Five Biggest Takeaways From UFC 198

The UFC’s electric stadium show of UFC 198 live from the Arena de Baixada last night (May 14, 2016) in Curitiba, Brazil was a huge success, as Brazilian stars took the Octagon to embark on some of the biggest fights of their lives.

The Brazilian crowd was great, cheering on their native heroes, who, for the most part, emerged victorious. Not all Brazilian natives took home a win, however, as our ‘Brazil vs Brazil’ co-main event saw one man exiting the contest in a bloody mess in the first round.

The main event featured a heavyweight title bout between Brazilian Fabricio Werdum and surging Croatian contender Stipe Miocic, that ended with a bang and someone taking a short nap on the canvas.

With that said, lets take a look at our five biggest takeaways from UFC 198.

5. Demian Maia Continues His Welterweight Takeover

With his late third-round submission victory over ‘The Immortal’ Matt Brown Saturday night in Curitiba, surging Brazilian jiu-jitsu wiz Demian Maia now holds the longest win streak amongst active Brazilian fighters in the UFC.

Maia has a five-fight win streak after his submission of Brown, with names such as Ryan LaFlare, Neil Magny, and Gunnar Nelson also on his list of downed opponents.

Maia took Brown’s back almost at will throughout the entire fight and dominated him with ground and pound as well as multiple submission attempts.

With his impressive win streak finally starting to turn some heads, perhaps Maia will earn the next shot at the 170-pound strap. Maia could possibly take on the winner of the upcoming welterweight title bout between champion Robbie Lawler and Tyron Woodley rumored to be headlining UFC 201.

4. Is ‘Shogun’ Back?

With two straight wins over Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and now Corey Anderson, former UFC champion Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua is slowly getting back on track to climb the 205-pound rankings.

After his three-round war with the young, up-and-coming Anderson, Rua did enough on the judge’s score cards to get the split decision win in his hometown of Curitiba.

Rua hasn’t won two consecutive bouts since 2009, when he finished Mark Coleman and Chuck Liddell consecutively. ‘Shogun’ also hasn’t won more than two consecutive bouts since his PRIDE days when he went on a four-fight win streak from 2006 to 2007.

Rua formerly won the UFC light heavyweight title when he defeated Lyoto Machida back at UFC 113; however, he was unable to successfully defend it after being obliterated by a young Jon Jones at UFC 128.

It should be interesting to see who the UFC pairs Rua up with next, and just how far the former champ can go in his quest back to relevancy in the shallow 205-pound division.

3. ‘Cyborg’ Has Arrived

After finally making her long-awaited UFC debut in her hometown of Curitiba, Brazil, Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino didn’t disappoint as her thrashing of Leslie Smith took less than one-and-a-half minutes.

‘Cyborg’ displayed dynamically accurate striking and showed off her well documented fight-ending power, when she sent Smith crashing down into the canvas and ended her night with some ground-and-pound.

Even though ‘Cyborg’ has made her debut in the big leagues, it’s still up in the air if we will ever see the Brazilian powerhouse under the UFC banner for good.

Justino expressed her interest in returning to the UFC, but is reluctant to leave her natural weight class of 145 pounds, a division the UFC’s women arena doesn’t currently have.

”Cyborg’ is expected to go back to defend her 145-pound title under the Invicta FC banner, yet you can’t help but wonder she missed a huge opportunity by not calling out Ronda Rousey in Brazil.

2. ‘Jacare’ Is Ready For A Title Shot

Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza could finally get his long-awaited shot at the UFC middleweight championship after pummeling No. 3-ranked Vitor Belfort in the first round of their bout at UFC 198.

Jacare controlled the ground game early and finally mounted Belfort, cutting him with some grizzly elbows that gashed “The Phenom” wide open.

Souza finished it off with some devastating ground-and-pound before time could expire in the first round.

Now ‘Jacare’ will be watching the main event of UFC 199 very closely, as he could possibly be next in line to take on the winner of Luke Rockhold vs. Chris Weidman.

Rockhold and ‘Jacare’ have met inside the cage before, as the current champ owns a unanimous decision Strikeforce title victory over the now-No. 2-Ranked middleweight Souza.

With arguably the biggest win of his career last night, it could possibly be only a matter of time before ‘Jacare’ steps inside the Octagon for UFC gold.

 

Stipe Miocic Is The New ‘Baddest Man On The Planet’

Stipe Miocic has finally completed his hunt for the UFC heavyweight championship.

Now all he has to do is hold onto it while taking on the fact that no heavyweight champion has ever been able to muster up more than two consecutive title defenses. That doesn’t sit well for the powerful Croatian, but he could also be a new breed of younger heavyweight (even though he’s 33 right now; that’s the current state of the UFC heavyweights).

Miocic silenced the crowd of 45,207 screaming Brazilian fans when he slept the now-former champ Fabricio Werdum in the first round of their title clash Saturday night.

Werdum caught Miocic a few times early in the bout, but after an impetuous onslaught of strikes from the Brazilian, Miocic caught him with a right hand that sent Werdum into a temporary slumber.

In his post-fight interview, Werdum called for an immediate rematch, claiming he could be ready as soon as UFC 200.

Regardless of wether or not Werdum will receive in immediate rematch, the fact of the matter is that theres a new king of the UFC heavyweight division, and his name is Stipe Miocic.