On Saturday night, the UFC expanded their Mexican operations beyond Mexico City for the first time. The Octagon touched down in Monterrey, Mexico for UFC Fight Night 78, which doubled as the finale for another season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America’. After a fun start to the card, viewers were treated to eight consecutive decisions to end an extremely long night of fights. Now, I’m firmly entrenched in the “decisions don’t always mean a boring fight” line of thought, but some of these fights were dreadful in terms of action, and other dreadful in terms of skill. Luckily, the main event was fantastic, and the card also allowed us to see a flyweight contender continue to emerge, which kept it from being a total writeoff. In that main event, Kelvin Gastelum nearly outlasted Neil Magny in a bout that had the opposite narrative than most expected coming in. Traditionally Magny is a slow starter, but he was able to win grappling exchanges with Gastelum with ease throughout the first two rounds to put himself in great position to take the fight. Gastelum made the third more competitive, and it ended up being the swing round of the fight (although it shouldn’t have been). The youngster really turned things up in the championship rounds however, as his forward pressure and striking began to wear the normally tireless Magny out. Gastelum dropped Magny twice in the fourth and dominated the round en route to what seemed like a clear 10-8, and again stalked Magny throughout the fifth to take that round as well.
If MMA judges weren’t… well, MMA judges, this fight would have likely been scored a draw, with Magny taking the first three rounds, and Gastelum taking the final two with a 10-8 in the fourth. Unfortunately, they are MMA judges, and the UFC (particularly Marc Ratner) has discouraged judges from scoring anything other than 10-9 rounds in the past. This was the best performance of Neil Magny’s career for the first three rounds, and perhaps we can forgive him for slowing down late given the short-notice nature of the fight. The win should line him up for another crack at a top ten opponent as he continues to show himself as one of the UFC’s most improved fighters. The loss shouldn’t be viewed too negatively for Gastelum, as he showed that he took his training and conditioning more seriously for this fight, and was able to make excellent in-fight adjustments. Unfortunately he and his team came in with a poor gameplan to attack Magny, but one that couldn’t really be known pre-fight. Gastelum will recover from this and continue his upward trajectory in the welterweight division. In the co-main event, Ricardo Lamas battered Diego Sanchez for the second half of their featherweight fight to take a unanimous decision that even MMA judges couldn’t get wrong. Sanchez looked perfectly fine at featherweight for the opening round, despite losing it clearly. However, it looks like all of the wars he’s been through and years in the gym may finally be catching up with him. A seemingly normal leg kick injured Sanchez’ leg and left him bouncing around on one foot for the remainder of the fight. Of course being Diego Sanchez, he didn’t stop fighting, but it was clear he had nothing left as Lamas continued to pile up combinations against the cage for the duration of the bout.
Lamas is stuck in the featherweight division for the time being, as he’s already lost to featherweight champion Jose Aldo and top contender Chad Mendes. However, if Conor McGregor were to capture the belt at UFC 194, Lamas and Frankie Edgar would become the highest ranked fighters McGregor has not beaten, and he may get another crack at the belt. Speaking of shots at belts, it’s time for Henry Cejudo to get his. The former Olympic gold medalist put together another one of his competitive-but-clear decision victories, this time over Jussier ‘Formiga’. In what ended up being a 15-minute kickboxing match, Cejudo continued to show that not only does he have the wrestling pedigree, but his striking is some of the best at 125 as well.
With Demetrious Johnson looking more and more dominant with each performance, Cejudo is really the only fighter anyone has interest in seeing the champion defend against at flyweight, and that should be the bout to make in early 2016. Prior to that, there wasn’t much of note on this card. The TUF: Latin America finals were poor, to say the least, while Leandro Silva and Efrain Escudero kicking off the main card (in what is traditionally supposed to be a spot for an exciting fight) showed what kind of night we were in for. On the undercard, Andre Fili scored a nice first-round knockout, there were more guys from TUF: Latin America (although at least those fights ended quickly), and Scott Jorgensen continues to see his own body give out on him in the cage. Next up, the Octagon heads to Seoul, South Korea for the promotion’s first ever event in that country.