HOLM WINS BY DECISION AT UFC 184
Albuquerque MMA fighter wins a split decision in LA; Rousey wins
LOS ANGELES — Holly Holm, MMA fighter, looked a lot like Holly Holm the boxer Saturday night.
And as the Albuquerque left-hander did so often during her 13-year ring career, even when not at her best, she found a way to win.
In a tense, sometimes tentative fight with Colorado Springs’ Raquel Pennington, Holm prevailed via split decision in the co-main event of UFC 184 on Saturday night at the Staples Center.
Holm, making her long-awaited UFC debut, improved her MMA record to 8-0. Pennington, who clearly gave Holm the toughest test of her 4-year-old MMA career, is 5-6 according to the UFC. Most sources listed Pennington at 5-4 entering the fight.
The judges’ scores were 29-28 for Pennington, 29-28 and 30-27 for Holm.
The Journal scored it 29-28 in the Albuquerquean’s favor.
Holm said she was glad her first UFC fight is over.
“The unknown was there, so there were a lot of nerves,” Holm said in the octagon afterward. “Because of all the hype, I didn’t A bloodied Holly Holm celebrates her win Saturday in UFC 184 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The Albuquerque fighter won her UFC debut by split decision. feel like I could live up to it. There was so much talk, but there were a lot of things involved.”
Pennington several times attempted to take Holm to the ground, but could not. There were several clinches, but with no significant advantage for either fighter.
The fight, thus, was decided almost exclusively by punches and kicks. Holm, the professional boxer, appeared to be the busier and more accurate striker in the first two rounds.
But in the third, Pennington sent Holm to the ground. The blow was more a push than a punch, but Holm popped back to her feet and — seemingly intent on undoing any damage with the judges — suddenly became more aggressive.
Perhaps that was a bad idea. It was Pennington who landed several solid shots, bloodying Holm’s nose, in the final minute.
Pennington’s rally wasn’t enough to swing the decision in her favor.
In a prelim fight televised on Fox Sports 1, Moriarty welterweight Tim Means made short and destructive work of Brazil’s Dhiego Lima.
Means’ brutal barrage of knees, elbows and fists prompted referee Herb Dean to step in and rescue a dazed Lima just 2:17 into the first round.
The victory improves Means’ record to
23-6-1, with 16 victories by KO or TKO.
Lima (10-3) landed one solid right hand in between Means’ blows, but it did no damage.
“You look at my record, I finish fights,” Means said in the octagon afterward.
“I feel real good at 170 (pounds, the welterweight limit). I have the best elbows in the division, so eat it up, division.”
Means then campaigned for a $50,000 performance bonus like the one his Albuquerque FIT-NHB teammate, Ray Borg, earned for his victory by submission over Chris Kelades on a “UFC Fight Night” card two weeks ago.
“I need some money,” Means said. “I just got a new car.”
FIT-NHB, headed by coaches Tom Vaughn and Arlene Sanchez Vaughn, is on a roll. Since June, Means and Borg are a combined 5-0 in UFC competition.
“We don’t have a bunch of big-name guys,” Means said later Saturday of his teammates at FIT-NHB, “but the guys give me good looks.
“We don’t need a super-gym to stand out. We just need the work ethic, and that’s what’s happening for us.”
After his fight, Means was trending wildly on Twitter.
“Tim Means just obliterates Dhiego Lima,” tweeted Kevin Iole of yahoo.com. “My lord ... what a pounding!’”
In the main event , Ronda Rousey stopped Cat Zingano with an acrobatic armbar 14 seconds into the first round, dramatically defending her bantamweight title.
Rousey (11-0) earned the most impressive victory of her career with jaw-dropping speed, taking out the previously unbeaten Zingano with her signature armlock from an unlikely position.
Rousey landed on her head after Zingano (9-1) charged her at the opening bell, but the champion gracefully flipped Zingano onto her back, got up and maneuvered swiftly into position to wrench Zingano’s arm grotesquely.
Rousey forced the challenger to tap out, ending her fifth title defense.
Rousey’s last three fights have lasted a total of 96 seconds, including two bouts against previously unbeaten opponents.
The sellout Staples Center crowd could scarcely process what it had just witnessed, but Rousey thought it all went to plan: “We were expecting that she might come out and do something flying at me right away,” Rousey said.
JONES SPEAKS: UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, who trains in Albuquerque at Jackson-Wink MMA, said Saturday that he never overreacts to media criticism or fan antipathy — and there has been plenty of both since it was revealed he tested positive for the main metabolite of cocaine.
“It’s easy to kick people when they have a hard situation going on,” Jones said at a “Welcome to the Show” news conference. “I take all criticism in stride.”