Cruz threw a leg quick early, but Johnson came right at him nonetheless. Both guys are throwing and missing early. Johnson shot for a takedown, got stuffed, and landed a nice throw of his own. Cruz ended up on top, and quickly passed to side control. Johnson managed to scoot and got back to full guard, then eventually to his feet. Johnson had a head kick caught and fell to the ground. He immediately looked for a leg lock, but Cruz controlled and ended up on top. They got back up and DJ briefly got a takedown, but Cruz popped up immediately. The fighters traded shots standing for the rest of the round.
Cruz missed with a punch right away to start the second and Johnson landed a nice combination. Cruz responded with an immediate takedown though. Johnson came back up quickly though, and pressed Cruz against the fence, but ate some knees to the body. They spent a lot of time against the cage exchanging knees. Finally they separated with Cruz missing a huge knee. Cruz landed a nice uppercut, but Johnson responded with a right and a flying knee. Cruz blocked another DJ takedown and got one of his own. Round ended with Cruz on top.
Cruz landed a few kicks while Johnson missed with pretty much everything for the first minute of the third. Johnson finally connected with a combination. Cruz ended up with Johnson's back, and landed a german suplex. Cruz took full back control on the ground again, flattened him out, and went for a rear naked choke. He went palm-to-palm, but Johnson escaped and managed to get back to his feet and land some shots. Cruz again got a takedown, but couldn't do anything with it and Johnson eventually got back up. It was too late to get much going though.
Johnson came out with some nice leg kicks. Both fighters missed with a lot, but Cruz managed a nice leg kick and beautiful jab. Johnson landed a good overhand left, but Cruz responded with a takedown again. Cruz finally got some offense going on the ground and managed to get to full mount, but Johnsnon managed to get back to full guard relatively, quickly, then got up. Once again, Johnson landed a couple of punches and a kick, but Cruz got another takedown. Rinse and repeat before the round ended.
Johnson came out invigorated in round five and landed a few shots, but Cruz managed to get a hold of him and land another huge german suplex. He ended up in side control. Cruz just controlled position for a large portion of the round, not even looking to punch. Johnson finally got up with half of the round left, and threw some shots. He ate an uppercut in return though. Johnson kept attacking, but Cruz kept hitting throws and avoiding strikes. He came forward with a bevy of strikes, but Cruz ducked right into a big takedown and advanced directly to full mount. DJ flipped over and got back up though. Cruz appeared to hurt Johnson with a late strike, and finished the fight on top of Johnson. It was a great fight and a great example of how awesome the bantamweight division is.
Cruz originally won the WEC bantamweight title by defeating Brian Bowles back at WEC 47 and defended it twice over there before the championship was transferred to the UFC. In his first UFC defense, Cruz won a unanimous decision over Urijah Faber in one of the best fights of 2011. Johnson earned his title shot with a razor-thin decision win over Miguel Torres at UFC 130, and was on a four-fight winning streak coming into this title fight.
More SBN coverage of UFC on Versus 6