LAS VEGAS — More than a decade after being tagged a future champion, “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler finally has an Ultimate Fighting Championship title belt around his waist.
The 33-year-old St. Louis native posted a razor-thin split decision over Johny Hendricks to claim the welterweight title in the main event of UFC 181 on Saturday night. The judges’ scores at the Mandalay Bay Events Center were 48-47, 47-48 and 49-46.
“I just have an amazing feeling,” Lawler (25-10, one no-contest) said. “I have a lot of guys behind me and a lot of thanks to the fans. But this one wasn’t easy.”
Indeed, Lawler pushed a fast pace in the opening round, mixing punches and kicks and keeping Hendricks (16-3) off-balance.
But it was too fast a pace and Lawler appeared tired starting in the second round. Hendricks, of Dallas, used inside low kicks to set up flurries of punches and cruised to wins in rounds two and three.
Hendricks, though, eased off the gas in the final two rounds. A former NCAA wrestling champion, he appeared content to single-leg Lawler and hold him against the fence. But that enabled Lawler to steal each of the last two rounds with big offensive bursts at the end of the round.
The victory capped a comeback tale for Lawler, who washed out of UFC in 2004 after a string of losses. He returned last year and is 6-1 since, with the only loss to Hendricks in March.
“I wanted to get in his face and take this fight,” Lawler said. “This is what we do here. We fight. I made him fight the fight I wanted to fight in the end.”
In the co-feature bout, lightweight champion Anthony Pettis of Milwaukee turned his fight with San Francisco’s Gilbert Melendez around in a heartbeat and posted the first successful defense of his title.
Pettis (18-2) is known for his spectacular striking capability, but Melendez (21-4) won the first round by closing the distance and landing flurries of punches to set up his wrestling game.
Melendez stuck to the game plan in the second round but ultimately walked right until a right hand that stunned him. Pettis pounced on the flash opening and cinched a guillotine choke to score the submission win at 1:33 of the second round.
Pettis had been out for 15 months because of knee surgery after winning the title at UFC 164 in the summer of 2013.
“Fifteen months is a long layoff,” said Pettis (18-2), who has won nine of his past 10 fights. “I’m here, but I reminded everyone why I am a champ for a reason, the king of the toughest weight class.”
The victory was the first career submission loss for Melendez, the longtime former Strikeforce champion.
“You know he’s a fast, slick youngster and he made me feel a little old with his speed,” Melendez said. “There’s a lot of chaos there and he capitalized. Hats off to Anthony, he’s that new breed out there.”
Hawaii’s Travis Browne did his best impression of a schoolyard bully in a TKO victory over Colorado’s Brendan Schaub in a heavyweight fight.
Browne (17-2-1) landed an uppercut midway through the first round that dropped Schaub (10-5) to the mat. He then rained down punches from the mounted position before the referee waved it off at 4:50.
Todd Duffee waited nearly two years to return to the Octagon, then needed just 33 seconds to get the job done.
Fighting for the first time since December 2012 because of health issues, the Colorado heavyweight drilled Seattle’s Anthony Hamilton with a right hand to the temple, bringing their bout to a swift knockout conclusion.
In a lightweight bout, Tony Ferguson of Oxnard, Calif., rallied past Miami’s Abel Trujillo for a second-round finish.
Trujllio (12-6, one no-contest) got off to a fast start and appeared to be just a fistic flurry away from a finish in the opening minutes.
Ferguson (17-3), however, weathered the storm and had momentum by the time the round ended. He controlled the action in the second round and pounced in the final minute, securing a rear-naked choke for the finish at 4:19.
In an undercard bout of note, popular veteran Urjiah Faber (32-7) of Sacramento, Calif., was victorious but not without controversy. Faber’s opponent, Francisco Rivera (10-4, one no-contest) of Buena Park, Calif., held his own with Faber in their bantamweight bout.
But an accidental eye poke went uncalled by the referee. Faber swarmed Rivera and claimed the victory at 1:34 of the second round via submission.
“You know what, watching the replay, I saw it was definitely in the eye,” said Faber, who has won six of his last seven fights. “I didn’t know it at the time. But I got the finish. He fought a great fight. That was an ugly kind of win.”