UFC 186 Post-Mortem: Predatory Blending

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Patrick Cote has adopted the fine-wine approach when it comes to aging in a young man’s game.

Cote has competed in three weight classes since arriving in the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2004 and put the full range of his skills on display in taking a unanimous decision from Joe Riggs at UFC 186 “Johnson vs. Horiguchi” on Saturday at the Bell Centre in Montreal. All three judges scored it 29-28 for “The Predator,” who has quietly rattled off eight wins in his past 10 appearances.

Per FightMetric, Cote outstruck Riggs 110-47, executed three takedowns, passed guard five times and sprang one reversal on the MMA Lab representative.

“It’s a more complete version of myself,” Cote said during a post-fight media scrum. “I think I’ve improved a lot [with] my wrestling and my ground game. I think I showed, even if I was a little bit in trouble in the first and third rounds, I was able to reverse the situation and pull the trigger and win those rounds.”

Riggs advanced to the Canadian’s back in all three rounds but failed to capitalize on his chances. Cote spent significant time in top position on the ground, piling up points with hammerfists, short punches and occasional elbows. He expected Riggs to present challenges on a number of fronts.

“The guy has 55 fights,” Cote said. “This guy is a warrior. He’s been in the game forever. He looks older than me, but he’s younger actually. He’s been through so many wars. He’s a veteran. A lot of people was looking [past] him during this fight, before the fight. Everybody said this is going to be a walk in the park for me. I was like, ‘Man, that’s a big mistake.’

“You never can underestimate a guy who has so many fights, so [much] experience,” he added. “You can’t buy experience. You fight and you work for it, and when you have it, nobody can take that away from you.”

MOVIN’ ON UP

Randa Markos marked her territory in the UFC women’s strawweight division with a unanimous decision over SBG Ireland’s Aisling Daly on the undercard.

Markos, 29, overcame some adversity in the second round, where Daly countered a takedown into top position, opened a cut above her left eye with a nasty elbow strike and hit a standing rear-naked choke in the closing seconds. The Michigan Top Team standout turned the tide back in her favor in round three, earning 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28 marks from the judges. Markos, like the rest of her divisional counterparts, finds herself looking up at unbeaten champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who put strawweights on notice with her second-round knockout of Carla Esparza at UFC 185 in March.

“I don’t know if this moves me up or anything, but I think it’s there for anybody to grab,” she said. “Joanna’s a great athlete and a great titleholder right now, and she kind of stepped up the bar a bit. I think any one of us can be next for the belt. I just look at one fight at a time. Whoever they give me, I’m training really hard. I want to be able to beat anybody they put up against me, not just one certain person.”

MISCELLANEOUS DEBRIS

Former Legacy Fighting Championship titleholder Thomas Almeida dazzled in his second appearance inside the Octagon, as he took out Yves Jabouin with first-round punches. The Chute Boxe prospect’s record now stands at 18-0, with 17 finishes. “I just did what I came to do. I came here looking to finish the fight and I got that, so that just keeps me motivated to keep doing what I do and keep pushing forward to do whatever I need to,” Almeida said at the post-fight press conference ... Olivier Aubin-Mercier has delivered all six of his victories by submission, five of them by rear-naked choke ... Tristar Gym export John Makdessi won for the sixth time in nine UFC bouts, as he put away Shane Campbell with punches 4:53 into round one. “For me, it’s always about the fans, always about giving fans an exciting fight. I’ve dedicated my whole life to mixed martial arts. It was a tough fight for me [against] a bigger 155er. I’m just happy I was able to showcase a great performance and show the fans an exciting fight,” Makdessi said ... Nordine Taleb is 10-1 over his last 11 fights, a decision loss to Marius Zaromskis under the Bellator MMA banner the lone setback ... “The Ultimate Fighter Nations” winner Chad Laprise kept his perfect professional record intact, moving to 10-0 with a hard-fought unanimous decision over Bryan Barberena. The 28-year-old helped carry the torch for the young Canadians on the roster. “I believe the proof is in the pudding. We all came out and fought hard. Like I said earlier in the week, some people were dogging this card and I said that I was going to come out and bring fireworks, and I ended up delivering,” Laprise said ... American Top Team’s Valerie Letourneau will ride a three-fight winning streak into her next outing.

ETC.

UFC 186 “Johnson vs. Horiguchi” drew a crowd of 10,154 to the Bell Centre for a reported $668,000 gate -- the lowest figure for a North American pay-per-view event since UFC 150 on Aug. 11, 2012. UFC President Dana White remained defiant in the face of criticism: “We came up here [and] everybody on this card fought their ass off. The card was unbelievable. Great fights and a lot of young talent on this card. What are we going to do different in Canada? Not a damn thing. We’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing for the last however many years. You can’t predict what’s going to happen sometimes; you’ve just got to roll with it.”

A LOOK AHEAD

Mark Hunt will headline a UFC Fight Night event against Stipe Miocic on May 10 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre in Adelaide, Australia. The show will stream in its entirety to UFC Fight Pass at 7:45 p.m. ET/4:45 p.m. PT.