UFC 309 is in the books, which saw Jon Jones successfully defend his somewhat disputed heavyweight title against Stipe Miocic.
The rest of the card also saw some drama in the final round of the co-main event between Charles Oliveira and Michael Chandler, along with a hot prospect in Bo Nickal that had his hype train cooled a bit.
You can check
full results from the event here, and we'll rundown and analyze the key fights from the PPV event below.
Stipe Miocic retires, Jon Jones also looks old at UFC 309
Jon Jones got a nice highlight reel finish over Stipe Miocic, but technically, that fight was not very good -- especially with their movement and striking.
The UFC was criticized for giving Miocic a title fight, despite coming off a KO loss, and with a three year layoff. He looked every bit like a 42 year old, and clearly did not belong in a world title fight at this point.
Whether it's age or weight, Jones also looked significantly slower at heavyweight, with pretty bad footwork. It's just that Miocic was much worse, and looked like a shell of himself. Jones was still faster than this version of Miocic, as he picked apart an easy target. In the second round, Jones landed a clean spinning body kick that folded Miocic and led to the finish.
After the bad loss, Miocic decided to
retire, which is probably for the best. He's an all-time great, but clearly looks like he doesn't have it anymore.
It'll be interesting to see if Jones getting a highlight reel KO gets him the confidence to actually face Tom Aspinall and unify the belts next. Based on this outing, he'll probably be in an uphill battle with the much faster and stronger foe.
Oliveira (mostly) outclasses Chandler in UFC 309 co-main event
In the UFC 309 co-main event, Charles Oliveira completely dominated and outclassed Michael Chandler everywhere the fight went... up until the last round.
Chandler returned at 38 years old, after wasting two years on the sidelines waiting for the Conor McGregor fight that never happened. It predictably didn't go well for him early on. The former lightweight champion out-struck Chandler on the feet, outclassed him on the ground, and even got multiple takedowns of his own.
In the final round, Chandler landed big and actually had a chance to win. Chandler got him hurt and landed a dozen ground strikes -- most of which was illegal and on the back of the head. Oliveira survived that onslaught and horrendous officiating, and even finished the fifth round on a dominant position.
Despite the drama at the end, Oliveira went 2-0 against Chandler, and handily won the rematch with wide scores of 49-46, 49-46, and 49-45.
Also, Chander showed heart, but cutting a pro-wrestling promo like he didn't just badly lose was a bit cringey too.
Bo Nickal wins boring striking-only match
Decorated wrestler Bo Nickal took on a submission artist in Paul Craig at the UFC 309 main card. As with the stereotype, two high level grapplers faced off, but we ended up getting a low level kickboxing match instead.
Nickal's striking still looked pretty green, which was expected for someone who just started MMA two years ago. Whether it was fear of that submission game, Nickal weirdly didn't use his wrestling even when he wasn't really doing well on the feet for most of the match. He still won a close decision, but the boos were raining and it wasn't undeserved. The fight was boring and pretty uneventful, and despite the win, Nickal's stock seems to have significantly dropped after this.
While it probably slowed the Nickal hype train, the good news for the top prospect is that he got a lot of much needed cage time to work on his striking game.
Joe Rogan weirdly overhypes Mauricio Ruffy
Joe Rogan kept randomly creating absurd and over the top hype comparing Mauricio Ruffy to "Conor McGregor at his best," despite him having just one UFC fight.
He's a developing fighter with a seemingly high ceiling, but suddenly comparing him to one of the best runs in UFC history was just dumbfounding, unwarranted and obviously way too soon.
Ruffy slowed down in the third, but still handily outpointed a short notice replacement in James Llontop. He didn't really look bad, but the impossibly high bar and unwarranted hype that Rogan kept pushing basically set up Ruffy to look like a disappointment.
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