Following an entertaining but at times bizarre night, some of the standouts at UFC 235 faced the media at the post-fight press conference.
UFC 235, a stacked card from top to bottom, was something of a bizarre night in the end. The early bouts delivered. The PPV opener between Cody Garbrandt and Pedro Munhoz was an exciting round and back-and-forth action before Munhoz put Garbrandt out. Tecia Torres couldn’t get the better of Weili Zhang, who improved to 19-1.
Then the weirdness started. Ben Askren got slammed on his head (more or less) and beaten bloody early before coming back and choking out Robbie Lawler with a bulldog choke. Or so it seemed. While Lawler’s arm appeared to go limp, he immediately leaped up to protest the stoppage when Herb Dean called the fight.
Next, Kamaru Usman came out and dominated Tryon Woodley for five full rounds. The champion (not that he was, for much longer) never seemed to get going. He had no answer for ‘The Nigerian Nightmare.’ Usman took the fight 50-44 on two scorecards, 50-45 on the third. He claimed welterweight gold, but the fight itself, besides being one-sided, was marred by questionable reffing. Not that it mattered, the right fighter won. But Marc Goddard opted to stand the fight up multiple times while Usman was active.
And the main event? Anthony Smith had little to offer Jon Jones, who said after the fight that it “wasn’t my best performance.” That said, Jones was the better man, mixing in a few new tricks, including jumping shoulder strikes in the clinch.
Catch the UFC 235 post-fight press conference live stream above, featuring a selection of the night’s competitors.
