Andrei Arlovski’s comeback gains steam at UFC 191

Reporting from LAS VEGAS —  A decade after standing as Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion, Andrei Arlovski took another step Saturday toward recapturing the belt.

In the co-main event of UFC 191 at MGM Grand, Arlovski won his fourth straight fight since returning to UFC, scoring a unanimous-decision victory over former champion Frank Mir.

The judges scored it 29-28, 29-28, 30-27 for Arlovski (25-10), who sealed the victory by landing a late-third-round punch that cut Mir (18-10) badly by the right eye.

“I’m disappointed that fight went three rounds,” Arlovski said, explaining that he anticipated stopping of 2004 champion Mir earlier while striking.

Mir at times let Arlovski try, lowering his arms to let the Belarusian throw punches that didn’t achieve full effect.

Arlovski’s activity and striking efforts won over the judges as the crowd jeered Mir’s holding of Arlovski.

Now Arlovski, ranked No.4 in the heavyweight division, probably is within one victory of a title shot against the winner of the coming Fabricio Werdum-Cain Velasquez rematch, which has yet to be scheduled by the UFC.

The night’s main event, a rematch between flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson and John Dodson, began after press time for this edition.

Top-ranked light-heavyweight Anthony Johnson impressively returned from his title loss against Daniel Cormier to knock out seventh-ranked Jimi Manuwa 28 seconds into the second round. A hard right hand to the jaw sent a dazed Manuwa to the canvas, and two more rights to the face while he was down ended it.

Paige VanZant, the eighth-ranked women’s straw-weight contender being marketed heavily by the UFC, improved to 3-0 in the octagon with a second-round armbar submission of Alex Chambers.

VanZant displayed versatility with her aggressive pursuit of Chambers, flipping her with a first-round leg whip and sending a left knee to the face.

In the second, VanZant, 21, began landing clean blows to the body and head and delivered a hard right hand to the face in the third kept Chambers wilting.

“Obviously, I worked on a lot of technique for this fight,” VanZant said.

The Sacramento fighter said she wanted to avoid going to the canvas with Chambers, but kept up pressure while atop her and moved quickly to grab Chambers’ vulnerable right arm, applying the decisive armbar made famous by the UFC’s better-known female champion, Ronda Rousey, 1:01 into the third.

Before the pay-per-view fights, eighth-ranked flyweight John Lineker made an impressive bantamweight debut with a first-round guillotine-choke stoppage of Buena Park’s Francisco Rivera.

Women’s bantamweight Raquel Pennington avenged a previous loss to Brazil’s Jessica Andrade, and San Diego lightweight Ross Pearson gained a split-decision victory over Philadelphia’s Paul Felder.