UFC Fight Night 73: Saint Preux vs. Teixeira results and post-fight analysis

UFC Fight Night 73 featured a bevy of different results - big submission wins, crushing knockout victories, and a robbery among them. The main event bout between Ovince Saint Preux and Glover Teixeira was about as exciting as you're going to get from a light heavyweight bout, with near-finishes in the first and an eventual finish later on. Teixeira's relevancy in the division was on the line in this fight, and he proved that he's still a contender with a strong wrestling game and good finishing instincts.

Normally I would dedicate two or three paragraphs to the main event, but a much bigger issue is making me change it up - the incompetency of the judges in the co-main event lightweight bout between Beneil Dariush and Michael Johnson. I don't often get mad at judging issues, partially because they're so commonplace and partially because it's a thankless job. But in this case, I'm angry. I bet on Dariush, and I'm STILL angry.

Johnson clearly won that fight. It was about as obvious as you're going to get. If you want to give Dariush round three, I'd debate it but I wouldn't put that much into it. But the second? There's absolutely no way in hell that Dariush won the first or second round. The first is obvious - Johnson dropped him. In the second, Johnson's pressure game was working to perfection and he was out-landing his opponent. He was also landing the harder shots. There is no way to plausibly give Dariush the advantage in an all-striking round where he wasn't landing on or hurting his opponent enough. It's a joke.

The two judges, Doug Crosby and Richard Bertrand, that gave Dariush the second and third are incompetent. This is Sanchez/Pearson levels of incompetence. And it's not like you can even use the "Sanchez looks like he's landing a lot" argument. There is no hypno-toad here. Dariush wasn't even throwing that much! Crosby has been a failure as a judge for a while, but Bertrand is generally pretty good. I'm not sure what they were watching (if they were at all), but the result is baffling.

• Derek Brunson put it on Sam Alvey. It's dangerous to get so wild against a counterpuncher, yet it worked. The stoppage may have been a tiny bit early, but I don't have much of a problem with it. Alvey ate a ton of huge shots.
• The heavyweight fight between Jake Rosholt and Timothy Johnson was absolutely terrible. When it finally got exciting at the end, Johnson showed absolutely terrible Fight IQ by taking a hurt fighter to the ground. Many jokes are made about heavyweights, and this bout was the epitome of that.
• Amanda Nunes looked excellent finishing Sara McMann. That was not a result I expected, but it was a treat to watch. I was also impressed with Nunes' English in the post-fight interview. Good showing all around.
• Ray Borg is an absolute beast. I love watching him fight because he's totally relentless. Even a deep cut did almost nothing to slow him down. I was actually also impressed with Geane Herrera - that was a huge test for his debut, and I thought he acquitted himself well.
• The undercard had its moments. Uriah Hall blitzed a fighter lacking experience in Oluwale Bamgbose. Chris Camozzi and Tom Watson isn't worth commenting on, but Dustin Ortiz was very impressive. I really liked the bout between Frankie Saenz and Sirwan Kakai. And Jonathan Wilson absolutely clubbered Chris Dempsey in the highlight of the Fight Pass bouts.