The UFC's heavyweight division can be a tricky thing. More often than not, wins and losses mean little more than a larger paycheck.
A fighter can lose in devastating fashion and work their way back into title contention within six months. A fighter can knock off a top contender in their UFC debut and still find themselves years away from a title fight. The UFC Fight Night 86 main event, which featured Junior Dos Santos opposite Ben Rothwell, wasn't like that.
The stakes, in this one, were crystal clear.
Rothwell is the contender the UFC doesn't want. A quirky character with an everyman appearance, Big Ben has mounted a winning streak that includes a knockout of the division's best kickboxer and a submission of one of the division's most accomplished grapplers.
Despite that, the UFC clearly has him pegged as a lifelong midcarder, regularly giving him second billing on cards and throwing him every tough opponent they can muster.
Understandably, Rothwell had his heart set on UFC gold but was forced into a position where there was only one way to achieve that. He had to keep winning. Again and again, until there weren't any other contenders left.
Dos Santos, however, has already been "the guy." He climbed to the top of the mountain and won the UFC heavyweight title back in 2011, but a year later, Cain Velasquez battered and broke him and sent him tumbling back to base camp.
He hasn't quite been the same since that beating, and while he has picked up wins over the likes of Mark Hunt and Stipe Miocic, his days as an elite heavyweight have been steadily fading away for years now.
A win over Rothwell was Dos Santos' only hope of holding onto relevance. If he couldn't get it, he would likely fade off into the midcard for the remainder of his career.
There were huge stakes here, and both men knew it.
The fight itself proved to be a battle of positioning. Dos Santos has always fought behind his jab and did precisely that against Rothwell. He tried to keep the action in the middle of the cage, circling around Rothwell while mixing in punches to his face and body. Rothwell, meanwhile, attempted to pressure things to the cage where he could brawl with Dos Santos and threaten takedowns.
Naturally, only one of them succeeded in implementing their game plan. Rothwell is an amazingly tough man but has never been labeled "athletic." He has size, an iron chin, heavy hands and a sneaky choke but lacks the speed and quickness that other elite heavyweights possess.
He managed to keep up with Dos Santos in the first round, cutting the cage and landing some punches, but Dos Santos had too much lateral quickness for Rothwell to handle for long. Rothwell would press forward, and Dos Santos would simply circle out and pop him with a jab.
This exact sequence repeated itself for all 25 minutes, only broken up by the occasional pawing from Rothwell, which would be met with either an overhand right from Dos Santos or yet another jab.
In the end, a fresh-faced Dos Santos would be declared the unanimous-decision winner with all five judges scoring the action 50-45. A busted up Rothwell would be sent to the locker rooms, with three years of swimming against the tide undone in half an hour.
Here are some other notes and thoughts on the fight:
- Fight fans went a bit overboard with their doom-saying about JDS, but this win over Rothwell doesn't mean his career is rejuvenated. He still relies on his athleticism to win in most situations, and that, obviously, isn't going to get held up as the years roll on.
- This is a sad turn for Rothwell. Big Ben has evolved from being a .500 fighter to a top-five-caliber brawler and had it completely undone by a few big shifts to the contender hierarchy. It's too bad he'll probably never get the crack at gold that he earned several months ago.
- Both men actually demonstrated remarkable cardio. They actually managed to turn up the gas in the final round, and there are only a handful of heavyweights who can get that far without falling apart.
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