Daniel Cormier and Alexander Gustafsson went to war in UFC 192's main event on Saturday night.
The Toyota Center was restless after a relatively slow main card that featured four unanimous decisions, and the natives weren't shy about making their displeasure known. Gustafsson and Cormier put on the kind of show that can't be booed—five rounds of back-and-forth, blood-and-guts action to please even the most discerning connoisseur of violence.
Jon Jones' rangy shadow hangs over the event like a pall of smoke. How could it not, when he holds victories over all four of the light heavyweights who competed on the main card? Nevertheless, those four showed that the division isn't all Jones. Cormier and Gustafsson put on a great fight, and Ryan Bader finally picked up the name win that has eluded him throughout his career by taking a decision from Rashad Evans.
Ruslan Magomedov announced himself as a top-15 heavyweight with a wide decision over Shawn Jordan, while Julianna Pena demonstrated that her time has come to face the women's bantamweight division's elite. Ali Bagautinov and Joseph Benavidez put on a reasonably solid fight and yet showed just how far the rest of the flyweight division still has to go to reach Demetrious Johnson's level.
The undercard was a riot of violence and entertainment. Yair Rodriguez did amazing things in his win over Daniel Hooker, while the heavily hyped Sage Northcutt destroyed Francisco Trevino in his arrival in the promotion.
Maligned prospects Rose Namajunas and Sergio Pettis got back on track with career-saving wins. Violence specialist Albert Tumenov cracked the granite chin of Alan Jouban in a dominant knockout win, and Adriano Martins flattened Islam Makhachev with a counterpunch.
On a night with a decent if meaningful main card and a preliminary card as good as the promotion has ever put together, let's take a look at the real winners and losers from UFC 192.
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