UFC Fight Night: Machida vs. Dollaway results – Winners and losers

Following a less than stellar night of action in Brazil, the final UFC fight card of 2014 is firmly behind us. Although the UFC traditionally culminated its year with one final PPV event, this year ended with a Fight Night show in Barueri that featured a middleweight main event between Lyoto Machida and C.B. Dollaway. Sadly, it was far from the best fight card of the year and featured a fair amount of tedious encounters mixed in with some entertaining finishes.

With that in mind, here are the real winners and losers from Saturday night's fight card.

Winners

Lyoto Machida closed out 2014 with a ferocious body kick that led to the TKO victory in the opening seconds of the main event against C.B. Dollaway. While many anticipated a slightly more competitive encounter, Machida proved that the gap between himself and the majority of the division is a wide one as he made it look easy against a tough, durable opponent. Another classic performance from "The Dragon."

Renan Barao picked up his first UFC win since losing his bantamweight title to T.J. Dillashaw earlier in the year. He controlled Mitch Gagnon for the better part of three rounds to earn a late submission victory over the Canadian.  While it was far from the flashiest of performances, it will likely kick start Barao's return to title contention in 2015.

Patrick Cummins stuck to his wrestling heavy gameplan and cruised to a unanimous decision victory over TUF Brazil 3 winner Carlos Junior to extend his winning streak to 3-0 since losing to Daniel Cormier. Cummings dominated the entire encounter and even frustrated the Brazilian fans to boot.  He will likely get a step up in competition for his next fight after dominating his last three opponents with relative ease.

Rashid Magomedov picked up his biggest win in the UFC to date with a remarkably late finish of Elias Silverio in the third round of their main card fight. The Dagestan native looked sharp all night and produced a fantastic variety of body kicks that hindered Silverio's performance. Finally, late in the round, Magomedov landed a well-placed counter left that floored the Brazilian before swarming him to force the referee to call the fight off with just three seconds to go. Magomedov moves to 3-0 in the UFC and will likely get a step up in competition.

Erick Silva returned to the win column for the first time since February when he put Mike Rhodes to sleep with an arm triangle choke in the opening round of their main card encounter. With the win, he maintained his alternate win-loss record in the UFC since he joined the promotion, which means he is potentially due for another loss in his first fight in 2015.

Leandro Issa picked up his second consecutive submission victory to move to 2-1 under the UFC banner on Saturday night. This time, he earned the win against heavy favourite Yuta Sasaki after dominating the fight for the better part of two rounds. As a considerable underdog, this is an impressive performance from the Brazilian.

Losers

C.B. Dollaway had the opportunity to take that step to the upper echelon of the middleweight division but failed spectacularly in the process. Machida pounced on Dollaway immediately and ended his night almost as quickly as it began with a flush body kick that sent the American tumbling to the mat in pain. A disappointing end to a fantastic year for Dollaway.

Judges: A contender for worst scorecard of the year took place on Saturday night, as one of the judges decided to award Marcio Alexandre Jr. a 29-28 scorecard against Tim Means, even though he did little to earn nothing to earn such a despicable scorecard. According to MMAJunkie's John Morgan, the scorecards were Fernando Amaral (29-28, Means R1, R3), Tony Weeks (28-29, Alexandre R1, R2), Lester Griffin (29-28, Means R2, R3).

Referees: During the same Tim Means vs. Marcio Alexandre Jr. fight, Means was close to finishing the fight in the second round when he landed a flush knee that was deemed illegal due to the tips of Alexandre's hand being on the canvas at the moment of impact. Even though the replay showed that the strike was legal, the referee had already deemed it an illegal shot and denied Means of a TKO victory. What was even more surprising was that even though the ref considered it an illegal shot, he chose not to deduct a point from Means, thus proving that he was operating out of his own personal rulebook.

Antonio Carlos Junior failed to follow up on becoming the TUF Brazil 3 tournament champion and lost his light-heavyweight debut against Patrick Cummins. It was a lopsided performance for the American wrestler and showed that Junior is simply not ready to make that leap into the 205-pound rankings. He neither had the necessary fight IQ, not the physical preparation to handle three rounds of fighting, which is disappointing when one considers his potential.

Antonio dos Santos Jr. decided that he could take it upon himself to pause the fight midway through a round to pop his mangled finger back into place. While he may believe that is perfectly acceptable behavior, the referee would have none of it and immediately called off the fight - rightfully so. Shame though, it was a mildly entertaining affair prior to that bizarre incident.

Igor Pokrajac suffered a TKO loss at the hands of Marcos Rogerio de Lima in less than two minutes of fight time to go 0-4 with one no-contest in his last five octagon outings. With that in mind, you'd have to believe this was his last performance as a UFC fighter.

Yuta Sasaki was supposed to be one of the UFC's most exciting new signees but failed to display any of his touted trademark characteristics in his official debut. In fact, he suffered a lopsided loss to Leandro Issa in the second round of their preliminary encounter. If this is a foreshadowing of his career trajectory in 2015,  Sasaki will not last long in the promotion.

Other Notes

Mitch Gagnon proved that he can be fearless in the face of some of the most dangerous competitors in the bantamweight division on Saturday night when he held his own against former champion Renan Barao in the co-main event. While he was unsuccessful, his efforts will likely be appreciated by the fans who will be interested to see him face a higher standard of competition in the future. Ultimately, it was a win-win situation for Gagnon.