By the 2nd round the pop in Smith's punches and speed was waning and his mouth was open. Teixeira, a lot like Oleinik is a guy that fights in the same gear but can do it for 3-5 rounds with no let up. Teixeira rolled with the jabs and the punches early on, avoided any big shots and getting stunned and walked Smith down. Once the takedowns presented themselves he kept Smith under duress to further sap his energy. Smith's corner sent him out to take punishment in the final round in the fight. It was plain on Smith's face with the faraway look in his eyes that he wasn't going to turn around the fight under the onslaught of Teixeira's consistent pressure and pace that had shown no signs of faltering. Poor cornering as the corner's job is to make the difficult decision to wave off the fight and avoid UNECCESSARY damage to prolong the professional career of a fighter.
Elsewhere Rothwell proved far too big a HW for OSP. I think OSP would have fared better with a Lins or another HW that's more like LHW who doesn't want to cut than the towering, awkward Rothwell who has battered other lifelong HW's like Barnett et cetera. OSP got paid, didn't take a ton of damage, and did no damage to his LHW reputation for the outing.
Simon outwrestled Borg who has nice punches and body punches when he lets them go, but never put them together en masse. Simon put Borg on the mat and chained his wrestling together to prevent any lengthy offensive periods for Borg who didn't look outsized by finally being in his right weight class after missing weight at 125 more times than is worth mentioning, but Simon looked the better mixed martial artist in combining level changes and punches to drag Borg to the mat and pass his guard at times.
Arlovski won a decision with scores that were wider than I would have expected. Arlovski is one of the few guys who can win a decision backing up in a stand-up engagement. A good fight for Lins to face that level of competition and striking experience, but a stylistically flat affair with kickboxing throughout. Arlovski continues to be the gatekeeper willing to fight whatever veteran, prospect, or familiar face they throw his way. A shoutout to Arlovski for showing southpaw stance in the fight, and in his post fight interview saying and showing that he is still at this age after 20 years in the UFC evolving his fight acumen and wheelhouse.
Moises! With the double leg, to single leg, to fall back on the leg and transition to a belly down ankle lock. Submission of the night if there ever was one. It's a standard Renzo blue basement style series you could easily see Garry Tonon hitting in ONE FC (and in fact has a similar single leg to sit back on the leg finish. Moises looked outclassed on the feet but showed the type of wherewithal to listen to his corner and go out and do exactly what he was told and fight a different fight in round 2, a rare skill even at this level in MMA as guys accept a pace and style of a fight and then just finish that out regardless of ever decreasing odds of winning after the first round.
Dober picked up a finish over Hernandez as Hernandez stayed on the backpedal for almost the entire fight but Dober corraled him to the cage with lateral movement and never stopped landing heavy shots. The punches accumulated much like the Ferguson/Gaethje affair and the referee wisely called off the fight despite Hernandez still being on his feet. Hernandez is a skilled fighter, but his inability to switch gears in the fight is concerning. He had a big win in his debut over Dariush and followed it up with a win over Mercier, but in his 3rd UFC fight faced Cerrone which was likely way too big a jump in competition. Since that loss he won a decision over Trinaldo and now has a loss by stoppage to Dober. It's time for him to slow his roll, polish some new skills as his wrestling was there when he needed it in the first 2 rounds, but not keeping his opponent down and pocketing rounds and dishing out some punishment once he had his opponent down cost him the fight. Had he drained Dober, or put him on the backfoot with the takedowns by parlaying them to winning rounds and sapping Dober's gas tank, he could've either won the fight and/or not been stopped in the third round.
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