UFC Fight Night 112 results: Dennis Siver wins decision over B.J. Penn despite getting dropped

Former UFC lightweight and welterweight champion B.J. Penn had just enough pop left in him to put Dennis Siver down exactly once. But when Siver got up and kept fighting, Penn didn’t have an answer.

The result was a weak finish from Penn (16-12-2 MMA, 12-11-2 UFC) and a strong one from Siver (23-11 MMA, 12-8 UFC), who took the fight via majority decision with scores of 28-28, 29-28, 29-27.

The featherweight bout opened up the main card of today’s UFC Fight Night 112 event at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, Okla. It aired on FS1 following prelims on FS2 and UFC Fight Pass.

Flashes of the old Penn showed up in this fight, albeit sparingly. In the first round he struggled to get his jab going, leaving him to contend with the high striking output of Siver, but in the second frame Penn seemed to settle into his striking game.

Late in the round a counter right hand from Penn caught Siver flush and sent him stumbling to the canvas, with Penn in close pursuit. But rather than pouring on the punishment from the top or looking for a submission to finish the fight, Penn was content to ride out the round.

That would prove to be a mistake, as Siver came out for the third round fully recovered and ready to push the pace, while Penn seemed to have little left in the tank to answer him.

Siver spent that final round backing Penn into the fence, battering him with increasingly accurate combination punching and head kicks, while also attacking Penn’s lead leg with kicks and further limiting his already limited mobility. By the end, Penn seemed glad just to survive to the final horn.

There was little agreement among the judges after those three rounds, with one scoring it a draw and the other two giving the fight to Siver by slightly different scores.

The majority decision win is Siver’s first victory since 2014, marking the end of a two-year layoff. Penn has now lost five straight fights in the UFC, and has not won since his 2010 knockout of Matt Hughes.

Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 112 results include:

• Dennis Siver def. B.J. Penn via majority decision (28-28, 29-28, 29-27)
• Clay Guida def. Erik Koch via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-26, 30-27)
• Marvin Vettori def. Vitor Miranda via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
• Carla Esparza def. Maryna Moroz via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
• Darrell Horcher def. Devin Powell via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
• Jared Gordon def. Michel Quinones via TKO (strikes) – Round 2, 4:24
• Tony Martin def. Johnny Case via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
• Jeremy Kimball def Josh Stansbury via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 1:21

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 112, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

(MMAjunkie’s John Morgan contributed to this report on site in Oklahoma City.)