In one of the more bizarre bouts we'll see this year, Jason 'Mayhem' Miller was unable to finish C.B. Dollaway after knocking him silly several times and ended up losing a decision victory to the former Arizona State wrestler. Each time Miller charged in for the finish, Dollaway would recover just enough to clinch and cling to him a la Mark Coleman on Shogun Rua and from there, Dollaway outwrestled Miller enough to get a decision victory.
The judges scorecards reflect how bizarre this fight was, as Lester Griffin scored a 30-26 for Dollaway, with the third round being 10-8, while Dave Hagen and Mark Smith turned in identical 29-28 cards, giving the second round to Miller 10-9 and the first and third 10-9 to Dollaway.
Part of what made this so strange is that Miller came into this bout with a heavily wrapped up knee that appeared to either blow out or be further injured during the match. Despite this handicap, he was still able to win the striking exchanges and in full accordance with his ADHD character on Bully Beatdown, he charged in for finishes recklessly each time. Abandoning all semblances of good footwork and discipline is a typical Mayhem Miller thing, but this time it cost him and he will be fighting elsewhere than under the Zuffa umbrella from now on.
Dollaway displayed some true resilience in not folding once he was dazed and tumbling all over the cage, but fought perhaps one of the best examples of the "lay and pray" strategy ever to be in an MMA cage.
What was the high spot of this fight?
Seeing Miller knock Dollaway into having the collywobbles so bad that C.B. went twisting and turning across the entire cage. That happened more than once. The rest of this fight was pretty bad though.
Where do these guys go from here?
Miller is gone from the UFC. White hates him and he's not been able to discipline himself enough during a fight to actually put together a credible threat to anyone good for sustained periods of time. He might move to someplace like ONE FC or Bellator.
Dollaway should take a long time off and fix his striking defense. He is ten fights into his UFC career and getting lit up by luminaries of the striking world such as Jared Hamman and Mayhem Miller. Each time he gets wobbled, it looks like he flat out does not see strikes coming in, which is a recipe for disaster. We've seen his rather nice submission offense in action before and his wrestling is good enough to keep him in most fights. If he must get back into action ASAP, I pick the winner of Constantinos Phillippou and Riki Fukuda.
Watch it now, later or never?
Depends on what your tolerance for bizarre decision bouts is. I'm more of an MMA completist, so I'd watch it later, but you could skip this entirely and not be particularly deprived of anything special.
After the jump, all the related UFC 146 links you could want.
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UFC 146 Results: C.B. Dollaway Decisions Jason 'Mayhem' Miller
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UFC 146: Dos Santos Vs. Mir - Live Results And Play-By-Play For Undercard
UFC 146: Dos Santos Vs. Mir - Live Results And Play-By-Play For PPV Main Card