Jon Jones will have been watching carefully as his light heavyweight division was given a lovely shake-up last night courtesy of Anthony Johnson, who won via TKO in the first round, but “Rumble” was not the only man to win inside the distance at the Stockholm event.
If any cynical MMA fans doubted Anthony Johnson‘s place among the elite of the UFC’s light heavyweight division, “Rumble” shut them all up with a series of from-the-hip uppercuts that forced perpetual contender and hometown hero, Alexander Gustafsson, to his knees.
Relentless ground-and-pound forced referee Marc Goddard to step in and call the fight after just two minutes of the first round which earned Johnson a $50,000 performance of the night bonus.
The impressive win will allow Anthony Johnson, who has fought in every division between welterweight and heavyweight, to finally get the chance to win a world title at 205lbs against Jon Jones.
One former light heavyweight who was competing at middleweight last night was UFC, PRIDE and Strikeforce veteran Dan Henderson who found himself on the receiving end of a controversial TKO loss to Dutch contender Gegard Mousasi.
After being hit with a grazing shot, “Hendo” appeared to slip and fall backwards which led referee Leon Roberts to believe that the 44-year-old had lost consciousness.
Referees are told to step in if a fighter isn’t intelligently defending himself/herself but Henderson was clearly working on a defensive single-leg when the referee dived in.
Despite trying to be objective, SportsJOE rules this an early stoppage, but the UFC did award Mousasi a POTN bonus for his striking performance.
The first finish on the main card came when Sweden’s own Akira Corassani was knocked out cold by fellow TUF veteran Sam Sicila.
Corassani failed to tuck his chin after throwing a combination and the heavy-handed American took full advantage by landing a clean right hook on the jaw of the favourite to rebound form a September loss to Katsunori Kikuno.
Kenny Robertson showed that the perfect counter to a spinning back kick attempt might just be a wild left hook after he robbed Sultan Aliev of his senses.
The Illinois native also earned himself a cool $50,000 bonus for his efforts in the octagon and the veteran proved he has no intentions of giving anyone an easy pass in the UFC’s welterweight division.
Makwan Amirkhani made history by tying for the 5th fastest knockout in UFC history when he came out of the blocks like a man possessed against England’s Andy Ogle last night.
Opening up with a flying knee showed that the Fin wanted to Finnish (sorry) this early and he landed a picture-perfect uppercut to put Ogle down which secured him the last POTN bonus.
While some, including Joe Rogan, argued the legitimacy of the stoppage, we believe that if you’re attempting a takedown on the referee that you’re probably not able to continue fighting.
The only submission on last night’s card came when Nikita Krylov got the tap from Stanislav Nedkov with a standing guillotine in the first round.
Krylov is making as serious case for top 15 status at 205lbs and looks a true beast at 22 years old with all 18 of his wins coming in the very first round.
Anthony Christodoulou looked truly out of his depth when he took on Mairbek Taisumov last night and, after a destruction display in the first, was finished in the second round.
The discrepancy between the fighters’ skill levels was apparent from the opening bell and Taisumov got the win with some vicious ground and pound at 38 seconds of the middle round.
