UFC 149 Results: Faber outclassed by Barão to win UFC Title

They can’t all be barnburners & unfortunately UFC 149 looked better on paper than it ended up playing out. Not even the generally faced paced, action packed lower weights were able to rejuvinate what was a lackluster main card from the outset. As in anything else, though, there has to be a little “give & take” and this just happened to be the rare UFC card where we have to “give” ’em a little slack. Far more times than not, we get our money’s worth from start to finish. At least, we didn’t come to any inconclusions. A title was won (sort of), fighters made their next step up toward obtaining their dreams of UFC gold, & the promotion added another of the world’s best to the roster of the top mixed martial artists in the world. Let’s get to the results:

This could have been the fight that ended up cursing the lackluster main card. Not that it lacked action, but referee Josh Rosenthal once again showed questionable officiating by stepping in to halt the action after Riddle connected with a liver kick & folded Clements in half in pain. Rosenthal thought the kick connected below the belt, obviously, and stepped in to give Clements time to recover. What could’ve started the night off with a bang was brought to a lulling pause by a referee who may very need to “go back to school,” so to speak. The end result, fortunately for Riddle, turned out to basically be the same as he submitted Clements at 2:02 of the third round.

Here is where the “rock-a-bye-baby” lullaby effect of the Pay-per-View card got it’s start. All of Ebersole’s “Mayhem” Miller-esque antics, including the “hairow” shaved chest couldn’t add any more zest to this snoozer that showcased Ebersole’s need to work on his wrestling game while Head could use some devotion to pressing the action on a fatigued opponent. When it was finally (and thankfully) over, Head walked away with the split decision win.

Surely an athletic former K1 standout could pick up the pace with some much needed offense, right? Wrong. This may have been the fighting version of Ambien. For a guy coming into the twilight of his career and looking for a shot at the title before it’s all “said & done,” this wasn’t the way of making that statement. Jordan was looking to put himself on the map & Kongo had the chance to put his much higher caliber standing game to a vastly more inexperienced fighter and score an always career boosting KO. None of that happened, unfortunately, and Kongo ended up trudging his way to a unanimous decision.

If the rest of the card hadn’t yet met expectation, then so what. This is one of the fights we were anticipating most, so this would make up for it’s predecessors, right? Surely, a savage offensive beast like Lombard would treat we fans to another of his exciting finishes & make a big splash in his Octagon debut, right? Wrong again. So his last loss was to Gegard Moussasi. Moussasi is an elite fighter by anyone’s standards & besides, he fights at light heavyweight. That’s not a loss to get down on yourself for & Lombard has been on a 25 fight streak since then…until last night. It appears that the win streak could’ve very well been against minor league & benchwarming opposition. Although Boetsch didn’t exactly look spectacular, he frustrated the former Bellator champion by avoiding Lombard’s heavy shots & using his obvious size and length to pick at Lombard in route to a split decision victory.

While Hector Lombard hype was deflated, Renan Barao showed that his winning streak definitely wasn’t against second rate competition as he continued his impressive winning streak over former WEC featherweight champion. Barao looked to take a page out of his teammate Jose Aldo’s playbook in implementing leg kicks to keep Faber at distance and throw his timing off. Although the leg kicks didn’t do the damage that Aldo’s did, they were enough to hobble Faber’s movement & hinder his takedown attempts. When Faber did attempt a shot, it was obvious that either the kicks had taken their toll or he was weary of getting caught by a knee coming in. Whether it was one, the other, or both, it was enough to do the job and Barao basically cruised to a unanimous decision victory to capture the interim bantamweight championship and continue his winning to streak to make it 30 even.

155- Anton Kuivanen def. Mitch Clarke via split decsion (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

145- Antonio Carvalho def. Daniel Pineda via KO  (strikes) 1:11 round 1

205- Ryan Jimmo def. Anthony Perosh via KO (punch) :07 round 1

145- Bryan Carraway def. Mitch Gagnon via submission (rear naked choke) 1:39 round 3

135- Francisco Rivera def. Roland Delorme via KO (punch) 4:19 round 1

185- Nick Ring def. Court McGee via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

170- Matt Riddle def. Chris Clements via submission (arm triangle choke) 2:02 round 3

170- James Head def. James Ebersole via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

HW- Cheick Kongo def. Shawn Jordan via unanimous decision (30-28, 30-27, 30-27)

185- Tim Boetsch def. Hector Lombard via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

135- Renan Barao def. Uriah Faber via unanimous decision (49-46, 50-45, 49-46)

On a postnote regarding highly regarded, hyped up would be contenders, you could compare how hyped Shogun was coming into the UFC & then losing to Forrest Griffin in his debut. However, Shogun was coming off of a knee surgery and should’ve taken a little more time off to get himself back into fighting shape before climbing into the cage against a gritty, endurance fighter like Griffin. Such cannot be said about Lombard. Not only did the Cuban look lethargic, he looked dwarfed by Boetsch and may very well need to consider a drop to welterweight or else he may very well end up looking like he was just a “big fish in a small pond” by trying to swim with the bigger fish of the UFC’s middleweight division. Some were hailing him to be the only legit challenger left for Anderson Silva among the middleweights of the world. The Lombard that showed up last night would’ve been diced into confetti against the pound-for-pound king. If he wants to live up to the hype, then a drop to the competitive welterweight division, which would probably suit him best, at least from a physical size perspective. If he decides to stay in a weight class where he’s vastly outsized, he could very well wind up going in the way of other hyped prospects that didn’t or haven’t lived up to their mystique like Denis Kang, “Kid” Yamamoto, Jake Shields, & Takanori Gomi.