The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale results, gifs

Urijah Faber def. Scott Jorgensen via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 4, 3:16

‘The California Kid’ should have finally made it apparent by now that he is going to beat all but the absolute best in the bantamweight division.

Scott Jorgensen is a very good fighter, and worthy of his top-10 status, but despite being able to stay fairly competitive with Faber, he ended up falling victim to Faber’s outstanding offensive grappling in the fourth round.

Faber is probably going to occupy a similar position at 135lbs that Jon Fitch occupied at welterweight until recently. However, Faber is probably not as far away as Fitch was from actually being able to win a title, and there will certainly be an appetite to see Faber challenge for the belt in a few victories time, especially if it is against Dominick Cruz.

Kelvin Gastelum def. Uriah Hall via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

Hall was the overwhelming favourite going into this fight, but after Gastelum’s performances in the TUF house, particularly in the semi final  it would have been foolish to completely write him off.

As it turned out, Hall made his life much easier by deciding against mounting much effective offence in the first round, allowing his opponent a head start that two of the three judges decided he could not make up.

Cat Zingano def. Miesha Tate via TKO (strikes) – Round 3, 2:55

This fight was sloppy as hell at times, and it seemed that the clearly bigger and stronger Cat Zingano allowed herself to give up position against the more experienced and disciplined former Strikeforce champion, Miesha Tate.

Tate was 20-18 up on the scorecards going into the final round, but Zingano took over in the final stanza, doing some serious damage from the top, and then finishing things off with a barrage of knees and a final elbow.

As violent as this assault was, I think Tate should have been afforded a little more time to recover. Kim Wilmslow is a notoriously terrible referee, and stepping in as soon as Tate hit the floor seemed a little over eager to me.

However, with her exciting fights and history with Ronda Rousey, Tate should be a fixture in the UFC women’s 135lb division for some time to come.

Travis Browne def. Gabriel Gonzaga via knockout (elbows) – Round 1, 1:11

Gabriel Gonzaga is not very durable, and he seems to have finally twigged that sticking to his grappling is the recipe for success for his MMA career.

Unfortunately for him Travis Brown was still able to hail down elbows and put him out after just 61 seconds.

There have been plenty of observers that have decided that Gonzaga was out before any elbows started getting buried into the back of his head, but I beg to difffer. I actually think ‘Napao’ has a case in appealing against this loss.

Robert McDaniel def. Gilbert Smith via submission (triangle choke) – Round 3, 2:49

This fight did not belong on the main card and it was pretty painful to watch. Thankfully McDaniel was able to finish the fight with a nice triangle/armbar to save viewers from two more minutes of frustration.

UFC 145 Jones vs. Evans results – Jon Jones easily defends his title

UFC 145: Jones vs. Evans went down in Atlanta last night, and was another entertaining and successful show for the UFC, finally settling the Jones/Evans feud that felt like it had been running for ever. Elsewhere on the card a great mix of knockouts, submissions and fights that made it to the final bell took place as new prospects established themselves and former contenders slipped further down their divisional ladders.

Jon Jones def. Rashad Evans via unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 50-45) – retains UFC Light-heavyweight title

After a fairly even first round, Jon Jones took control of this fight and dominated Rashad Evans en route to a wide unanimous decision victory. Evans had some early success, and even if he didn’t win the first round he was very competitive coming forward, keeping Jones under pressure and landing with punches and kicks. He started to fall behind on the scorecards and get outstruck in the second round after he failed to heed the advice of his cornerman Tyrone Spong and started backing up. This allowed Jones to keep Evans on the end of kicks and punches as well as throwing in standing elbows that really seemed to hurt Evans when the opportunity arose.

Jon Jones elbows Rashad Evans. gif courtesy of ironforgesiron.com

In the later rounds Evans was noticeably tired and inactive. He could not figure out how to get inside and hit Jones, and looked content to simply survive rather than go for broke and swing for the fences. Jones was very comfortable and continued to land strikes almost at will until the final bell.

Jones will match up with Dan Henderson for his next fight where he could score a victory over his 6th top-10 light-heavyweight in a row and surely cement himself as the greatest of all time in the division. Evans is convinced that he will stay at 205 pounds where he will remain amongst the top five fighters in the world at the absolute worst. However, I would hope he would consider a move to middleweight. I expect Anderson Silva to retire soon, and Evans would have an excellent shot of becoming the champion there.

Full set of results and more analysis in the full post