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By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch contributor
UFC 174 was this past week took place last weekend, with Demetrious Johnson once again retaining his UFC Flyweight Title. Here's the rundown.
UFC 174
GOOD/BAD: Ovince St. Preux stops Ryan Jimmo
St. Preux broke Jimmo's arm not quite halfway through the second round. It's an unfortunate way to end a fight, but these things happen. It was a pretty close fight until this point.
UGLY: Andrei Arlovski vs. Brendan Schaub
This fight sucked. There was so little happening in this one that it's hard to call it a fight. Arlovski won a split decision. Schaub is claiming that he won this fight, which is insanity. At best he should argue that it was a draw. Dana White ripped the fight and said that the fans lost. I absolutely agree 100% with that statement, we're all worse off for having witnessed such a putrid display. Schaub shouldn't be arguing that he was robbed, he should be trying to distance himself from this fight as much as possible. It could come out that both guys were suffering from pneumonia and I'd still say they should have done more.
BAD: Ryan Bader vs. Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante
Bader controlled the fight from start to finish and ground down Cavalcante. It was a smart, but very conservative, gameplan. The problem is, this will work against certain guys, but not all. This also won't help you beat the better fighters in the division. Depending on how good you are at this, you might be able to get a title shot. Odds are, though, that unless you're in a crap division or organization, you're not going to win any titles. This is smart for a guy that wants to keep his job, but it's not going to win any fans.
BAD/GOOD: Rory MacDonald vs. Tyron Woodley
Again, this was another smart and conservative gameplan implemented by a fighter. I'm giving this a BAD/GOOD because the fight itself, and the gameplan, was BAD. MacDonald was too conservative at times when he could have pressed forward and ended things. I'm going GOOD, though, because I think Woodley is a good fighter and to see him handled like this is fairly impressive.
Dana White said that Woodley is a choker in the big moments. I disagree with that, as I think that's far too harsh. In his last fight, against Carlos Condit, Woodley looked pretty good. That was a bigger fight than this one against MacDonald. It's true that Dana White had said that the winner would get a title shot weeks ago, but that's one of Dana's go-to moves. If he can't figure out how to properly promote a fight he'll just say that the winner is in line for a title shot.
GOOD/BAD: Demetrious Johnson vs. Ali Bagautinov
Johnson was unquestionably the better fighter. He controlled things in every facet and in every way. That's the GOOD. The BAD comes from the fact that he allowed it to go all five rounds. I think that Johnson could have ended things earlier if he had wanted to. He was working the whole fight, but it was painfully clear that he was on a different level than Bagautinov. I felt like I was watching an old Georges St-Pierre fight. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it got frustrating at times to watch this.
Everyone watching could tell that if Johnson pressed his advantages a little more than he could finish things. Bagautinov is a good fighter, but Johnson is a great fighter. I know it's a very high standard to hold someone to, but when you're this good, that comes with the territory. When you set the bar as high as these guys do, you're expected to do things that are difficult and to make them look easy.
I'm not saying that Johnson was coasting or anything, but we've seen what he can do. He's finished guys as good as, and better, than Bagautinov. The theme of the night seemed to be conservative gameplans. They're effective, but not the most exciting thing to watch.
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank
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