UFC Fight Night 75 Results: The Real Winners and Losers

UFC Fight Night 75 took place at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan, and the heavyweights delivered a fun main event.

Josh Barnett defeated Roy Nelson by a lopsided unanimous decision, but the fight was very entertaining. The two heavyweights went toe-to-toe for the full 25 minutes with not a lot of inactivity. It was the kind of fight we expect from contenders.

The real highlight of the night came in the co-main event. Uriah Hall flashed brilliance on The Ultimate Fighter but failed to live up to those lofty expectations—that is, until Saturday. He landed a spinning back kick to the face of Gegard Mousasi and followed that up with more punishment until the referee stepped in to stop the fight.

What else happened in Saitama?

Let's check out the real winners and losers from Saturday's action.

Diego Brandao talked a lot of smack about Conor McGregor and was then beaten inside a round in Dublin. After that performance, he returned in April to defeat Jimy Hettes.

Brandao looked better against Hettes, but there were still questions surrounding him entering Saturday. He answered those emphatically.

In just 28 ticks of the clock, Brandao pasted Katsunori Kikuno. It was the return of the good Brandao. The vicious, aggressive Brandao. This is the Brandao many expected after his stint on The Ultimate Fighter. After back-to-back wins, the UFC will need to put him back in the cage with a ranked opponent.

Brandao seems to have learned a lot from his main event experience, but only time will tell how much. If this is the Brandao we continue to see inside the Octagon, he is a threat against anyone. Featherweight is a stacked division that got a little deeper after Brandao's destruction of Kikuno.

Since the fall of Pride, Japanese MMA has gone downhill. There has been a dearth of Japanese stars and more importantly a lack of true title contenders from the nation.

Saturday saw two of those contenders put on good showings.

Takeya Mizugaki, a former WEC title challenger, has long been a mainstay at 135 pounds. After Dominick Cruz battered him last September and Aljamain Sterling submitted him in April, it seemed his time was done in the division. Mizugaki, however, returned in Saitama with a quality showing against a game opponent.

He got teary-eyed in the post-fight interview, and it showed the heart he puts into this sport. He always leaves everything in the cage. He still has more opportunities to do just that after the decision win over George Roop.

Former flyweight title contender Kyoji Horiguchi followed Mizugaki's lead with a one-sided decision of his own. It was his first fight back since challenging for the gold, and he continues to show he is one of the elites in the division.

Chico Camus is a tough out at 125 pounds, but Horiguchi didn't have many issues taking every round. Horiguchi is still just 24 years old and a developing fighter. If he continues to grow, we could see him back in the cage opposite Demetrious Johnson, with a much better shot to win.

Japanese MMA still needs more star power, but on Saturday two contenders showed they are ready for anything.

Sigh. Why do we always have to return to this narrative? Judging and refereeing in MMA are just bad.

The individual fight results for the judges weren't too bad on this event. Although a scorecard here or there may be questioned, ultimately they got the results right. However, one fight sticks out where MMA officials dropped the ball.

The Road to the Octagon special that ran in Japan had a finale on this card. Mizuto Hirota vs. Teruto Ishihara opened the main card, and they fought a hard fight. However, there should have been a fourth round. In this tournament-like setting, they should have gone to another round after being tied. UFC President Dana White tweeted that fact while showing his displeasure.

Instead, the fight just ended.

And we cannot let the referees off the hook either. All of the referees on this card were abysmal.

Fighters continue to get away with big infractions. Blatant cage grabbing, pokes to the eyes and strikes to the groin all occur without any significant admonishment. The fighters get a light warning that falls on deaf ears. And to make matters worse, we saw pathetic stand-ups or breakups against the fence all night.

At the end of the day, the right people won. I guess if we are going to remain optimistic, we can look at that fact, but this event had its fill of lousy officiating.

Mousasi entered as the No. 6-ranked contender with back-to-back victories under his belt. Also, he had a favorable matchup against a fighter who was coming in on short notice.

And he got iced.

Mousasi returned to middleweight under the UFC banner and was thought to be a potential contender for gold, but after Saturday he falls to 3-3 at 185 pounds in the UFC. The outcome in Saitama may have just relegated Mousasi to being the division's new gatekeeper of the elite.

Mousasi soundly won the first round and looked to be much more aggressive than usual. Then he got caught. And perhaps I am sounding the gatekeeper alarms too early for Mousasi because of that fact, but there is little way to spin this result positively for him. He lost, badly, to an unranked fighter.

The loss drops Mousasi from being a contender on the fringe of breaking through to the next level. Ultimately, it was a one-to-two-year setback. That's remarkably damaging.

Holy smokes. Who saw that coming?

Uriah Hall took this fight on short notice and ousted a top-10-level fighter in spectacular fashion. Only a special talent is able to do that.

Yes, Hall lost the first round definitively. That shouldn't go unnoticed after the spectacular finish he displayed on Saturday, but ultimately he made the adjustments and took out Mousasi. That's the end of it. This is the Hall we have been waiting for, and he is a legitimate threat in this division following the result.

That's why Hall is a big winner.

He didn't just win the fight or get a bonus: He established himself as a true contender at 185 pounds. There is no doubt he has much to work on, but he put himself in a position for premier fights. He took his career to another plateau with his TKO victory.

Yes, this fight was one-sided, but at the end of the day both heavyweights come out of the cage as winners.

I could have tried to predict this fight 100 times, and not once would I have thought both men would enter the cage with strategic game plans that they executed well from bell to bell. That was one of the true revelations of the fight.

Nelson found success in taking Barnett to the ground and landed some power shots of his own. Barnett, meanwhile, came into the cage with the purpose of striking with Nelson. Both game plans were effective in their own right, but Barnett was able to utilize his skills more often to win the rounds necessary to take the fight.

It is the best that both men have looked in a long, long time. It makes fans excited to see them back in action against high-level opposition.

Barnett got the win. That will move him into bigger, more important heavyweight contests. But Nelson did himself some favors as well. The heavyweight division may be long in the tooth, but these two heavyweights showed there is still some value in the old dogs.

We can only hope they fight like this in their next outings.