No need to dance around the elephant in the room here. UFC 197 is the event that saw Jon Jones return to the MMA cage. Done and done. That is it.
Not to say there weren't other interesting points on the card—you can never say that when Demetrious Johnson is involved—but Jones' return from an extended suspension was the unquestioned calling card Saturday night in Las Vegas.
Too bad a grudge and title match with light heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier had to be scuttled because of a Cormier injury. Into the breach stepped Ovince Saint Preux, a former University of Tennessee linebacker with a solid but unspectacular record. With Cormier out, the all-important interim light heavyweight title was on the line.
In the co-main event, Johnson defended his flyweight strap against Henry Cejudo, an Olympic gold-medal wrestler. The challenger has enormous physical tools and talents, but it might be too much, too soon against perhaps the best MMA fighter in the sport today.
There was plenty of intrigue up and down the 12-fight card. Did you miss the Fight Pass or Fox Sports 1 portions of the program? As always, the final stat lines only reveal so much. These are the real winners and losers of UFC 197.
And for the literal-minded among us, full results are available on the final slide.
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