The dust from UFC 172 has settled. Jon Jones is still the champion, proving so by dominating heralded challenger Glover Teixeira.
And Phil Davis is eating crow, after his pre-fight verbal attacks on Jones clearly took his focus away from fighting Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, who stuffed all eight of Davis’ takedowns and punished Davis on the feet.
Everything is a little clearer now in the light heavyweight division. After Alexander Gustafsson gave Jones hell for five rounds in his last title defense, there were questions about his dominance.
But Glover was no match for the champion, and Jones delivered spectacular punishment en route to a one-sided decision. Teixeira hung in till the bitter end. Many thought Teixeira would finish what Gustafsson could not, and 62 percent of fans voted for Teixeira to win in a pre-fight Fox Sports 1 poll.
But in a post-UFC 172 world, it’s clear he was just another contender for Jones to topple.
Davis had moved up to No. 4 in the division after taking a close decision victory against surging middleweight Lyoto Machida. His trash talk toward Jones leading up to the event was legendary, “Mr. Wonderful” angling for a title shot with a win at UFC 172.
But Johnson made all that trash talk irrelevant with a three-round shellacking. Davis could not impose his vaunted wrestling on a guy who used to fight at 170 pounds. A new contender emerged from Saturday’s event: Johnson surely has cracked the top ten at light heavyweight after his dominating performance against a top-five contender.
Johnson returned to the UFC at light heavyweight after going unbeaten in six fights for other promotions since his last octagon appearance back at UFC 142 against Vitor Belfort.
“I felt like I was right at home,” Johnson said. “Sooner or later I’ll get the call [for the title shot]. I just got to keep on winning.”