UFC 179: Biggest winners, losers from 'Aldo vs Mendes' PPV in Brazil

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) returned last night (Oct. 25, 2014) after a three-week lull between events with the UFC 179 pay-per-view (PPV) live from Maracanazinho Gymnasium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After a unceremonious PPV that featured one too many awful fights, the promotion may have wished it waited another week before returning to the box office.

In the main event of the evening, Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes saved the show with a brilliant title fight that really exemplified what mixed martial arts (MMA) is all about. After a dreadful four fight PPV lead up, Aldo and Mendes left fans on the edge of their seat for the main event, providing one of the better title fights we have seen in quite some time.

In Aldo's biggest test of his career, and his chin, he retained his UFC title via unanimous decision. Watch full fight video highlights here.

In the co-main event of the evening, Phil Davis might as well have brought his singlet into the Octagon, dominating former title challenger Glover Teixeira en route to a unanimous decision victory. Davis, coming off a tough loss to Anthony Johnson back at UFC 172, completely stunted a suddenly inept Teixeira by pressuring him throughout the 15-minute affair.

Also featured on PPV card were two terribly bad fights, and one beatdown from Light Heavyweight bruiser Fabio Maldonado. The main card was kicked off by a snooze-fest featuring two lightweight "prospects" in Carlos Diego Ferreira vs. Beneil Dariush. Although both men came into this fight off recent finishes, what resulted was a rout by Dariush utilizing a not so pleasant game plan of lay-and-pray.

The second fight only made matters worse, as Darren Elkins won a deplorable split decision over Lucas Martins in a fight that literally provided no action. Fabio Maldonado somewhat saved the day with his TKO over Hans Stringer, but the finish came against a completely exhausted fighter in the most anti-climactic way possible.

Here are your biggest winners, as well as the runners-up, from "Rio."

Biggest Winner: Jose Aldo

The champion reigns supreme once again.

Aldo came into his title fight rematch with Chad Mendes with immense pressure emanating from his Brazilian fans and his own desire to further strengthen his legacy as the greatest Featherweight of all time. While it wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, Aldo put together a great performance against an incredibly tough Mendes last evening en route to his seventh UFC title defense.

While there was certainly one too many complaints from Aldo regarding an inadvertent groin shot or eye poke, the champion looked as good as we have seen him, against likely the toughest competition of his career. It was quite evident early on that this iteration of Mendes was far superior than the one who was knocked out by Aldo back at UFC 142.

In the end, Aldo retained his championship, remaining the last Brazilian champ on the roster and further proving that he is among the best fighters in the world today.

Oh ya, and he also took a wonderful verbal jab at Conor McGregor during his post-fight interview, so kudos on that Jose.

Runners-up: Phil Davis

In a night with few bright spots, Phil "Mr. Wonderful" Davis picked up his most dominant and impressive win thus far in his UFC career. While it may not have been all that pretty, Davis absolutely manhandled former No. 1 contender Glover Teixeira in enemy territory.

During his post-fight interview, "Mr. Wonderful" called out the legendary former UFC middleweight champion Anderson "The Spider" Silva. Although it was an odd call out, especially when you consider Silva is booked to fight Nick Diaz at UFC 183, the reality is that there is a logjam at the top of the light heavyweight division, and Davis won't be fighting for the belt anytime soon.

If Davis ultimately does get a fight with Anderson Silva, however unlikely it may seem right now, it will be by far his most marquee bout of his career, with the potential to elevate him into superstar status. Davis' callout could line him up to become a much bigger star and maybe even a PPV draw, and that is all he could ask for at this point.

Neil Magny

Don't look now, but Magny may be your "Fighter of the Year" for 2014.

Magny won his fifth UFC bout in 2014 last night after a third round technical knockout victory over William Macario. With the victory, Magny joins Roger Huerta as the only fighters in UFC history to win five fights in one year.

Magny has come a long way and has improved leaps and bounds since his time on the loathed season The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 16. In 2013, Magny started his UFC career 1-2, losing two in a row to close out the year with his job on the line. Boy did he respond!

With five wins in a row, Magny could quickly find himself in the thicket of the welterweight division's elite and become an unheralded ranked fighter. He certainly has earned his shot at a contender fight, so let's see if Magny can continue on his magical run into 2015 and beyond.

Biggest Loser: The Fans

Let's be realistic here: No matter how great the main event was -- and it really was great-- this card was absolutely atrocious. In hindsight, UFC 179 was far worse than UFC 177 ended up being.

The first three fights of the PPV absolutely sucked. Why sugar coat it? There is no way to embellish any of the three fights as being even remotely exciting whatsoever. Now we knew going in that this event was a bit rough on paper, but after five finishes in a surprisingly exciting "Prelims" card, we hoped some of the momentum would carry on into the PPV main card.

Unfortunately we were very wrong. The PPV main card opened with a snoozefest between Carlos Diego Ferreira and Beneil Dariush, before moving along to arguably the year's worst fight in Lucas Martins vs Darren Elkins. The atrocity of a fight was capped off rather beautifully with the inexplicable 30-27 card for Martins, making the already dreadful fight even more laughable.

At what point will UFC realize that a PPV is meant to be a special card packed with intriguing and consequential match ups? How could the promotion possibly give reasoning that last night's card was worth the $55 PPV asking price?

The facts are that UFC has now sandwiched one uber sensational PPV event in between two extremely poor ones. The pay wall needs to mean something, and a card that is a PPV should never feel like a mediocre Fight Night card. Hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Runners-up: Chad Mendes

Although "Money" put on a hell of a fight tonight in the main event against featherweight kingpin Jose Aldo, he ultimately is flying back home without the UFC championship belt.

To make matters worse for Mendes, Aldo's victory is certainly tainted at least somewhat after the very controversial ending to the first round. After the final bell had rung, Aldo blasted Mendes with two hard shots that nearly had the challenger unconscious. Inexplicably, referee Marc Goddard did not deduct a point from the champion, and even if he had, there is no way to know what could have happened had Mendes not taken the damage from the illegal blows.

At the end of the day, Mendes is clearly among the top two or three featherweights in the world, and he and Aldo will likely lock horns down the road once again. I certainly can't wait to see it.

Glover Teixeira

One thing is for certain: Teixeira needs to go back to the drawing board, and revert back to a traditional training camp for his next UFC bout.

After winning 19 straight fights, Teixeira has now lost back-to-back, struggling immensely in both contests. Coming in as a hefty favorite, Teixeira completely folded under Davis' wrestling prowess. Teixeira looked as if he did not belong in the Octagon with "Mr. Wonderful" last night, and at 34, age is not exactly on the Brazilian's side.

While we shouldn't be sounding the alarms just yet, Teixeira needs to revamp himself for his next training camp so that he performs the way he did when he was cleaning Ryan Bader's clock and choking out James Te-Huna. If not, Teixeira's UFC career could be in a complete tailspin faster than we could have ever imagined.

That's a wrap.

For more results and fallout from UFC 179 including play-by-play, videos, reactions, recaps, and more, check out our "Aldo vs. Mendes" live story stream right here.