Romero Destroys Machida, Causes Controversy At UFC Fight Night 70

The 70th edition of UFC Fight Night was supposed to take place in Brazil but was moved to Hollywood, Florida. The main challenge was travel visas as a number of fighters had issues with the U.S. State Department in terms of leaving the country, so the event had to be moved. To those who were watching the event or wagering on the MMA betting lines, it’s safe to say that regardless of where this would have taken place, the outcome in the main event would have been the same.

Cuba’s Yoel Romero had to take some time to figure out the style of Lyoto Machida, the former 205-pound champion who has moved down to 185 pounds to try and stay relevant, but now he’ll have to answer some serious questions as Romero eventually cut off the octagon, took Machida down and pounded him with elbows until it was called in the third round. Afterwards, Romero apparently said something negative about the United States’ decision to legalize same-sex marriage, but he says he was misunderstood. Regardless of what you think of that, Romero is going to be a problem at middleweight, while retirement has to be on the table for Machida; at the least, he has to stop fighting contenders. It doesn’t take MMA fighters long to become “over the hill”, and with Machida, he has hit that point, sadly. If you’re handicapping the MMA betting lines going forward, careful backing him in certain spots.

Elsewhere, Lorenzo Larkin stopped Santiago Ponzinibbioin the second round of their middleweight clash, while Antonio Carlos Jr. submitted Eddie Gordon in the third round of their welterweight meeting. Thiago Santos stopped Steve Bosse with a head kick just 29 seconds into their middleweight fight, while Hacran Dias opened up the main card with a split decision over Levan Makashvili at featherweight.