UFC 217: The quintessential fight night where the bullies got bullied

On a night that saw three new UFC champions crowned, triumphant returns were made, grudges were settled, but perhaps most importantly, heaps of stinging, vitriolic words were eaten.

Prior to claiming gold at UFC 217 this past Saturday at Madison Square Garden, Georges St-Pierre, TJ Dillashaw, and Rose Namajunas had to field endless amounts of trash talk, most of it in the interest of selling a card that ultimately lived up to its billing, some out of genuine disdain - at least in Dillashaw's case.

Pre-fight psychological warfare is par for the course in the hurt business, and all three defending champions relentlessly waged it ahead of fights that were difficult to predict with any confidence, but that only made the trio of usurpers' triumphs that much sweeter.

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In no fight was this more evident than the evening's first championship bout, where Namajunas took a sledgehammer to all the premature (and inaccurate) Ronda Rousey comparisons of years past and Joanna Jedrzejczyk's allegations of mental instability by beating the defending strawweight titleholder into submission within a round.

Recap: Namajunas stuns Jedrzejczyk by 1st-round KO to win UFC strawweight title

As she has to just about everyone the UFC puts in front of her, Jedrzejczyk did her damnedest to ensure she'd be facing an already defeated woman at Madison Square Garden, delivering chilling, ominous promises to put the challenger through a world of pain while repeatedly questioning her mettle - not knowing Namajunas' schizophrenic father had been largely absent from her life.

But the 25-year-old - who'd tried and failed to live up to her promise when she met Carla Esparza for the strawweight strap at 22 with just three pro fights under her belt in late 2014 - remained stoic through it all, did her talking in the cage, and only then did she crack a smile she's worn ever since, having proven the fighter we all hoped she could be.

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While Namajunas chose to take the high road in victory, Dillashaw made the most of his opportunity to gloat.

As if his 2015 departure from Team Alpha Male couldn't get more acrimonious, the 31-year-old had to utter every known variation of "sticks and stones" as former teammate Cody Garbrandt shouldered a beef that was never his to begin with and accused him of betrayal, ending Chris Holdsworth's career, and doing his best Jose Canseco impression in the months leading up to their highly-anticipated grudge match - with an unnecessary season as opposing coaches on "TUF" only prolonging the meat-headed posturing and finger-pointing.

The bout's buildup even had former champ Dominick Cruz - who'd shared the cage with both men - wondering whether Dillashaw could reclaim the gold come fight night.

So when he recovered from an early knockdown and scored two of his own en route to a second-round TKO in Saturday's co-main event, Dillashaw understandably purged every ounce of his pent-up frustration in a still dazed Garbrandt's face before the stoppage had even been recorded on the scorecards.

Recap: Dillashaw recaptures 135-lb title with 2nd-round knockout of Garbrandt

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As for St-Pierre, we still have no idea what he's doing back in the cage, but that didn't make Saturday's victory any less enthralling.

The 36-year-old's reasons for resurrecting his already decorated career - with a middleweight debut, no less - are as nebulous as those that spawned his self-imposed exile in November 2013, and Michael Bisping was just the man to grind that into his face every chance he had prior to a fight that shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did to materialize. That St-Pierre said he'd call it a career for good if he was handed an L in his comeback only gave the brash Brit more of an edge in the gamesmanship department.

In typically classy and cheeky fashion, St-Pierre soldiered on and chose his words carefully when the subject of his date with Bisping was broached, and when the time to sell the fight finally took a backseat to the action itself, he only made his cushy place in MMA history even cushier by choking Bisping into oblivion less than three rounds into Saturday's headliner.

Recap: GSP chokes Bisping out, wins UFC middleweight title in return

The book on trash talk is a polarizing one, but its place in combat sports is secure because more often than not, its emissary either ends up answering for it or preserving the right to spew it on the most primal of proving grounds. The emphatic silencing of all three of Saturday's heels - two of them self-appointed - on a world-renowned stage when the stakes were highest, in addition to their graciousness in defeat, made UFC 217's third act the gold standard for everything mixed martial arts.