UFC 267 turned out to be just as fun to watch as it looked on paper, and not just because the early start time made watching it with a bunch of donuts slightly less weird. Now a look at who raised and lowered their stock on Saturday in Abu Dhabi.
Glover Teixeira +4200
This delightful motherfucker really went and gave us the feel-good UFC title victory of the year. Goes in there a couple days after his 42nd birthday, wallops Janny B upside the head and then sinks the choke, and now he’s the UFC light heavyweight champ. Anyone still sad that Jon Jones bailed on the division? Because so far it’s been a refreshing change to see some good dudes get their chance with the belt.
Jan Blachowicz -33
Obviously it would be better to win your title fight than to lose it. But if you can’t win it? The next best thing is handling it that well. He just flat out got beat this time. It happens.
Jon Jones -56
You knew he’d have some shit to say no matter how things went. Reveling in Blachowicz’s misfortune on Twitter earned him the predictable responses that all said something along the lines of, ‘fight someone who’s not the mother of your children, bro.’ Only Jones could find a way to look bad in a division he’s not in at a fight card he didn’t compete on.
Petr Yan +518
Goddamn this guy is good at fighting. The more we see of him, the more it seems like the best bet is to get after him early. Because once he settles into a fight as the rounds wear on he starts putting together some Van Damme shit in there and then you’ve basically got no chance. As long as he can maintain his tenuous grasp on the unified rules, he’s got a very good chance to unify that bantamweight title and hold onto it for a good long while.
Cory Sandhagen -47
On paper, this looks like a two-fight losing streak for a dude who seemed like the potential future of the division a year ago. But that just goes to show you that wins and losses don’t always tell you the whole story, since you’ve got to be pretty damn good to even make it that close against a guy like Yan. Sandhagen still probably smokes 90 percent of the division. And he might have to in order to get another title shot soon.
Islam Makhachev +72
It’s starting to seem like pulling out of a fight with this dude is a smart career move. Unless you just really love getting your arm all bent out of shape while Khabib shouts encouragement from three feet away.
Dan Hooker -36
The guy’s got some stones to even take this fight under these circumstances, but that might just be another way of saying he did something dumb and paid for it. This was always going to be a tough style match-up for him. Jumping in there without a full training camp to prepare for it yields predictable results, and now there goes whatever momentum he’d created for himself.
Khamzat Chimaev +117
This dude may have cracked the code for career longevity in this sport. It involves winning quickly and taking basically zero punches in the process. Woe be unto the UFC executive who gets caught looking at his phone during this guy’s fights. Because you know he’s going to notice while he’s picking people up and carrying on a conversation with you at the same time.
All this Hasbullah shit -208
Near as I can tell the appeal here is: what if angry and violent but small? Which, fine, social media phenomenons have been built on shakier ground than that. But when you’ve got all these fighters treating him like he’s part pet and part mascot, I don’t know, it just gets weird and cloying, man.
Lerone Murphy +95
He had the best finish on the card with that knee to Mr. Finland’s dome, and he seemed pretty confident it would get him a $50,000 bonus. Apparently he forgot how often the UFC acts like prelim fighters aren’t even really eligible for those. Murphy has some legit skills and is worth keeping an eye on.
Referee Vyacheslav Kiselev -171
It’s not just that he was on some ‘if he dies, he dies’ shit in that EZ Dos Santos vs. Benoit Saint Denis fight. It’s also that he stood right there as Saint Denis told him he couldn’t see and his response was essentially: bummer but game on. Then he somehow finds it necessary to deduct a point from Dos Santos for a pretty typical accidental low blow? What a mix of under and overreactions.
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