Making the grade: UFC 249: Ferguson vs. Gaethje

There’s a lot to be said about the UFC being the first major sports league to promote a card amid a global pandemic, but more than anything it was good to see some fights again.

After nearly two months off, the UFC returned with a fully stacked card on Saturday night and the show was delivered in almost every conceivable way.

There were amazing knockouts, a couple old-fashioned dogfights, and even some star performances throughout the night.

Justin Gaethje finally realized his dream of becoming a UFC champion when he stopped Tony Ferguson’s incredible 12-fight win streak with a fifth-round TKO. The fact that Gaethje has done all this on short notice while training during a pandemic speaks volumes about his growth and development in the sport in recent years.

Meanwhile, Henry Cejudo defended his bantamweight title with an impressive TKO against Dominick Cruz and then quickly dropped his belt as he announced his retirement from the sport. Cejudo says he is serious about calling it a career at 33 and if this is really the end for him, he took the lead.

That said, there is a lot to dissect from UFC 249, so let’s look at the passes and failures of UFC’s return to action on Saturday night.

PASSES

Featured human reel

Justin Gaethje always offers an exciting fight, but now he can truly call himself one of the best lightweights in the world.

Now, make no mistake, Gaethje has been one of the best 155-pound fighters for quite a while, but winning an interim lightweight title by stopping Tony Ferguson’s 12-win streak only solidifies that nickname. On top of that, Gaethje has made notable changes to his style since he lost two fights in a row that didn’t reduce his wow factor when they fought, but they sure allowed him to win in an even more impressive way.

When Gaethje first came to the UFC, he lived by a code: kill or be killed.

It certainly didn’t seem like Gaethje was fighting with much more strategy than exchanging blows with an opponent until one of them fell. That style worked for him during a World Series of Fighting series and also started his UFC career dramatically.

Unfortunately, the style of “take a hit to give a hit” ultimately failed when faced with a pair of elite lightweights in Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier. Both fighters appeared to have been in a car accident after fighting Gaethje, but it was Álvarez and Poirier who finally did the job.

It was then that Gaethje and his head coach Trevor Wittman began to analyze his game and find a way to be just as exciting, but perhaps reduce the damage he was absorbing. Gaethje then recited three consecutive finishes, but his masterpiece arrived on Saturday night.

Outside of a superior cut at the end of the second round that put him on his butt momentarily, Gaethje was able to avoid many of Ferguson’s best punches while simultaneously connecting with over 70 percent accuracy with his foot attack. Gaethje was smart and tactical, but the fight did not suffer an ounce of emotion.

In the end, Gaethje walked away with his eighth and ninth post-fight bonuses, totaling $ 450,000 in total bonuses during his UFC career, and is now the interim lightweight champion. With a pedigree in college wrestling before his fight career, Gaethje will now face Khabib Nurmagomedov in arguably the most intriguing lightweight title fight in many years.

Message sent

You might cringe every time Henry Cejudo starts promoting one of his fights, but after his last performance against Dominick Cruz, there’s no way he can’t be considered one of the greatest combat sports athletes of all time.

A crushing knee kick knocked Cruz down in the second round when Cejudo earned another victory and another final against a true UFC legend. The victory served as Cejudo’s first defense of the 135-pound title after he defeated Marlon Moraes in 2018 to become champion. That victory followed Cejudo’s impressive 32-second knockout against T.J. Dillashaw at flyweight, which was a fight after defeating possibly the biggest flyweight in sports history at Demetrious Johnson.

Cejudo’s career in recent years has been impressive, but his decision to announce his retirement after the fight definitely surprised some, although this is not the first time he has drifted away while on top.

Cejudo’s rapid rise in the MMA ranks really reflects his unexpected career to an Olympic gold medal in wrestling as well. In 2008, Cejudo entered the Olympics as an unlikely candidate for the United States after he chose not to go to college, but instead focused on international competitions. He ran through the competition and became the youngest American fighter to capture gold (his record was surpassed by Kyle Snyder).

Cejudo eventually walked away from wrestling in 2009, but then returned to the mats three years later to make another run at the Olympics. When he fell short in his attempt to represent the US USA For the second time, Cejudo left his shoes on the mat and called it a race.

It is entirely possible that Cejudo’s fighting career will follow a similar trajectory now that he retired from the UFC as champion. Perhaps the promotion will offer a massive payday for Cejudo to return to the fold, but considering how he was able to leave the fight behind, don’t expect him to return because he has nothing better to do.

Cejudo has cemented his legacy forever, even if he never fights again. He defeated possibly the greatest flyweight of all time and then did the same with the best bantamweight of all time in Cruz. Add that Olympic gold medal and Cejudo’s claim as the best combat sports athlete of all time begins to deserve serious consideration.

The legend of the cucuy

Tony Ferguson deserves a lot of credit for his streak of 12 straight wins, as well as his decision to face Justin Gaethje on Saturday night, even if he didn’t leave as interim champion (for the second time).

Some will say the loss proved that Ferguson should not have taken the risk in the first place after his fight with reigning UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov fell apart for the fifth time. However, that is flawed logic, because if Ferguson was able to beat Gaethje to win his 13th consecutive fight, he would be wordlessly praised for that very decision.

The fact is, Ferguson took his chance and fell short, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

There was no guarantee that his fight with Nurmagomedov was going to happen in July or September or anytime in the near future, especially given the disastrous ways the showdown has crumbled in the past. So Ferguson decided to take on Gaethje and considering how he had cut and cut the competition to win 12 fights in a row, there is no doubt that he was confident of victory at UFC 249.

He didn’t go his way, but that doesn’t diminish Ferguson’s accomplishments in the past six years in which he faced the entire lightweight division. Ferguson has fallen before and this is just another chance to get up again.

FAIL

Heavy is the head wearing the crown

Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

The UFC has a problem in the heavyweight division that cannot be easily solved.

On Saturday night, Francis Ngannou sent in another top contender when he hit Jairzinho Rozenstruik with punches and ended his night in 20 seconds. That counted as Ngannou’s fourth consecutive knockout in the first round with less than three minutes of total time in the cage. Those are terrifying stats and the kind of flashy resume that should practically guarantee Ngannou a title shot in his next fight.

Unfortunately, that may not be the case.

Reigning heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic is still out of action after eye surgery after his title fight win against Daniel Cormier last August. While he was cleared to return to training earlier this year, Miocic was forced to deal with all the gyms in his home state of Ohio due to the closure of the coronavirus pandemic, which prevented him from training with any kind of regularity.

More recently, Miocic speculated that he probably wouldn’t be ready to fight again until after August, but he still hopes to face Cormier a third time upon his return. That leaves Ngannou in the cold without any guarantee that he will have a shot at competing for the title until at least 2021.

The UFC had a chance to spare itself a lot of headaches after Ngannou applied for an interim title for his fight against Rozenstruik. Promotion has dwindled and they now hope Ngannou is willing to wait or risk a very unhappy heavyweight contender to be sidelined.

With a provisional title, the UFC would have put an extra coin in Ngannou’s pocket and would have solved a potentially bigger problem in the future.

Don’t forget, Cormier has promised that his next fight will be the last of his career. So what happens if you go out there and beat Miocic for the title and then fold? The UFC is once again left without a champion, but if Ngannou had an interim title, that problem has already been solved.

On the other hand, if Miocic defeated Cormier a second time, then he prepares for a rematch with Ngannou, who would surely love the opportunity to avenge his previous loss to the Ohio native.

Provisional titles are often a headache, especially when the UFC only manufactures a title simply by trying to sell some additional payments for payment. Sadly, this is an occasion when an interim title really makes a lot of business sense, and yet Ngannou is going home without a belt along with zero promises that he will be able to compete for heavyweight gold any time soon.

EPIC FAIL

Control Cross

Dominick Cruz is one of the best analysts in the sport, but you shouldn’t even be expected to really understand what happened exactly seconds after a loss to TKO. Cruz fell to Henry Cejudo by second-round TKO at UFC 249 and immediately thereafter launched a verbal assault directed at referee Keith Peterson for what felt like an early stoppage.

Cruz complained that the fight was stopped too soon because he was working to get back to his feet after being hit by a knee from Cejudo. Despite eating 11 unanswered shots while lying face down towards the canvas, Cruz was starting to get up again, but at what point does the referee need to prevent a fighter from absorbing more damage?

The reality is that Peterson called for a trial and after the replay it certainly seemed like a justified stop.

Cruz was hit with punches in a succession of quick shots and despite his request to the referee to allow him to continue until he is completely unconscious before stopping the fight, this is not how this all works. A big part of a referee’s job is to protect fighters, especially when they can’t protect themselves.

Peterson saw Cruz get hit with a blow to the knee that sent him flying through the cage and then ate several stiff shots while lying face down on the ground. If Cejudo had been allowed to continue and hypothetically knocked Cruz unconscious, Peterson would be further examined for allowing the fight to continue for too long.

Actually, we’re only talking about a matter of seconds in any scenario, but Peterson did his job of protecting Cruz from further harm.

On top of that, the UFC has tried to halt interviews with fighters immediately after the knockout losses, but that was not the case when it came to Cruz. He certainly seemed conscious afterward, but it is impossible to know the extent of Cruz’s damage at that exact moment.

So why not let Cruz go back, get medical attention, and then start thinking about interviews after he has had a chance to recover or at least watch the fight once to understand what Peterson was seeing? Instead, Cruz criticized the referee multiple times for what he felt was a poor layoff when it certainly seemed that Peterson did nothing but the job he was asked to do.