The best and worst from UFC on ESPN: Dos Anjos vs. Edwards

After looking like it would be a real slog to sit through – with nine straight decisions to open the card – UFC on ESPN: Dos Anjos vs. Edwards turned into a pretty decent night of fights with plenty of talking points. Strangely enough though, most of those talking points didn’t stem from the main event.

The fight saw Leon Edwards largely outwork Rafael Dos Anjos to take a clear decision win, but while the victory goes down as one of the biggest in the career of ‘Rocky’, he likely didn’t do enough in terms of what you’d call highlight-reel moments to secure a title shot, not when both Jorge Masvidal and Colby Covington are likely ahead of him in the queue. So in a likely first in this series, the main event won’t be mentioned as one of the best – or worst – moments of the night.

Here are the real best and worst moments from UFC on ESPN: Dos Anjos vs. Edwards.

#1 Best: Harris seals his ‘ticket’ to the big time

Walt Harris's KO of Aleksei Oleinik was extremely violent

Heavyweight Walt Harris has been kicking around the UFC for some time now – since 2013 to be exact – and while he’s always shown a lot of athletic potential, he’d never really demonstrated anything to suggest he could become an elite-level fighter, particularly when we saw Fabricio Werdum deal with him so easily. That all changed last night when ‘The Big Ticket’ flatlined the tough veteran Aleksei Oleinik in the space of around 12 seconds.

A quick combination was followed by a jumping knee, and Harris followed that with a clean left hook that left the Ukrainian fighter face down, unconscious. It was a scary KO too as Oleinik was down for some time post-fight and was left twitching due to the sheer force of Harris’s strikes. Given most fans, myself included, figured Oleinik would weather an early storm before submitting Harris, this was a landmark win for the big man.

Harris now has two wins in a row – and would have 4 had he not tested positive for a PED caused by a questionable supplement after his win over Andrei Arlovski. At 36 years, old time isn’t on his side – you can’t really call him a prospect per say – so the UFC probably needs to push him up the ladder quickly to see whether he can sink or swim this time. And after last night, it’d be hard to claim he doesn’t deserve a shot.

#1 Worst: Home cooking favors Hernandez

Did the right man really win the fight between Alexander Hernandez and Francisco Trinaldo?

Okay, so firstly the fight between Francisco Trinaldo and Alexander Hernandez was quite clearly the worst on show on the main card last night; both men usually tend to put on exciting fights but the style clash between the two seemed to lead them into a fight with more circling and feinting than anything else. Those kind of fights always turn out to be tricky to score – but last night I felt like the wrong man definitely got his hand raised when Hernandez was awarded a unanimous decision.

For me, Trinaldo got the better of the majority of the exchanges in the fight, and he was also the man who held the center of the Octagon while Hernandez was forced to move around the outside, for whatever that’s worth. The stats appeared to back that up, too – the Brazilian landed 28 strikes to Hernandez’s 26, with 13 of them landing to the head compared to 9 for Hernandez.

Of course, it was a close fight – the stats tell you that much – but for two judges to give the fight to Hernandez by scores of 30-27 was baffling to me and suggests that they were likely swayed by a hot crowd in favor of ‘Alexander the Great’. The fight probably won’t derail Trinaldo’s momentum a lot nor will it help Hernandez going forward, but even so, a bad decision is still a bad decision.

#2 Best: It’s 2008 again for Andrei Arlovski

Andrei Arlovski wound back the clock in his impressive win over Ben Rothwell

11 years ago, Andrei Arlovski and Ben Rothwell clashed under the Affliction MMA banner, with Arlovski winning the fight by third-round KO. It’s usually considered one of the better Heavyweight fights in MMA history and it arguably represented the high point of Arlovski’s career, as he’d left the UFC as a hot free agent for some huge paydays – and swiftly tumbled down the ladder not long after.

When a rematch between the two was announced for this show I couldn’t see ‘The Pitbull’ having much success – he’d lost his previous 4 fights, and while he hadn’t been getting knocked out, it looked like his career was slipping to an end. Somehow though, at the age of 40, he turned things around last night and wound back the clock, giving us his best showing since probably his win over Antonio Silva in 2014.

Arlovski looked fleet-footed and his combinations looked quick and varied, as he pieced Rothwell up for 15 minutes and only got hurt in the third round. Even that was probably due to tiredness, as the tough Rothwell hung in the fight despite taking a ton of damage.

Does this mean Arlovski is a title contender again? Certainly not, but for one night at least he gave us a glimpse of the Andrei Arlovski of old – or 2008 at least – and it was definitely cool.

#2 Worst: Was Adams stopped early?

Greg Hardy's fight with Juan Adams appeared to have been stopped early

Perhaps the most controversial moment of the night happened in the fight between Greg Hardy and Juan Adams. After some early exchanges, Adams shot in for a single leg only for Hardy to stuff it and begin landing punches to the head. Adams kept trying to get the takedown but Hardy defended well and continued to punch, and somehow that was enough for referee Dan Miragliotta to stop the fight. And unfortunately, despite Dominick Cruz suggesting otherwise on commentary, Adams seemed fine and protested the stoppage afterwards.

Referees have to err on the side of caution – I didn’t have an issue with the Urijah Faber/Ricky Simon stoppage last week for instance – but this looked weird to me purely because we’ve seen on tons of occasions (Robbie Lawler/Johny Hendricks and Phil Baroni/Matt Lindland immediately came to mind for me) that punching a fighter who’s going for a takedown isn’t enough to earn a stoppage unless the fighter goes unconscious, which Adams didn’t.

You could maybe argue that ‘The Kraken’ wasn’t driving forward enough, but even that’s questionable. At the end of the day, this was an early stoppage and it robbed Adams of his chance of victory. And as a consequence, the Greg Hardy push goes on. I just hope Adams isn’t punished for his post-fight actions, as he threw his mouthpiece into the crowd. That’d just be plain unfair.

#3 Best: Hooker’s beautiful knockout

Dan Hooker knocked out James Vick in beautiful fashion

I picked Dan Hooker to beat James Vick last night due largely to his long frame; I figured Vick wouldn’t be used to fighting a guy almost as tall and lanky as him, and if Hooker could land a big shot, Vick would probably be knocked out due to his questionable chin. I was also worried, however, that the beating Hooker took from Edson Barboza would have affected his future for good.

Well, thankfully I was wrong on the latter. ‘The Hangman’ seemed fine after 7 months away from the Octagon and did exactly what I’d hoped he could, landing a nasty left hand that dropped Vick halfway through the first round before finishing him off violently with some punches on the ground. It was the first finish of the night, too, giving it an extra-special quality.

Post-fight Hooker asked to be placed on the Australian UFC 243 card, and I don’t see why that shouldn’t happen. Given he just iced a guy on the verge of title contention last year, there could be an argument for matching Hooker with a top ten opponent, too. Given the Kiwi comes off as a genuinely nice guy – and has an exciting fighting style too – I look forward to it.