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This week’s Independent MMA Link club brings some great interviews and news featuring Cung Le, Anthony Pettis, Randy Couture and more.

No Consequences can Stephan Bonnar’s Steroid use be Justified [The MMA Corner]

Cung Le on UFC Macao, The Man with the Iron Fists, being friends with RZA and voting for Obama [The Fight Nation]

Jack Marshman vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam set to headline BAMMA 11 on Dec. 1 [The MMA Review]

Anthony Pettis talks brother’s win at RFA 4; wants ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone in UFC return [Pro MMA Now]

Randy Couture talks wrestling in MMA & behind-the-scenes stories from his movies – video [The Fight Nerd]

The Fight Report – UFC: Macao [MMA Valor]

Fabio Maldonado – via UFC.com

Today’s Morning Commute features a rebuttal from Bellator with regards to the comments Meisha Tate said about them, Dana White talking about women’s mma coming to the UFC, Fabio Maldonado dropping down to middleweight, Anthony Pettis and his injury update, and a fight booked for The Ultimate Fighter 16 finale.  All this plus three events in this day’s history lesson.  Use the player below or download it to listen on your mp3 player of choice.

WEC 8 Poster

Today’s edition of MMARecap’s Morning Commute deals with Jones vs Sonnen as coaches of The Ultimate Fighter, Anthony Pettis injury update, Glover Teixeira thinks the fight was stopped early and more.  This day’s history lesson we go back to WEC 8 back in 2003.  Sit back and listen using the player below or download it to your favorite mp3 player to listen on your car ride.

While we are approaching the end of March and it seems like it has been forever since an actual UFC event other than The Ultimate Fighter, it is time to recap what has transpired in the first quarter of 2012 with regards to the UFC.

From January 1st through March 31 the UFC held seven events. The first of which took place on January 14th and the span ended on March 3rd. That was seven events in seven weeks. No wonder the UFC decided to take some time off as the next event scheduled isn’t until April 14th.

Looking back at the events, there were several memorable moments. From fights to knockouts to submissions, the first quarter did not disappoint in the least. Let’s take a look at some of the best of the best through out this quarter.

Submissions
During the quarter there were a total of seventeen submissions. Some were obviously more memorable than others. But there was something special about our top five submissions. It could be because a fighter stuck to his bread and butter, it could have been a submission that hasn’t been seen before, or it could have been just from the sheer fact that the fighter got the submission. In all cases, just mentioning the fight and the submission it is likely to bring images of people tapping to the forefront of your brain.

5. Jim Miller defeated Melvin Guillard by rear naked choke at UFC on FX: Guillard vs Miller
4. Dustin Poirier defeated Max Holloway by mounted triangle armbar at UFC 143
3. Martin Kampmann defeated Thiago Alves by guillotine choke at UFC on FX: Alves vs Kampmann
2. Rousimar Palhares defeated Mike Massenzio by heel hook at UFC 142
1. Charles Oliveira defeated Eric Wisely by calf slicer at UFC on Fox: Evans vs Davis

Knockouts
Nothing gets the crowd going more than a crazy knockout. Sometimes a ref is merciful and is able to stop the barrage of attacks and other times, a single shot sends a foe to the canvas stiff as a board. No matter how the knockout happened, fans will always place the fighter that delivered the finishing strike on a new pedestal wanting him to take on a step up in competition.

5a. Stephen Thompson defeated Dan Stittgen by head kick at UFC 143
5b. Anthony Pettis defeated Joe Lauzon by head kick at UFC 144
4. Tim Boetsch defeated Yushin Okami by TKO at UFC 144
3. Lavar Johnson defeated Joey Beltran by uppercuts at UFC on Fox: Evans vs Davis
2. Jose Aldo defeated Chad Mendes by knee at UFC 142
1. Edson Barboza defeated Terry Etim by spinning heel kick at UFC 142

Fights
While there were several memorable fights across all the cards, there is just something extra about the fights that received fight of the night honors from the UFC. Some fights were quick, others were one sided beatings, and others were great back and forth battles. With that said, here’s the top 5 fights from the first quarter.

5. Evan Dunham vs Nik Lentz at UFC on Fox: Evans vs Davis
4. Diego Sanchez vs Jake Ellenberger at UFC on Fuel TV: Sanchez vs Ellenberger
3. Roy Nelson vs Fabricio Werdum at UFC 143
2. Demetrious Johnson vs Ian McCall at UFC on FX: Alves vs Kampmann
1. Frankie Edgar vs Ben Henderson at UFC 144

Overall Card
Pay per views always tend to have a higher ranking as far as star power is concerned, and justifiably so; they require someone to purchase the event instead of watch it for free. But sometimes the free cards can out perform their pay per view counter parts on the fact that the fighters want to be on the main card of a pay per view instead of televised card. It was a difficult decision to rank the cards, but here’s the top 5.

5. UFC on Fuel TV: Sanchez vs Ellenberger
4. UFC on FX: Guillard vs Miller
3. UFC on FX: Alves vs Kampmann
2. UFC 142: Aldo vs Mendes
1. UFC 144: Edgar vs Henderson

Henderson (Left) competes for the Lightweight Championship against Edgar (Right) from Fight Nation

The first trip to Japan for the Ultimate Fighting Championship under the Zuffa banner did not disappoint. Fighters on this card turned out an impressive array of victories out of hard fought competition. The excitement was high leading to the main event of UFC 144: Japan; a title fight for the undisputed lightweight championship between the current UFC Champion Frankie “The Answer” Edgar versus the former WEC champion, Benson “Smooth” Henderson.

The major questions coming into this fight was weather or not Edgar could deal with the size, flexibility, kicks of Henderson and ultimately finish someone who has not been finished in his last 15 professional fights. The questions for Henderson were if he could be the first person to finally put Edgar away after being “rocked.” Edgar had shown in his last two title defenses that it takes more than just landing punches on the chin. This was excellent match making of two highly skilled mixed martial arts competitors.

The entire fight was back and forth with both men giving as good or better than they were receiving. Edgar was able to time Henderson’s kicks well enough to catch them against his body. Edgar tried several times to counter off the caught leg with hand strikes, leg kicks, leg sweeps or takedowns. These attempts were very valid and frequent, but never really contributed to neither damage nor Octagon control. When Edgar got his challenger to the ground, he tried to take the back, but Henderson was able to find a small opening and escape back to the feet. According to FightMetric.com, the official stat partner of the UFC, Edgar was 5 of 12 for takedowns and Henderson was one-for-one. Anytime a fighter is less than 50% of takedowns, I award the other fighter with great defense and Octagon control.

The most telling moments of the fight came from the blue corner. Henderson landed a huge and damaging up kick at the end of the second round. That kick opened a cut on the bridge of Edgars’ nose and the blood started to flow. This of course was nothing new for Edgar and is now almost expected from fans when Edgar fights. This is part of Edgar’s charm as a fighter; taking damage and keep moving forward. Another moment was Henderson’s deep guillotine submission attempt in the middle of the fourth round. This attempt was easily the closest attempt that could have ended the fight. Edgar was calm and worked his way free to continue the fight. Again, this is what Edgar does, bounces back from being down. Lastly, was the fact that Henderson out struck the Champion in total strikes with 100 to Edgar’s 81. Henderson also won in the significant strikes department with 87 to Edgar’s 68. The damage was done to Edgar’s face with an almost swollen shut left eye and a cut on his nose that spotted blood all over the canvas. While Henderson, on the other hand, left with no visible damage and a smile on his face.

Official Result:
Benson “Smooth” Henderson defeated Frankie “The Answer” Edgar via a unanimous decision (49-46, 48-47, 49-46)

Next Opponent:
For Henderson the talks are either an immediate rematch with Edgar or a WEC championship rematch with the last WEC lightweight champion Anthony “Showtime” Pettis. A rematch with Edgar does not make too much sense to me because Edgar was not as dominate as a champion as BJ Penn when Penn lost the title to Edgar nor was the result of Edgar/Henderson controversial. It makes more sense for the UFC, marketing wise, to make the Pettis/Henderson II fight later on this year.

For Edgar there is a lot of talk from outside sources, including the President of the UFC Dana White, that he should drop down to 145 or even 135 and challenge Jose Aldo and/or Dominick Cruze. Needless to say that he has several options. I think he will stay in the lightweight division to try and regain his title. His next opponent could be Clay Guida or the loser of the Jim Miller/Nate Diaz fight in May.

UFC 144 took place on Saturday February 25 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan (though it happened on Sunday morning locally in Japan). The pay-per-view was super-sized with seven fights airing live during the broadcast. Including the first fight of the night between Issei Tamura and Tiequan Zhang that was originally aired on Facebook, all twelve fights ended up being broadcast either on FX or during the pay-per-view broadcast.

On RecapRadio Brent Todd and John Petit had given their predictions for the event. Even just going with the winners they thought would win, Todd went 2-5 and Petit went 4-3. The results were some of the most exciting and craziest in recent history.

Vaughan Lee submits Kid Yamamoto via Iron Forges Iron

The submission of the night award was easy to hand out as there was only one submission. Vaughan Lee defeated Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto by armbar late in the first round. The two each blasted the other with big punches with Yamamoto nearly finishing early in the round. But Lee was able to recover and after Yamamoto was hurt, Lee rushed and locked in a triangle. The submission looked deep, but Yamamoto wasn’t tapping. Lee switched to an armbar and that was all that was needed to earn the tap.

Five fights ended by either knockout or technical knockout making the decision for who would earn the $65,000 bonus difficult. The first fight of the night between Tamura and Zhang was a great start to the night as Tamura landed a vicious right that sent Zhang to la-la-land.

Still part of the preliminary fights, Takanori Gomi showed some of what made Gomi so popular as he was able to earn a technical knockout over Eiji Mitsuoka. In the second round while both fighters seemed extremely gassed, Gomi started to connect with his strikes. It wasn’t long before Mitsuoka wasn’t responding and Gomi just unloaded everything he had into punching Mitsuoka until the referee was forced to stop the fight.

Both Tim Boetsch and Mark Hunt had impressive knockouts in their bouts against Yushin Okami and Cheick Kongo respectively. Boetsch was losing his fight to Okami badly. Knowing he was down two rounds to none Boetsch came out in the third swinging. He staggered Okami with a straight punch. Boetsch smelled blood and swarmed with tricky uppercuts. The assault of uppercuts continued until Okami fell to the floor in a bad way and Boetsch landed two more before the ref stopped the fight.

Many felt that Hunt was going to be seriously outmatchedand outworked by Kongo. But that never happened. Early in the fight Hunt dropped Kongo but decided to let Kongo get right back up. The second time he wasn’t as nice as he swarmed Kongo and rained down punch after punch until Herb Dean was force to save Kongo from eating any more damage.

Anthony Pettis KO's Joe Lauzon - via Iron Forges Iron

With Boetsch’s come from behind knockout and Hunt’s impressive striking display it would take a special kind of knockout to earn the extra $65,000. And an impressive knockout did happen. Anthony Pettis and Joe Lauzon seemed happy to trade punches. Pettis lands a kick to the body on Lauzon but Lauzon continues to press forward. Pettis threw another kick, Lauzon went to block it low, but the kick sailed high and connected perfectly on Lauzon’s head and Lauzon was unconscious.

Frankie Edgar vs Ben Henderson - via Iron Forges Iron

The main event screamed Fight of the Night award even before the first punch was thrown. Frankie Edgar and Ben Henderson have been in several battles that were amazing and exciting. Edgar caught nearly every one of Henderson’s kicks and then proceeded to punch him in the face for even throwing a kick. But Henderson had more than just kicks at the ready as he blasted Edgar with straight punches that bloodied up Edgar quickly. The fight was a twenty-five minute back and forth battle that was extremely close. The judges had their work cut out for them but in the end they awarded the fight to Henderson crowing a new champ. Even though Edgar lost, he still pocketed an extra $65,000 for the performance as the fight was deemed the Fight of the Night.

Quick Results
Benson Henderson defeated Frankie Edgar via unanimous decision (49-46, 48-47, 49-46)
Ryan Bader defeated Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Mark Hunt defeated Cheick Kongo via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 2:11
Jake Shields defeated Yoshihiro Akiyama via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Tim Boetsch defeated Yushin Okami via TKO (punches) – Round 3, 0:54
Hatsu Hioki defeated Bart Palaszewski via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
Anthony Pettis defeated Joe Lauzon via knockout (kick and punches) – Round 1, 1:21
Takanori Gomi defeated Eiji Mitsuoka via TKO (punches) – Round 2, 2:21
Vaughan Lee defeated Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto via submission (armbar) – Round 1, 4:29
Riki Fukuda defeated Steve Cantwell via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
Chris Cariaso defeated Takeya Mizugaki via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).
Issei Tamura defeated Tiequan Zhang via knockout (punch) – Round 2, 0:32

On the February 21st edition of RecapRadio hosts Brent Todd and John Petit had a variety of topics to discuss. We kicked off the show talking about the lack of mma that happened over the weekend on a national level. With two weekends in a row without a UFC event it was rather surprising that there wasn’t a national show to take stage.

Carson Beebe then joined the show to talk about his upcoming fight for Legacy Fighting Championship. It is his first fight back at 135 since auditioning for The Ultimate Fighter. He discussed his wrestling, managing his time, and trying to rep Chicago while down in Texas.

After Beebe we moved on to give our thoughts on the UFC on Fuel TV 1 card. Petit was the victor in the predictions for the week so hats off to him.

With time running out and some sidetracking curbed, we settled in to give our thoughts on UFC 144 and our predictions. There were some differences this week in the predictions and both of us made compelling arguments for our respective fighters. Here’s how the fight predictions broke down:

Brent Todd:
Joe Lauzon Sub Round 2
Bart Palaszewski KO Round 1
Yushin Okami UD
Jake Shields Sub Round 2
Cheick Kongo UD
Rampage Jackson TKO Round 2
Frankie Edgar UD

John Petit:
Anthony Pettis UD
Hatsu Hioki UD
Yushin Okami UD
Jake Shields TKO Round 2
Cheick Kongo TKO
Ryan Bader UD
Frankie Edgar UD

Use the player below to listen to the full show.

Joe Lauzon – photo via BJPenn.com

UFC 144 will mark the first time since UFC 29 that the Ultimate Fighting Championshi will return to Japan to hold an event. While most of the card is stacked with at least one fighter who made his name while fighting for an Asian promotion, a lightweight battle is set to go down after a quick call out. In an interview Anthony Pettis was asked who he wanted to fight next and his answer was Joe Lauzon.

This isn’t the first time Lauzon has been called out and subsequently took a fight. Prior to his last fight, Melvin Guillard had expressed an interest in fighting Lauzon after putting together a five-fight win streak and was waiting to get a title shot. Guillard thought that a fight with Lauzon would be an easy win for him and would rebound him to a title shot. Unfortunately Lauzon had other plans.

Nearly everyone had given Guillard the advantage while standing. And why wouldn’t they when Guillard had finished nearly two-thirds of his fights with strikes while Lauzon had only finished five opponents with his hands. It seemed though that people had forgotten about Lauzon’s UFC debut knocking out Jens Pulver in one of the biggest upsets of 2006.

Everyone that is except Lauzon who did nearly the same thing. He landed a massive left hand that sent Guillard to the canvas. Instead of finishing him with strikes, Lauzon was patient and immediately took the back of Guillard. He got both of his hooks in and almost instantly secured his arm under the chin of Guillard and forced a tapout.

Earlier that same night at UFC 136, Anthony Pettis fought and looked to rebound off his loss to Clay Guida. Pettis fought an extremely hard fight against a very game Jeremy Stephens that went all three rounds.

The back and forth fight was nearly anyone’s guess as to who won. Many had Stephens winning the first round and Pettis winning the second. The third round was extremely close and in the end, two judges scored it for Pettis, while a third scored it for Stephens.

A short time after the fight, Pettis was interviewed and asked whom he wanted to fight next. His answer was Joe Lauzon and the video became a viral hit. Lauzon saw the video and said he was down for the fight. Sometimes Sean Shelby and Joe Silva have a very easy job like in this case when the fighters not only call each other out, but also verbally agree to the fight before being presented with a contract.

This fight is an intriguing one to predict. Lauzon has powerful hands and his striking has improved since his UFC debut. Pettis has also shown impressive abilities with his strikes as seen during his fight with Ben Henderson.

Both fighters have a slick ground game, Pettis is crafty and likes to bait fighters who are inside his guard into falling for a triangle choke. Lauzon has enough experience to avoid the submissions and be able to threaten with his top game.

Both fighters are extremely close skill wise, and because of that, one must look at prior experience and the point of their career. Pettis is arguably one of the most naturally talented fighters inside the octagon but he is still relatively young in his career. Lauzon seems to be coming into his career, mixing up his heavy hands and his aggressive jiu jitsu. For that reason I am predicting Lauzon to win this fight and hand Pettis his first submission loss by the end of the second round.

Justin McAllister with artwork

If you have picked up a copy of TapouT magazine, you probably have seen artwork by Justin McAllister.  His drawings have been published in TapouT and MMA Worldwide and used for t-shirts for fighters.  MMA Recap’s Brent Todd caught up with McAllister to talk about his craft.

So what got you into drawing MMA Fighters?
Truth is I was trying to figure out how to make some money about five years ago now.  I drew a picture of Chuck Liddell, a character from lost and a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  I was selling them on ebay and I noticed I was selling the little Liddell pictures a lot faster.  For a while I was just adding little fighters here and there to make like $5 per print on ebay.  That’s what got me started and real into it.  Shortly after doing that, I did a t-shirt for the Hillbilly Heartthrob Brad Imes.  He saw my work on myspace when myspace was hot and that’s how it got going.

Which fighter piece would you say has been your most recognizable?
That’s a good question.  Probably Chuck Liddell and it isn’t the first piece that I did.  It was probably a year into drawing fighters, me, Evan Showman and a couple artists did a charity piece for the Ryan Bennet foundation.  That was the most recognizable.  People were buying those pieces for anywhere from $500 to $1,000 a pop.  And then there’s everything that’s been in TapouT magazine.

Anthony Petis by Justin McAllister

Which piece was your favorite after it was all done?
To be honest, unlike Showman where his stuff has been awesome from day one, I feel like I am constantly growing trying to get to the top level that I can find.  I told Pettis last night that was my favorite piece and that’s the truth.  I like the Bart a lot, but there’s something about that Pettis that I want that to be my gold standard.  Usually it’s my latest piece.  In this case it is one of the last, and since I am growing it is usually the most recent piece of artwork.

How long does it take for you to complete a drawing?
When I started doing the drawings, the early stuff I did I could do two in a day.  I don’t know if you have seen the real old stuff I would just do black and white and no details.  Back in the day I would bang out two in a day in maybe a six hour session.  Pettis though took between thirty and forty hours.  Pettis was probably made out of 50,000 dots.  The other thing about it is I can’t screw up.  There’s a lot of just looking at it and trying to figure out what I am going to do next.  If I ink the wrong spot it is dead you know.

Cain Velsaquez by Justin McAllister

What mediums do you use to draw the fighters?
I’ve drawn all my artwork for years, except when I was in jail with Sharpies.  Sharpie is real cool.  The head lady over there is kinda anti-UFC; she doesn’t think it is family friendly.  So I don’t get any monatary support or real interest in the fighters from Sharpie.  But they do like my art enough that I get free pens whenever.  I make a phone call and I will get a thousand pens from them.  A lot of people don’t realize it, but Sharpie has about a hundred different colors.  A lot of people will get the black pen or the 10-colored pack.  But if you get into what they have, there’s probably that many color options.  I also draw on watercolor paper and the pen kind of works that way.  You can layer it and kinda blend colors.  It is really versatile.  To me, it is amazing.  From the transformation from the first drawings where I would use a black Sharpie the whole thing.  Now I got a selection for shading.  I could go from a maroon to a red to an orange to a light orange.  It’s amazing to me to see the growth.  Figuring out the pens it would take a while to see how versatile those pens are.

Which fighters do you have in the pipeline shall we say for you to draw?
We are going to see Jens Pulver soon.  I had a buddy follow around Pulver.  Plus he’s such a popular guy even with a six fight losing streak before his XFO victory.  That’s coming down the pipeline.  I want to do a Jeff Curran.  I want to focus on more local guys.  That’s why I did the Pettis, the Bart.  I spent such a long time getting after who I liked the most or whoever the fans think is the best.  And I decided its time to give back to the local guys.  When I am thinking of the pipeline I am thinking of local guys.

How big are these original artworks?  How big are the prints?
The original are 24 inches by 18 inches.  The prints are 8.5 inches by 11 inches.

You scan them in after they are done to do the prints?
Actually I do my own photographs on them.  I am not a professional photographer, but I feel like I am a professional art photographer.  I have a tripod and a nice camera.  All that is just so I can take square pictures of my drawings.

Chuck Liddell by Justin McAllister

Your work has been published in TapouT magazine, where else can fans see your work?
Not just in TapouT, it’s also in MMA Worldwide Magazine.  If you can find an old shirt from Premier Fighter before they closed up shop I got those out there somewhere.  For a while I was doing shirts for Premeir Fighter and did like twelve fighter shirts.  A couple years ago I saw Alan Belcher wear my stuff, Clay Guida wore one of mine.  You can also see my work at rattling-the-cage.com and Facebook of course.

Do you sell any of the artwork, original or prints and if so where can the fans find them at?
I just went up and got prints from Pettis.  I gave him a real good deal on the artwork.    I am going to do limited runs on each drawing of 50 to 75.  I am going to sign them and number them.  I know some of the fighters lately have been saying they want to buy my drawings and that’s pretty cool.

Do you take requests from fans for artwork?
It’s really hard.  Here and there if someone comes through and it really has to be done.  Or if a fighter says they want me to do it.  Basically if the money is there I will.  With the time that I put in its nearly impossible to do it just because someone wants to see it.

Anyone you want to thank or give a shout out to?
Always want to thank TapouT Magazine.  All I did was draw pictures and they did something with it.  I remember the first thing was all my pictures on one page.  I want to thank all the local events that give me the best seats for free cause I am out there doing something for the love of the fighters.  Jeff Curran over at XFO, the guys at Ruckus, all the promotions that welcome me.  Half the time it is just because I draw a fighter. 

Last night, World Extreme Cagefighting held their 50^th show entitled “Cruz vs. Benavidez”.  The night’s action took place at The Pearl inside the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada and the main card was televised on Versus.  Read on for the night’s televised recap as well as full results of the event.

The first night of the fight saw Chicago-based fighter Bart Palaszewski take on Zach Micklewright.  After a back and forth opening round, Palaszewski’s corner told him to wake up.  Palaszewski listened to his corner as he needed just 31 seconds in the second round to earn the TKO victory over Micklewright.

Scott Jorgensen continued his winning streak and more than likely picked up a fight of the night bonus against Brad Pickett.  The three round war saw both fighters landing big punches that hurt the other.  But neither fight would go down and unlike many opponents, the two of them pushed forward after being rocked instead of backing away.  Jorgensen’s wrestling and takedowns proved to be the difference as he would use them to secure the scores on the judges’ score cards.

Cub Swanson wanted to keep his fight standing against Chad Mendes, and it looked like Mendes would comply.  But after eating a couple of shots from Swanson, Mendes went back to his superior wrestling roots and used takedowns and ground and pound through out the three rounds.  With less than a minute left, Swanson threw massive punches to try and earn the victory, but Mendes just scooped him up and took him down to earn the judges’ decision.

Another exciting matchup was next between Anthony Pettis and Shane Roller.  Pettis who is known for his flashy attacks let some fly in the fight.  A great spinning hook kick landed on the back of Roller’s neck briefly wobbling him in the first round.  At the end of the first Pettis nearly scored again with a spinning kick from the ground.  In the second round Roller was able to put Pettis on his back, but Pettis would quickly escape.  The third round Roller took Pettis to the ground and worked some great ground and pound before Pettis was able to get up.  With just seconds left in the fight Roller attempted an arm-in guillotine, but Pettis was able to roll out of it and secure a triangle choke of his own.  Under ten seconds and Pettis squeezed the choke forcing Roller to tap.

The main event featured a rematch between Dominick Cruz and Joseph Benavidez, only this time it was for the belt.  The five round fight was non-stop from the beginning bell to the closing bell.  Cruz worked his light and quick feet to attack Benavidez from multiple angels, but Benavidez did his homework, as he was able to counter many of his opponent’s attacks.  Cruz would score takedowns sporadically through out the fight to help ensure he would get the points for the round.  After the five round fight MMA Recap had it 48-47 for the champion but the judges were slightly different as they were split in who should win.  In the end though, the champion defended his belt with judges’ scorecards of 47-48, 48-47 and 49-46.

Quick Results:

• Champ Dominick Cruz def. Joseph Benavidez via split decision (47-48, 48-47, 49-46) (retains bantamweight title)
• Anthony Pettis def. Shane Roller via submission (triangle choke) – Round 3, 4:51
• Chad Mendes def. Cub Swanson via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
• Scott Jorgensen def. Brad Pickett via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• Bart Palaszewski def. Zach Micklewright via TKO (punches) – Round 2, 0:31
• Maciej Jewtuszko def. Anthony Njokuani via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 1:35
• Javier Vazquez def. Mackens Semerzier via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 1:35
• Ricardo Lamas def. Dave Jansen via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
• Fredson Paixao def. Bryan Caraway via split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
• Danny Castillo def. Dustin Poirier via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 30-27)