UFC on ESPN+8 is in the books, and it’s time to take stock in the evening’s performances. MMA Junkie looks at who’s up, who’s down and who’s flat after a night of action in Sunrise, Fla.

Stock Up: Jack Hermansson, Mike Perry, Glover Teixeira, Cody Sandhagen, Roosevelt Roberts, Takashi Sato, Angela Hill.

Stock Down: Ronaldo Souza, Andrei Arlovski, Court McGee.

No change: Greg Hardy, Alex Oliveira, John Lineker, Jim Miller.

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Stock up

Jack Hermansson

What’s that old saying? Fortune favors the bold? Just a few short weeks ago, Hermansson was just another middleweight in the pack. Talented, sure, but just kind of plugging away over in Europe and not making as much headway as he might have liked. Then came an opportunity to fight former Strikeforce champion ‘Jacare’ Souza in a main event on short notice. That’s a tall order, but one Hermansson didn’t hesitate to accept. And with a hellacious performance in which he connected on 148 significant strikes, Jack proved himself a “Joker” in nickname only, and a contender through and through, square in the 185-pound conversation.

Mike Perry

For so long, “Platinum” has seemed to have all the tools for stardom. A quirky-but-real personality, enough of a bad-boy streak to stand out in this era where trash talk gets you ahead, and oh, by the way, he hits like a truck. He’s also been maddeningly inconsistent. But Saturday night, he went toe to toe with a game competitor in Alex Oliveira in a matchup that was every bit as exciting in reality as it sounded on paper. Perry weathered adversity, showed a good gas tank, and was just the right mix of reckless and smart to defeat a fighter like “Cowboy.” With wins over Oliviera and Paul Felder in his past three outings, Petty seems well on his way to living up to his considerable potential.

Glover Teixeira

If you compete at a high-enough level for long enough, you hit a sweet spot as you age in which perhaps you’re not quite as fast and nimble as you used to be, but you make up for it in fight-honed smarts and game planning. Such was the case for the ageless Teixeira, who knew Ion Cuteleba would come out throwing everything but the kitchen sink in their light heavyweight bout, but then would probably fade. That’s exactly what happened, as Cutuleba pummeled Teixeira early, but then tired as Teixeira poured it on and earned the submission win. The Danbury, Conn., resident turns 40 this year, but with three wins in his past four fights, don’t count him out any time soon.

Cody Sandhagen

Every up-and-coming prospect has their sink-or-swim moment, a moment that’s all the more perilous when you’re in the shark tank that is the bantamweight division. Cody Sandhagen rose to the challenge in his matchup with the uber-tough John Lineker. Lineker is one of the pound-for-pound hardest hitters in the game, and he wasted little time letting Sandhagen know. But Sandhagen gave it as good as he took it, and he also showed great poise during Lineker’s best moments, when he trapped Sandhagen in a choke in the fight’s closing seconds. The scorecard could have gone either way, but Sandhagen got the nod, proved he belonged and is now 4-0 in the UFC.

Roosevelt Roberts

Sometimes, you don’t need to have a fast finish to make an impression. Sometimes just dominating for 15 minutes will do the job. That was the case for 25-year-old California lightweight Roosevelt Roberts in his main-card opener against Thomas Gifford. Roberts basically just clobbered Gifford from bell to bell. That was the first time the former Dana White’s Contender Series competitor went the distance after winning his first seven fights by finish. He also showed poise on the mic, issuing a callout to Matt Frevola.

Takashi Sato

If you turned your head from the screen for a moment, you might have missed Japanese welterweight Takashi Sato win his UFC debut. Sato dropped a left straight down the middle in the second round, which dropped Ben Saunders. Then he followed up with a violent string of elbows that spelled the end of one of the sport’s toughest customers. That’s 13 finishes in 15 career wins from a competitor we hope gets back into the Octagon sooner rather than later.

Angela Hill

Now this is the fight we’ve been waiting to see from Hill ever since she returned to the UFC. The former Invicta strawweight champion replaced Jessica Penne on short notice against Jodie Esquibel. You wouldn’t know it was short notice, though, because she looked completely at ease in the cage, landing punches in bunches and mixing in kicks en route to a unanimous-decision victory. That snapped a two-fight losing streak, and maybe one of MMA’s most entertaining Twitter personalities is finally ready to make her run.

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