UFC 143 Results Recap: Renan Barao Vs. Scott Jorgensen

by Tim Burke on Feb 6, 2012 1:00 AM EST in UFC Event

In the second bout of the UFC 143 main card, Renan Barao picked up a solid unanimous decision victory over Scott Jorgensen. All three judges had it 30-27 for Barao. He showed off a combination of flashy striking and effective counterfighting, and managed to shrug off all of Jorgensen's attempts to take the fight to the floor. Barao even forced Jorgensen to pull guard at one point in the second round, but couldn't get anything going there either.

The win for Barao leaves him as the most logical contender for the UFC bantamweight title after Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber meet for a third time. He is now 3-0 in the UFC and 5-0 under the Zuffa banner, taking out increasingly strong competition along the way. It's back to the drawing board for Jorgensen, who picked up his first loss in the UFC but has a few guys ahead of him in the bantamweight pecking order now.

What was the high spot of this fight?

Nothing really stands out, though Barao did throw a few spinning kicks that looked pretty cool.

Where do these guys go from here?

As stated above, Barao is the most likely candidate to meet the winner of Cruz vs. Faber 3 later this year. If that bout doesn't go down for a while and the UFC wants Barao to fight again before then, a bout with Brian Bowles would make the most sense.

Jorgensen's hopes for another shot at the title were dashed with this loss, and his place in the division isn't clear at this point. With two other top contenders moving down to flyweight, he's unlikely to drop much in the rankings. But at the same time, there aren't a lot of big-name opponents out there for him either. A do-or-die matchup with Eddie Wineland could be very interesting.

Watch it now, later or never?

Later. Barao is a very interesting fighter and all that, but neither fighter does much damage in the bout, and there's not a ton going on most of the time. It's worth taking a pass on.

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