Benavidez narrowly outpoints Bagautinov at UFC 192

It wasn't an awe-inspiring performance that'll land him a third bout with flyweight overlord Demetrious Johnson, but Joesph Benavidez is still a top-flight 125-pounder.

Faced with the leather-tough Ali Bagautinov, Benavidez mostly hit-and-ran his way to victory for 15 minutes at UFC 192 Saturday night, narrowly outpointing the returning Russian by darting in and out to land one or two shots at a time.

Bagautinov got some licks in, too, using his vaunted Sambo to dump Benavidez to the canvas on multiple occasions, while opening up a relatively nasty cut above the Team Alpha Male product's left eye.

It wasn't enough, however, as Benavidez grew stronger in the later stages of the bout, and easily out-landed Bagautinov in the the later stages of the closing stanza.