Mark Bocek and Rafael dos Anjos ended up on the main card of the UFC 154: "St. Pierre vs. Condit" pay-per-view (PPV) tonight (Sat., Nov. 17, 2012) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, thanks to Nick Ring falling ill and having his fight cancelled on short notice.
His loss is their gain.
Both men came in with hopes of extending their respective win streaks to three. Still a long way to the top but it has to start somewhere and an impressive victory here would go a long way.
The pace was fast early but periodically slowed down by Bocek shooting and dos Anjos stuffing it at every turn. He was throwing plenty of kicks, too, and the Canadian simply couldn't capitalize on it when he caught a leg and tried to turn it over.
In fact, Bocek was 0-5 on takedowns in the first round.
The second round started with an errant kick crowning the Brazilian's jewels but he recovered fairly quickly and went back to whooping ass. A takedown and submission attempt followed and color commentator Joe Rogan hammered home the point that Bocek was, in fact, tired by this point.
And it was only halftime through the fight.
As round three came around, dos Anjos looked clean and fresh while Bocek was bleeding, shaking his head and breathing really heavy. We're talking about a difference between someone looking like they've been in a fight and someone looking like they've been in a hard sparring match.
The final five minutes looked very much like the first 10. Dos Anjos did what he wanted while Bocek did his best to figure out a way to steal the victory. It just wasn't going to happen.
30-27, 30-27, and 30-27 were the final scores from the three cageside judges.
For complete results and blow-by-blow coverage of UFC 154 click here.