TUF 25 Finale results: Jordan Johnson stays unbeaten, outworks Marcel Fortuna for decision

He had to eat a couple hard right hands and scramble to finish his takedowns, but it paid off for Jordan Johnson in a close battle with Marcel Fortuna.

Johnson (8-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) finished strong after some dicey moments thanks to the power of Fortuna (9-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC), and his reward was a unanimous decision victory with scores of 29-28 from all three judges.

The light-heavyweight bout opened the main card for today’s UFC event, The Ultimate Fighter 25 Finale, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It aired on FS1 following early prelims on UFC Fight Pass.

Though Fortuna was the early aggressor, it was Johnson who made the first real impact in the fight, dropping his foe with a right hand in response to a kick in the opening moments of the moment. But for Johnson, keeping Fortuna down would prove to be a difficult task, and getting him there wasn’t much easier.

Some of that was due to Fortuna getting a little help from the top of the cage. At least twice he stymied Johnson’s takedown attempts by grabbing the top of the fence, even though referee John McCarthy didn’t always seem to notice. Still, even after being briefly wobbled by a Fortuna right hand in the second, Johnson kept digging and eventually got the takedown late in the round.

Johnson adopted a similar strategy in the final frame, keeping his output relatively low until the last 90 seconds of the round, then turning up the heat with his punches while also looking for openings to take the fight to the mat. In the end, it made for a somewhat close fight in the eyes of the judges, but all three saw it just barely in Johnson’s favor, giving him the win with 29-28 scores across the board.

With the win, Johnson maintains his perfect professional record, and has now won two straight in the UFC. Fortuna’s loss snaps a six-fight winning streak.

Up-to-the-minute TUF 25 Finale results include:

• Jordan Johnson def. Marcel Fortuna via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
• Angela Hill def. Ashley Yoder via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• James Krause def. Tom Gallicchio via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• C.B. Dollaway def. Ed Herman via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-27, 29-27)
• Tecia Torres def. Juliana Lima via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 0:53
• Gray Maynard def. Teruto Ishihara via unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-26)

For more on The Ultimate Fighter 25 Finale, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

(MMAjunkie’s John Morgan and Steven Marrocco contributed to this report on site in Las Vegas.)