UFC 132 Live Results And Fight Card Analysis

Cruz outmaneuvered Faber on the feet throughout the fight, connecting with sharp straights and hooks in combination with kicks to the legs and body. Faber scored with several big punches in the fight. He stunned Cruz several times with trick right hands but he failed to follow up. Cruz always recovered and answered any significant shots by Faber.

Cruz has now cemented his status as the pre-eminent bantamweight of our era. After Faber there are no big fights on the horizon for Cruz in the division. Since Faber won their first fight, he could justify a second title shot with a couple of wins against impressive opposition, especially since he hurt Cruz several times during the fight.

Leben followed up with six or seven straight lefts to the face. The first was a looping left hand that caught Silva on the back of the head and staggered him. Silva advanced and tried to land more hooks but Leben dirty boxed him with a collar tie + sequence of uppercuts. Those shots hurt Silva worse and worse until the third uppercut visibly snapped his head back and sent him crashing face first into the floor.

Silva is one of the sport’s legends, a long-time Pride champion, but he’s had mixed results in the UFC. He moves to 1-1 in the middleweight division but may want to consider retirement.

Kim is South Korea’s biggest MMA star and his loss will make holding a UFC event in Asia all the more difficult.

Referee Yves Lavigne applied a choke hold to dos Anjos to pull him off the fallen Sotiropoulos and stop him landing more shots. Sometimes referees leap in between the fighters, imposing their body between the fighters. Not Lavigne and it cost Sotiropoulos a shot to the head.

Dos Anjos finally scores a big name win in the UFC. Sotiropoulos falls for the second straight time. Prior to the back-to-back losses he’d won seven straight and was seen as a top contender for a title shot. Dos Anjos likely needs one or even two more wins to get a shot at the UFC lightweight belt.

Bowles dominated Mizugaki on the feet, landing some hard right hands, outwrestled and outgrappled Mizugaki through all three rounds. The bantamweights put on a good show for the crowd. Mizugaki did enough to win one round on one judge’s card, but not much more.

The fight has definite implications for the bantamweight (135lbs) division because of Bowles’ status as a former champ with two straight wins since losing his belt via decision.

Simpson dominanted position, landed some strikes and mostly pinned Tavares against the fence standing for long stretches of the fight. He also made a few notable submission attempts.

But Tavares landed several hard punches some even stunning Simpson. He also took Simpson down, even slamming him hard at once point, but it never added up to enough to win a round on a single judge’s score card. Simpson refused to lose and never stopped attacking.

But Yves Lavigne -- probably influenced by the Njokuani’s failure to ever drop Winner -- made the correct call to let the fight continue. Winner managed to come back to his senses and actually ended the fight on the offenses. But it was way less than too little too late.

Njokuani had a significant reach advantage and a much more varied attack, combining punches, kicks, knees and elbows to brutalize Winner’s face. Amazingly, not only did Winner not fall from the beating, he didn’t even bleed. Sure his face pumped up like a busted bicycle tire tube that had been patched 6 too many times, but he never fell and he never bled.

Hougland managed to bloody up Walker on the feet and repeatedly threatened with submission attempts. Walker came alive in the third round and attempted some subs of his own but came up short.

Walker’s corner inveighed him to “at least make it an exciting fight” before the final round and told him he needed to get a finish to win. He fought with the appropriate level of desperation but it wasn’t even.