Effin main event result But beautiful "duck-n-donk" elbow

Chris Weidman, James Te Huna, Joey Beltran and Alex Caceres each earned $40,000 bonuses for their performances at Wednesday's UFC on FUEL TV 4 event.

Weidman earned the "Knockout of the Night" award in the main event. Te Huna and Beltran picked up "Fight of the Night" honors. And Caceres earned the "Submission of the Night" bonus.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) learned of the winners and bonus amounts at the night's post-event news conference, where they were announced by UFC president Dana White.

UFC on FUEL TV 4 took place at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., the promotion's second event at the arena. The event's main card aired on FUEL TV following prelims on Facebook.

Weidman dominated Mark Munoz from the outset of their scheduled five-round main event, taking the Division-I national champion wrestler down in seconds and controlling him on top throughout the first round as he looked for submissions. In the second, Weidman took Munoz down quickly again. But once Munoz got back to his feet, it didn't take long for Weidman to drill his opponent with a vicious elbow that appeared to knock him out immediately. More than a dozen punches on the ground all proved to be unnecessary.

In the co-main event, Te Huna and Beltran slugged it out with Te Huna taking a dominant unanimous decision victory – but unable to finish the hard-headed Beltran, who was returning to the UFC in the light heavyweight division after a run in the promotion at heavyweight.

And to close out the prelims, Caceres couldn't finish Page with a first-round triangle choke. But in the second, he was able to seal the deal.

It looked like James Te Huna was on his way to a third straight first-round knockout win on Wednesday.

Instead, the New Zealander found himself in survival mode just to make it out of the fight with his hand raised against Joey Beltran. He did, in a dominating sweep of the judges' scorecards, but he'll be feeling the effects for a while.

Te Huna (15-5 MMA, 4-1 UFC) on Wednesday beat Beltran in the co-main event of UFC on FUEL TV 4, but after the fight said he broke his hand and foot in the fight.

"Broken hand, broken foot, man," Te Huna told MMAjunkie.com at Wednesday's post-event news conference. "Ain't going to do much with it. But I thought I hit him pretty well. I thought I'd done well for a few rounds, anyways."

Te Huna said he broke his hand and foot midway through the first round. And then, he said, "I had to survive."

Beltran (14-8 MMA, 3-5 UFC) has built a reputation on being one of the toughest guys in the business to finish, and Te Huna saw that first-hand – though his broken hand and foot may have contributed to not being able to stop the "Mexecutioner."

Te Huna clearly had Beltran on the ropes in the first round, but couldn't put him away. Beltran made his return to the UFC after just one fight away from the promotion. After going 3-4 as a heavyweight in the UFC, Beltran was cut after a knockout loss to Lavar Johnson in January – the first knockout loss of his career. He was hoping to have a career transformation at light heavyweight, but Te Huna put that on hold even if he couldn't finish him.

"I was surprised (I couldn't finish him)," Te Huna said. "I hurt him with some of the shots."

But at 3-1 in the UFC's light heavyweight division, with his lone loss coming to contender Alexander Gustafsson, Te Huna continues to make a few waves at 205.

He told MMAjunkie.com he's ready to continue improving and is ready to take on whoever the UFC sees fit to put in front of him. Once he heals up, of course.

"I'm just taking it step by step, and whoever they match me up with, I'm just going to work on that and up my game and try and get better," Te Huna said.

When 2012 began, UFC middleweight Chris Weidman (9-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) was considered a bright prospect with ample potential.

After dominating Mark Munoz in the headliner of Wednesday UFC on FUEL TV 4 event, "The All American" is now a bona fide contender, and he's certain if given the chance, he could take out the division's longtime kingpin, Anderson Silva.

"Anderson Silva has been through 15 guys," Weidman said at Wednesday's post-event press conference. "All those 15 guys tried to take him down, hold him down, tried to submit him. It's not going to be easy. Chael Sonnen is that good, but he was able to get him down in every fight and put him in that position. I'm going to follow that blueprint.

"I've got the length with Anderson Silva, so he's not going to be able to play on the outside much with me. If he comes in, my takedowns are pretty good. I'll take him down. I think, I really do believe, that I could submit him and finish him. I really think I can."

It's a bold claim for the 28-year-old just nine fights into his UFC career. But UFC president Dana White didn't find Weidman's thoughts to be out of line.

"He looked damn good tonight," White said. "If you ask anybody out there, I think pretty much everybody had Munoz No. 3 in the world. Weidman absolutely destroyed him tonight."

Weidman was actually the oddsmakers' favorite heading into that matchup, but even those that expected the Serra-Longo Fight Team product to win didn't necessarily envision such a lopsided victory. Weidman outgrappled Munoz in the first round before blasting him with a crisp counter elbow in the second and finishing him off with a vicious barrage of punches.

But Weidman said he knew domination was possible – and necessary.

"I have a great coaching staff, great training partners, and I did believe I could come in here and dominate the fight," Weidman said. "A lot of people before this were asking me if I thought I deserved the title, and I was like, 'I don't want to be one of those guys who just calls out Anderson Silva.' I mean, there's like six of them right now doing it, and now I'm that guy, too. But I wanted to make a statement in this fight and make it obvious to everybody that I'm ahead of the pack."

Silva fought this past weekend, where he downed his nemesis, Chael Sonnen, in the second round of what White has called the biggest fight in company history. Sonnen helped his cause with an unrivaled onslaught of cutting trashtalk, but Weidman isn't going to try and follow the same path.

"I'm a pretty laid-back guy," Weidman told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "My wife wouldn't say I am, but I think I am. I don't know. I can't pull a Chael Sonnen. That guy is a gifted man on the mic. I couldn't even pretend to be that guy. I'd love to be that guy, but I'm just going to be myself, and I'm going to try to make it happen in the cage.

"This is five straight in the UFC. I beat two top-five guys. I feel like I did put my duties in. I know I'm just 9-0, but I really believe I'm ready, and I'm going to go after Anderson Silva and get that shot."

White previously said that former Bellator champ Hector Lombard, who makes his UFC debut at next week's UFC 149 event, was the frontrunner in the middleweight division's contendership order. However, after witnessing Weidman's now-signature victory over Munoz, the UFC boss seemed to think the company's newest middleweight star may indeed be ready for "The Spider."

"Hector Lombard is a guy who's going to fight in his first UFC fight next Saturday," White said. "We'll see how he does. We'll see what happens because I can guarantee you if you talked to 100 people, none of them would have told you that they thought the fight was going to go this way tonight.

"The 185-pound division just got very interesting. We'll see what happens."

The full UFC on FUEL TV 4 payouts included:

Chris Weidman: $44,000 (includes $22,000 win bonus)
def. Mark Munoz: $42,000

James Te Huna: $28,000 (includes $14,000 win bonus)
def. Joey Beltran: $15,000

Aaron Simpson: $46,000 (includes $23,000 win bonus)
def. Kenny Robertson: $8,000

Francis Carmont: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Karlos Vemola: $14,000

T.J. Dillashaw: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Vaughan Lee: $8,000

Rafael Dos Anjos: $40,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus)
def. Anthony Njokuani: $14,000

Alex Caceres: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Damacio Page: $11,000

Chris Cariaso: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Josh Ferguson: $8,000

Andrew Craig: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus)
def. Rafael Natal: $12,000

Marcelo Guimaraes: $12,000 (includes $6,000 win bonus)
def. Dan Stittgen: $6,000

Raphael Assuncao: $34,000 (includes $17,000 win bonus)
def. Issei Tamura: $8,000

The TKO loss Mark Munoz suffered against Chris Weidman at UFC on FUEL TV 4 was as damaging as it looked. He may have suffered a fractured jaw.

Munoz led a list of medical suspensions issued following "UFC on FUEL TV 4: Munoz vs. Weidman." The suspensions were reported to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) by the California State Athletic Commission.

UFC on FUEL TV 4 took place Wednesday at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif. Its main card aired live on FUEL TV, while preliminary-card fights streamed on Facebook. It drew a reported 4,250 fans for a $163,495 live gate.

Munoz was wobbled by Weidman's standing elbow and was put out by a flurry of punches in the second frame of the headliner. He is suspended six months or until cleared by a physician for a "fractured mandible." The cut the elbow opened up on his right eyebrow and another scalp laceration also were part of the six-month term.

Co-headliner James Te Huna, who reported breaking a hand and foot during a slugfest with Joey Beltran, is suspended six months for a possible left elbow fracture and fractured left foot. He needs a doctor's clearance to be cleared in advance.

Five other fighters – Joey Beltran, Aaron Simpson, Kenny Robertson, Josh Ferguson and Andrew Craig – each received 60-day shutdowns for face and head cuts, though all can be cleared earlier by doctors.

The full list of suspensions for "UFC on FUEL TV 4: Munoz vs. Weidman" include:
Mark Munoz: suspended 45 days with 30 days no contact for TKO loss. Also suspended 180 days or until cleared by physician for left scalp and right eyebrow laceration and possible fractured mandible.
James Te Huna: suspended 180 days or until cleared by physician for possible left elbow fracture and left foot fracture, and suspended indefinitely pending an MRI submitted on or before Sept. 11.
Joey Beltran: suspended 60 days or until cleared by physician for two right orbital lacerations and a upper right side lip laceration.
Aaron Simpson: suspended 60 days or until cleared by a physician for a right eye laceration.
Kenny Robertson: suspended 60 days or until cleared by physician for right scalp laceration.
Josh Ferguson: suspended 60 days or until cleared by physician for right orbital laceration.
Andrew Craig: suspended 60 days or until cleared by physician for left eye brow laceration.

Referees are often the brunt of criticism for their split-second decisions, but rarely do they publicly voice any post-fight opinion on their own performances. Even rarer is the situation when one admits a mistake. Usually, they simply leave their work as its own argument, leaving us to form our own conclusions.

That makes what Josh Rosenthal did this week all the more respectable. Less than one day after refereeing the Chris Weidman vs. Mark Munoz main event at UFC on FUEL 4, Rosenthal admitted what many had said: that he let the fight go on too long, and let Munoz take too many unnecessary blows.

Just about a minute and a half into the second round, Weidman dropped Munoz with a standing elbow strike and then rode him to the mat where he unloaded with a barrage of 17 punches. The entire sequence from start to finish took only about eight seconds, but many felt Rosenthal could have stepped in much earlier to save Munoz from taking unanswered strikes. Count him among his own critics.

"I came home and I watched it, and I was kind of like you know, if I was sitting here, watching this on the couch, I probably would have been talking smack about myself," he said on SiriusXM's Tapout Radio show.

Rosenthal went on to say he was "slow on the trigger" and let the fight go on a few punches too long.

That mirrors the complaints about the stoppage that flooded in right upon the bout's conclusion. On the FUEL TV post-fight show, UFC president Dana White was clearly angered, asking, "How can you be standing like this, looking down at a guy getting hammered like that and not think the fight needs to be stopped?"

It's a question we all wondered at the time, and Rosenthal says it's a fair one. He noted that given the potential stakes involved in a bout between two top 10 contenders and all the time the fighters put into preparing, he tries to offer each man every opportunity to continue. And in that particular mind set, he elected to give Munoz a bit longer than normal to defend himself. In hindsight, he admitted, it was simply too long.

Rosenthal was memorably the referee when Dan Henderson and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua fought at UFC 139, a fight which won him acclaim for allowing it continue to the final horn despite dominant stretches by both men at various stages of the fight. So he does have first-hand experience watching fighters rebound from seemingly disastrous situations, but this time, he says, he waited a little too long in seeing if the same kind of situation materialized. And in a refreshing move, he's standing up to take responsibility for it.

"I always say accountability is a huge part of the sport, and you are accountable for your actions," he said. "I feel like I was just a little slow on the trigger [Wednesday]. I don't want to see guys take unnecessary punishment. It's a rough sport. Everyone knows what they sign in for, but it's a millisecond-basis game. You're making choices right there on the spot, and in the heat of the moment, I felt like I was seeing some stuff. In hindsight, I have to step my game up and make sure I'm on point for the next guys."