UFC 178 live blog: Johnson blows out Cariaso with flawless showing

By Case Keefer (contact)

Published Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014 | 7 p.m.

Updated Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014 | 9:47 p.m.

Note: Full results from the preliminary card available at the bottom of the page.

Demetrious Johnson might have gotten too ambitious.

He raced toward the center of the octagon, leapt at least five feet in the air and attempted a front flip. Most of the crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena focused their attention away from a still-grounded Chris Cariaso and towards Johnson’s acrobatics.

The move ended less than gracefully, however, when Johnson stumbled on the landing. It was the only miscue the UFC flyweight champion endured all night.

Johnson signed off UFC 178 with a true rout. He barely ate a punch as he destroyed Cariaso, finishing the fight via submission (kimura) at 2:29 of the second round.

“I’ve still got some things to work on,” Johnson said in the octagon after his ill-fated stunt.

He wasn’t referring to the flip, but he probably should have been. Even the toughest critic couldn’t have found anything wrong with Johnson’s fighting performance, as he lived up to the 20-to-1 status the odds granted him coming into the bout.

Johnson joined a host of big showings in pressure-filled moments Saturday night. Less than an hour before his victory, Conor McGregor might have nabbed the night’s most memorable one.

After predicting a first-round knockout of Dustin Poirier for months, McGregor pulled it off without issue. He clipped Poirier with a right hand behind the ear and finished with ground-and-pound strikes.

McGregor’s stoppage officially came at 1:46 of the first round.

I’m cocky in prediction but humble in defeat,” McGregor said. “I said this wasn't going to be a challenge and I felt this was handed to me. I said I was going to show the difference between a king and a contender and I proved that tonight because Dustin had never been knocked out and I did that in the first round.”

McGregor expects to be the featherweight’s next challenger and meet the winner of a UFC 179 title fight between Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes. He wasn’t the only top contender unearthed at UFC 178.

Cat Zingano opened the main card with a third-round TKO, the time was 1:21, of Amanda Nunes to confirm her spot as Ronda Rousey’s next foil.

In the co-main event, Donald Cerrone claimed a shot at the lightweight title with his fifth consecutive victory. Cerrone overcame a slow start to win the final two rounds against former Bellator champion Eddie Alvarez, notching a victory via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).

“Not my best first round,” Cerrone said. “I had to dig deep out there tonight. He hit me with a few shots and I figured, ‘All right, that’s enough of that.’”

In the other main card fight, Yoel Romero moved closer to the top of the middleweight division. But some argue he never deserved the opportunity.

Romero knocked out Tim Kennedy 58 seconds into the third round after getting dropped himself at the end of the second. Romero stayed on the stool after the third-round bell, causing confusion as to whether he should have been disqualified.

“That fight should’ve been over, period,” Kennedy said.

Far from uneventful, UFC 178 went down as an action-packed card.

Check below for a live blog of UFC 178 as well as preliminary results at the bottom of the page. Come back later for full coverage of the event.

UFC 178 isn’t the locally based promotion’s best or biggest fight card of the year — but it might be the deepest.

From top women’s bantamweight contender Cat Zingano, who opens the main card momentarily against Amanda Nunes, to flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson, who headlines in a title defense against Chris Cariaso, UFC 178 is chock full of significant fights.

The hope, from the UFC, is that balance can make up for what was supposed to be the biggest night of the year for mixed martial arts. It’s easy to forget that the UFC got here, to the MGM Grand Garden Arena tonight, because of a light heavyweight championship bout involving Jon Jones.

The UFC plucked the long-awaited rematch between Jones and Alexander Gustafsson away from Toronto, and the MGM moved a Kings of Leon concert outside, to give it the biggest stage tonight in Las Vegas. When Gustafsson got hurt, Daniel Cormier slid in and possibly created even more interest in UFC 178.

Alas, Jones wound up injured as well. The only place Jones and Cormier wound up in town this week was in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission to receive their punishment for a press-conference brawl last month in the MGM lobby.

The responsibility of keeping the card afloat fell on fighters like Johnson, Zingano, Donald Cerrone and Eddie Alvarez — the last two meeting in the night’s lightweight co-main event.

And, of course, it fell on Conor McGregor. Heir apparent to a spot on the UFC’s mountain of superstars, McGregor has sent anticipation for tonight’s card soaring.

McGregor is a perfect 3-0 in the UFC, but he hasn’t fought anyone on the level of tonight’s opponent, Dustin Poirier. The Louisiana native is on a three-fight streak of his own and has long been considered a future title contender.

Add the winner of Cerrone vs. Alvarez to the group with Zingano and McGregor, and it’s possible that three winners on tonight’s main card will set themselves up with title shots in their next bouts.

Alvarez, the former Bellator lightweight champion, arrives in the UFC after a two-year struggle and expects to get the winner of a UFC 181 title fight between Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez. He predicted putting Cerrone away within two rounds, but it might not be that easy.

Cerrone is notoriously one of the toughest outs in the division and looks to be peaking with four straight wins. They’ll warm the canvas for Johnson, the only champion in the history of the 125-pound division.

“Mighty Mouse” is a historically large favorite at 20-to-1 over the challenger Cariaso. The main event, therefore, might be one of the weakest in recent memory, but the overall card should keep fans entertained.

Find full preliminary results below and stay tuned to lasvegassun.com for live coverage of the main card.

Dominick Cruz has still got it. After three years away from the UFC nursing injuries, the former bantamweight champion returned in a major way. Cruz defeated Takeya Mizugaki via first-round TKO, finishing his opponent with strikes in 61 seconds after landing a quick takedown.

Jorge Masvidal easily outstruck James Krause in the penultimate preliminary card bout but could never come close to finishing. Masvidal settled for a lopsided unanimous-decision win (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) win over Krause in a lightweight bout.

The boos turned to gasps as quickly as a rapid-fire jab. After 14 minutes of lackluster action between Stephen Thompson and Patrick Cote, the former tagged the latter with a right hand with a minute left in their welterweight fight. A wild exchange finished the bout, as Thompson finished off Cote in a unanimous-decision win (30-27, 29-28, 29-28).

In a dull but even welterweight fight, Brian Ebersole edged John Howard. Neither fighter accomplished much in the way of offense, but the judges awarded Ebersole a split decision (29-28, 29-28, 28-29) over Howard.

Kevin Lee scored a unanimous-decision victory (30-26, 30-26, 30-26) over Jon Tuck in a lightweight bout. Lee landed takedowns at will, and gained an extra point when the referee charged Tuck a deduction for a groin shot.

Manny Gamburyan forced Cody Gibson to tap out to a guillotine choke at 4:56 of the second round in his bantamweight debut. It was a comeback for the underdog, who got rocked once in each of the first two rounds and was never ahead until he got Gibson in his guard.

Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.