time left in his career, but there's little chance he's ever going to forget the night he went home and got a win in the UFC in front of thousands of friends, family and supporters there to root him on.
Touched Up
Team Alpha Male fighter Andre Fili has bounced back and forth between wins and losses since joining the UFC roster, but his career won't likely be judged by record so long as he continues to go out and put on some of the most entertaining fights in the featherweight division.
Fili has been pushed to decision once since joining the UFC roster and he's built like a 'go-big-or-go-home' kind of guy, who swings for the fences and doesn't mind taking chances if if they all don't go his way.
His win on Saturday night earned Fili a 'Performance of the Night' bonus after he rocketed a head kick that blasted Gabriel Benitez and eventually led to the end of the fight. Fili is fun to watch and at 25, he's still got plenty of time to develop into a top 15-level fighter. Until then, Fili is must-see TV every time he competes and chances are with the kinds of performances he's had so far, he'll be in the UFC for many years to come.
FAILS
The Decision
Finishing fights is much easier said than done, and most competitors in the UFC will tell you that they are all trying to put an opponent away but it just doesn't work out that way all the time. That was never more evident than the final eight fights on Saturday night's card from Mexico with all of them ending in a decision after a fairly thrilling preliminary card that featured three first-round knockouts.
Maybe we get spoiled by shows like the one in June in New Orleans where the entire six-fight main card featured finishes with only a single bout making it out of the first round -- and that one between Brian Ortega and Thiago Tavares was clearly the best fight of the night and maybe one of the best all year.
Still, it was rough to sit through eight consecutive decisions, including the finals of "The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America" with a takedown-heavy performance from Enrique Barzola and then a forgettable showing by both Erick Montanto and Enrique Marin.
It's not easy to just knock out or submit an opponent, but outside of a couple of key exchanges in the main event, there weren't even any significant moments where you felt like any of those eight fights were close to being finished. It just made for a long night and some largely mundane performances over three-plus hours on television.
EPIC FAILS
It's Allergy Season
The fourth round in the main event bout between Kelvin Gastelum and Neil Magny was definitely the most decisive five minutes in the entire fight with two separate knockdowns that nearly ended with finishes both times. Gastelum tagged Magny with a hard punch early to put the Colorado-based fighter on his butt and then later in the round the former "Ultimate Fighter" champion did the exact same thing as he continued to press to try for the finish.
Gastelum didn't get it on either occasion, but two knockdowns and a pretty suffocating performance over five minutes definitely earned him the round, but why are judges in MMA so hesitant to hand out a 10-8 score?
The 10-point must system that was originally developed for boxing still barely functions when it comes to MMA for a multitude of reasons, the least of which is with far less rounds in say a UFC bout versus maybe the 12-round affair pitting Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez against Miguel Cotto, one lopsided round could mean the difference in the fight declaring a winner or ending in a draw. That's not always the case in boxing where there are usually 12 rounds in a big championship fight and one bad 10-8 round doesn't always equal disaster.
Why are MMA judges so allergic to the concept of even offering up that score? One judge in the fight between Enrique Barzola and Horacio Gutierrez handed out a 10-8 round -- and it was certainly a dominant performance from Barzola -- but at no point did he really have Gutierrez in trouble. He just stifled him on the ground with constant pressure while peppering him with enough shots to ensure the fight didn't get stood up again.
Gastelum landed two knockdowns and didn't seem to come close to the same score.
A 10-8 round can be an absolute killer during a three or five round fight, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be used more often, especially in situations where it's warranted. Two knockdowns in a single round seems like a pretty good reason to me.
