UFC 198: Werdum vs. Miocic post-fight results and analysis

UFC 198 is in the books, and on a pretty entertaining night in which Brazilians racked up the victories against non-Brazilians for almost the entire show, Stipe Miocic spoiled Curitiba’s special night by putting Fabricio Werdum to sleep with a big right hand as Werdum recklessly waded forward, looking to exchange big shots. Werdum hasn’t been put out cold since Junior dos Santos made his ears wiggle in 2008, and that Werdum wasn’t nearly as good as the one who won the UFC title last year.

This completes a phenomenal run of performances for Miocic, whose real eye-opening performance (at least for me) was how well he fought against Junior dos Santos. It ended in a decision loss, but that really demonstrated the improvements he’d made as a striker since losing to Stefan Struve in 2012. Since then, he’s finished Mark Hunt, Andrei Arlovski, and now Fabricio Werdum. As Stipe said, Cleveland finally has a champion, and he’s got the accolades now. Presumably he’s fighting Alistair Overeem next, and that’s a hell of a contest right there.

It’s a crushing loss for Werdum, who had the nation supporting him in his first defense of the title, but he’s no different than every other former UFC heavyweight champion. For reasons that only apply to heavyweight and lightweight, it’s extremely hard to be a dominant champion in this division. The high of beating Cain Velasquez in Mexico has been followed up with the low of a crushing KO blow in Brazil.

Bloody Elbow alum and Bleacher Report writer Patrick Wyman discussed the aging faces of Brazilian MMA (Werdum is one of them, by the way). Tonight’s loss leaves Brazil with just one UFC champion, and it’s Rafael dos Anjos, who has fought just once in Brazil since 2009. He fights Eddie Alvarez on July 7th, and if he wins that, Khabib Nurmagomedov is presumably next.

More thoughts on tonight’s show:

Main Card

Fun Fact: There were 45,000 fans in attendance and it was a RECORD SETTING crowd in Curitiba, Brazil. Mike Goldberg said that about 45,000 times and it was doing my head in. Brian Stann is a national treasure and my favorite analyst in the sport. His attention to detail and well-researched analysis of fighter tendencies, from headliners to Fight Pass unknowns, is outstanding. I don’t know how much longer Joe Rogan will be around as lead analyst, but if he ever calls it a career after his contract is up, Stann needs to be #1. Ronaldo Souza got Vitor Belfort down and then pummeled his …

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