UFC on Fox 10: Henderson vs. Thomson - Winners and Losers

UFC on Fox 10 is now in the books and while it was a decent event, most of the focus will obviously be on the scoring of the main event. I personally had Thomson winning 48-47 and find a 49-46 Henderson card to be pretty indefensible since I felt that Thomson clearly won two of the rounds. I don't think it was a robbery at all and I could definitely see Henderson winning 48-47, but 49-46? No one is going to convince me of that. And they've already tried.

Anyway, let's move onto why you're here - the winners and losers from last night's event.

Winners

Donald Cerrone - That head kick was awesome. Martins was out before he hit the floor, and Cowboy didn't even need to follow up. Cerrone made the most of an opportunity and picked up another bonus check, which was apparently exactly what he needed. He's one of the most reliable action fighters at 155 and that will keep him in demand for a long time. I certainly can't wait to see his next fight, and I don't even care who is across the cage from him.

Jeremy Stephens - After coming close to getting released with a bad run at lightweight, Stephens has breathed new life into his career with the drop to 145. He's now 3-0 in the division and has taken out a TUF winner and a guy in the top 15. And the crazy thing is that he's still only 27. Alliance MMA has really helped him progress as a fighter, and he could very well be a contender in a packed featherweight division relatively soon.

Alex Caceres - Bruce Leeroy can really fight. I was very hard on him after his first couple of UFC performances, but his odd striking style and slick work on the ground have really come along well. He's a tough puzzle to solve at 135 and he proved that again last night by taking out a bright prospect. I don't really expect him to be fighting for titles or anything, but he is definitely a tough out at bantamweight. I'm sure that winning $100,000 in bonus money made him even happier than normal too.

Daron Cruickshank - I don't really care if Cruickshank loses as much as he wins - he's an undeniably entertaining fighter. He seems to just have bursts of activity at least once a round where he just goes into video game mode and throws all sorts of crazy stuff. It's amazing to watch, and it's no surprise that fans love it. The UFC loves guys like Cruickshank too, because he always comes to fight. Will he ever win a title? Probably not. Will he even rise above the middle of his division? I'm not sure. But as long as he keeps doing stuff like he did last night, he'll have a job for a long, long time.

Losers

Ben Henderson - Mr. Henderson sure is smooth in the eyes of judges. He seems to get every break in the book when it comes to close fights, and Sal D'Amato in particular seems like a really big fan. He does just enough to get judges to see things his way. But for all the guff Georges St-Pierre got for being a "decision" fighter, at least he won decisively. Henderson doesn't have a single finish in nine UFC bouts and I don't remember him ever being really close to one either. In every one of his close fights (this one, both with Edgar and the bout with Melendez), I had him losing. Yet here he is, always scraping by. He won the bout last night according to two judges, and I guess that's enough for him. But it's not enough for a lot of UFC fans.

Josh Thomson - I hesitated on whether to put him here, because it's not really his fault that he lost. Sure he could have thrown more strikes, but he had a busted thumb/hand. He pushed Henderson around in a way that I've never seen anyone do before, and I thought his efforts were extremely impressive. But he ended up on the wrong side of the scorecards and his shot at a UFC title just went down the drain. He's so disillusioned that he even spoke of retirement after the bout. So while the label "loser" doesn't apply in the standard sense, it does in the most literal sense - Josh Thomson lost a lot as a result of two scorecards last night. So that's why he's here.

Gabriel Gonzaga - I didn't exactly expect him to be fighting for a title again anyway, but any hope of a bout with a top-five fighter went out the window with his performance against Miocic. He was gassed after one round and didn't look impressive at all. He is what he is - a mid-level heavyweight with some tremendous skills that he can't gel together well enough to go on a serious run. He'll win some, he'll lose some. I'm alright with that, but I don't think he should be.

Darren Elkins - Elkins has looked very good at featherweight thus far, but once Stephens shut down his grappling game it was pretty much over. Elkins has decent striking but he wasn't going to win a kickboxing match. He can still shut down a lot of featherweights on any given night, but he has topped out on the fringes of the top ten. A lot of the top guys at 145 would do the same thing Stephens did to him, and that's more obvious now than ever.

Sergio Pettis - He's only 20. This was his first loss. His world isn't exactly coming to an end. But Caceres did help to expose some holes in his game and I honestly think Sergio's future is at flyweight. Yes, Caceres is one of the tallest guys at 135 and Pettis wasn't thrown around or anything, but he can make 125 so it just makes sense for him to compete there. It's also a thinner division so he'd move up faster with a few wins. Still though, he showed a lot of good things and he's still a good prospect in my eyes. So all is not lost.