Werdum snatches a dramatic victory from Hunt to become the interim, UFC World Heavyweight champion.
As like most of the weight classes in the UFC at present, the Heavyweight division is shaping up very nicely. Unfortunate happenings and seizing opportunities have long played a part in the UFC title landscape.
This was no different as the injury to dominant heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez created an opening for big punching Hunt and submission specialist Werdum to have the belt wrapped around their waist.
Even though Werdum was a highly fancied heavyweight with wins over Travis Brown, Antonio Nogueira and Roy Nelson recently, I was fully expecting Hunt to pull off the win.
The fight looked like it was going to pan out that way until Werdum pulled off the unexpected, sudden victory. It wasn’t the unexpected win to the extent of Serra defeating St Pierre or the likes of Tim Sylvia defeating Andre Arlovski, Big Foot Silva defeating Overeem or even Dillashaw defeating Barao recently.
Or in fact it wasn’t a great comeback win to the extent of Kongo beating Barry, Edgar beating Maynard or even Anderson Silva beating Sonnen.
But the way the fight went in the first round and a half, you certainly wasn’t expecting to see Hunt sprawled out on the canvas.
Hunt dropped Werdum in the first round and such was his confidence he let him get up again. Following that, he connected with a few more shots including a devastating upper cut.
Werdum did connect with one or two shots but didn’t seem to have the same success. In the second round, Hunt dropped his opponent again, then shoved him to the canvas like a rag doll when Werdum tried to connect with a spinning kick, something he was increasingly starting to use.
At that moment, as Hunt pressed the pace, it seemed you could only see one winner and was expecting Hunt to eventually connect and drop Werdum again. But there is a reason Werdum is now the tenth Brazilian to hold a UFC title, fighting seems to come naturally to that nation and they do it with so much skill.
In a split second, the Brazilian unleashed a picture perfect knee which connected flush on Hunt’s chin. This sent the Kiwi to the canvas. Werdum then followed up with a flurry of hammer fists and punches that gave referee Herb Dean no other option but to call a halt to proceedings.
This capped a great two and a half-year, five fight winning streak run to the interim title, since his return to the UFC from Strikeforce. He had to go through two title eliminator’s and a fight of the night to get to it
It was undoubtedly a tremendous achievement and again opens up a new exciting dimension, with the expected early 2015 return of Cain Velasquez. If you add the talents of Hunt, Junior dos Santos the emergence of Miocic and reemergence of Arlovski. Dana White has the makings of another very interesting division on his hands.
