NEWARK, N.J., Nov. 17 -- It was another narrow decision for Rashad Evans (Pictures) and Michael Bisping (Pictures).
The TUF 2 heavyweight champion bullied Bisping in the first round. He flurried early and followed behind his punches to close the distance. Against the cage, Evans wrestled Bisping to the mat, but the TUF 3 light heavyweight champion avoided much damage.
Back on the feet, Evans, 28, caught a kick and used it to ground the fight again. He then landed a right hand to Bisping's body, and later scored another single-leg takedown to take the opening round.
The British fighter stopped Evans' initial shot in the second, but the former Michigan State Spartan wrestler still picked him up and slammed him hard to the mat.
As the round wore on, though, Bisping rallied. His takedown defense improved, and he turned into the aggressor with his hands while Evans slowed some.
Bisping, 28, seemed to be settling into a groove as the third began. When he kicked, however, Evans took him down yet again.
From his back Bisping kept working. Eventually he mounted a gutsy reversal, only for Evans to use his punches to set up another takedown. Bisping stayed active on his back until he scrambled to his feet, where both fighters landed strikes in an exchange. In the end, the difference in the round and in the fight was Evans' wrestling.
"When it came down to it, I controlled the pace of the fight by being able to take him down a little bit more," said Evans, who improved to 11-0-1.
The loss is the first blemish on Bisping's 14-1 record.
"I'll probably get flamed for this one, but I mean I think I won the fight," Bisping said. "Obviously the takedowns were the deciding factor. I think I got the better of the standup exchanges. I landed some good knees and strikes. He hit me with some good shots as well though, so I'm not taking anything away from him."
Houston Alexander (Pictures) is strong, charismatic and capable of knocking your head off. And he has no ground game.
Thiago Silva (Pictures), 12-0, was not going to brawl with the heavy hitter from Omaha, Neb. Wisely, the Chute Boxe-trained fighter showed Alexander angles and scored with a kick to the leg.
In the clinch, though, the 35-year-old Alexander was stronger. He grabbed Silva and slammed him, but the Brazilian reversed with a single leg. That's when Alexander's lacking skills on the mat were exposed.
"I am a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and I want to fight here on the ground," Silva said after the fight.
Silva easily moved into the mount, where he dropped a right hand to the jaw, then a left. Soon it was apparent that Alexander could not escape. The punches kept coming, and Alexander kept eating them until the bout was stopped at 3:25.
In victory the 25-year-old Silva showed he is a talented light heavyweight ready for the next level of competition.
With the loss, Alexander, who had stunned Keith Jardine (Pictures) in May and stomped Alessio Sakara (Pictures) in September, fell to 8-2. Perhaps worse, the world witnessed the blueprint for beating him.
Karo Parisyan (Pictures) is an entertaining fighter, but his win over Ryo Chonan (Pictures) was not an entertaining bout.
"The Heat," 18-5, did not match the feverish pace of his past performances. Again and again Parisyan put Chonan on his back, but then he did little damage before the Japanese fighter struggled up to his feet.
Chonan, 14-8, could not mount much offense either. Almost every time he kicked, Parisyan would catch his leg and turn it into a takedown.
For just a moment in the third round, Parisyan mounted his opponent. He postured up to punch, but the savvy Chonan reversed.
The fighters then closed out the final few minutes on the feet. Each strike was thrown in isolation, without being set up. There were plenty of jabs, plenty of wild right hands and plenty of boos.
Still, Parisyan won convincingly: 30-27 on all three cards.
"The most important thing is I got the win, but I didn't perform to my best today," said Parisyan, who blamed personal issues for slowing him down.
Afterward he apologized for his showing. Of course, one lackluster outing should not hurt Parisyan's impressive résumé, which now includes eight wins in his last nine fights -- almost all of which were more than entertaining bouts.
"I would love a title shot," Parisyan said. "I got my title shot two and a half years ago. I got injured. I had to come back and fight. I had to work my way up again."
In a middleweight fight, Ed Herman (Pictures), 14-5, avenged a loss he suffered three years ago to Joe Doerksen (Pictures), 39-11.
Herman hit an outside trip early in the first round to take the top position on the ground. The Team Quest fighter looked stronger and more fit than Doerksen, who had filled in for an injured David Terrell (Pictures) on short notice.
When the Canadian tried a single-leg takedown, Herman had little trouble defending. He ended up mounting Doerksen briefly in the first and also got the better of the standup.
Another outside trip dropped Doerksen to his back in the second round. After the action slowed and the fight restarted on the feet, Herman tried yet another trip, but "El Dirte" stopped this one and reversed. A scramble followed, and suddenly Doerksen had his foe's back.
Herman escaped, though, and moved into top control. Then, just as the round was ending, Doerksen slipped on a triangle choke. The submission was deep, but the round ended, likely saving Herman.
Doerksen looked fatigued entering the third and wore a cut over his eye. Despite his state, or perhaps because of it, he walked out of his corner ready to trade. He missed a tired right hand and went to launch a left -- but the right he had thrown never returned to protect his jaw.
Herman let loose a left hook that smashed home, sitting Doerksen down for the knockout at 39 seconds.
"That's my first KO of my career," Herman said. "I've been getting teased by Leben and all my boys forever ‘When are you going to get your KO?' There it is baby."
It took Frank Edgar (Pictures) less than a minute to dump Spencer Fisher (Pictures) to the canvas for the first of many takedowns during their three-round lightweight encounter.
As expected, Fisher was active on his back in the opening stanza. He attacked with some submissions, kicked Edgar away, scrambled to his feet. Then Edgar put him right back down -- every time, and usually very quickly.
After clearly winning the first round, Edgar tackled his opponent just moments into the second. Again Fisher stayed active, fighting back to his feet -- he just couldn't stay there.
Edgar drove though his takedowns, pushing past initial defense until Fisher was lying flat, the Miletich-trained fighter's vaunted striking nullified.
Fisher, 20-4, has an arsenal that trumps the overwhelming majority of mixed martial artists. In addition to a very capable submission game, he can knock opponents out with his right hand, his left hand, with flying knees.
Edgar's outstanding wrestling, however, neutralized Fisher's entire repertoire.
The third round was more of the same. Takedown after takedown, the New Jersey native went unscathed.
"Not bad for a Jersey Shore kid, huh?" Edgar said in the cage afterwards.
With the final seconds ticking away, Fisher was on his elbows and knees, exhausted. He had tried to roll out from under his opponent. Edgar stayed on his side, though, boxing his ears and ready to wrestle him to his back yet again.
The unanimous decision was elementary: 30-27, 30-27, 30-26 for Edgar, who improved to 8-0 with the most impressive win of his young career.
"It's a huge win," he said. "Spencer's one hell of a tough guy. I was always a big fan of his. It just felt great, man; it went my way."
Chris Lytle (Pictures), 24-15-5, took the center of the cage to start his welterweight bout against Thiago Alves (Pictures), 13-3.
The Indiana native backed up the Brazilian for much of the first round with a big right hand. Alves, however, landed the best strike: an overhand right that split open Lytle above his eye.
The shootout moved into the second round, and Alves started chopping into his opponent with kicks. In response Lytle loaded up his right hand, then launched it wildly. Each haymaker, though, left Lytle's weight on his lead leg, and Alves continued to crack it with a kick every chance he could.
Just as the fight appeared ready for a decisive final five minutes, it ended. Between rounds a doctor examined Lytle's cut and stopped the fight.
Boos followed, and Lytle protested but to no avail.
In a lightweight match, Joe Lauzon (Pictures), 16-3, submitted Jason Reinhardt (Pictures), 18-1, with a rear-naked choke after 1:14.
Marcus Aurelio (Marcus Aurelio' class='LinkSilver'>Pictures), 15-5, was also impressive at 155 pounds. From side mount, "Maximus" pinned Luke Caudillo, 13-9, and delivered a succession of hammerfists to the face that prompted a stoppage at 4:29 of the opening round.
Akihiro Gono (Pictures), 28-12-7, scored a win in his UFC debut. Tamden McCrory, 8-1, captured the opening round of their middleweight bout by attacking the Japanese fighter with strikes. Gono stayed calm, then turned it on in the second round. When McCrory tried to escape the mount, Gono locked up his arm for the submission.