In Toronto, the first number tournament of the Absolute Fighting Championship has come to an end championship (UFC) in the new year. Sports talks about the next success of the undefeated Russian and two title confrontations that led the Canadian UFC 297.
The Pride of Ingushetia The opening fight of the main card was the most interesting for domestic MMA fans. After all, the undefeated Russian Movsar Evloev was eager for a title chance in the featherweight division and received the most difficult opponent of his career. Before meeting Max Holloway, Arnold Allen was on a ten-game win streak, but the ex-champion interrupted the Briton's winning move.
You can't think of better matchmaking. Movsar gets the opportunity to jump from ninth place in the division rankings to fourth, and Allen – to inflict the bright prospect the first defeat in his career and remind the management of the main MMA promotion of the world.
The fight turned out to be tense: despite the clear advantage of the native of Ingushetia in the first two rounds, in several episodes there was a fear of zero in the “defeat” column. Allen, as expected, distinguished himself with high-quality boxing, but on the ground he was unable to provide worthy resistance. In the first round, everything was decided by takedowns performed by Evloev, in the second – a semblance of a knockdown, in which the unwary Arnold almost flew away. He left for the break with a deep cut under his eye.
However, in the third round, blood began to pour onto Movsar’s face. Allen delivered several illegal knee strikes to his opponent, who was in a “grounded position,” and cut Evloev’s head. They could have stopped everything, they could have fined the attacker one point… However, the referee (British, by the way) limited himself to a time-out and a verbal warning. Strange decision. Which, if the Russian were shocked, could seriously affect the outcome of the meeting.
Fortunately , Evloev retreated from the “bombing” and survived. It all ended with the triumph of the Russian representative by unanimous decision of the judges (29-28 on all cards).
Movsar now has 18 wins in his professional career and eight in the Dana White League. He will be ranked in the top 5 featherweight division early next week. It would seem: who, if not a Russian, deserves to fight for the belt with the winner of the title fight between Australian Alexander Volkanovski and Spaniard of Georgian origin Ilia Topuria? But the UFC seems to have a completely different vision of the situation.
African gold In the main event of the evening, UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland defended his title for the first time in a fight against South African Dricus Du Plessis, who was churning out early victories. This fight was expected: the American and his opponent decorated the poster with vivid enmity at a press conference, a fight in Las Vegas, barbs in interviews and an unexpected reconciliation a few days before the meeting in the octagon.
The representative of South Africa decided to undermine the psychological state of the owner belts are a reminder of Sean's difficult childhood. It turned out dirty, but, as it turned out later, it was effective: the challenger still got into Strickland’s head.
At first, nothing worked out for Du Plessis in the Octagon. In the standup, Sean was a head taller, while in the fight, Strickland allowed himself to be translated, but quickly rose to his feet. In some ways, the main event was reminiscent of the title match at December UFC 296, in which Briton Leon Edwards quickly “read” the scandalous Colby Covington and prudently took the fight on points.
However, in the third round, the South African, with his eye closed due to a hematoma, picked up the pace and began throwing more punches, aggressively driving the champion around the cage. The meeting immediately changed! Du Plessis turned the tide of the match and took the third and fourth five-minute periods. But he didn’t have enough strength to dominate in the fifth: at the finish, Strickland seemed to have interrupted his opponent… But the difficult victory by split decision still went to the challenger! The middleweight division has a new champion who remains undefeated in the UFC.
Most likely, we will see Du Plessis in April, at the 300th anniversary tournament. The old conflict with Israel Adesanya will be resurrected over who is more African, and the current and former champion will be locked in the cage.
To replace the Lioness And in the co-main event, a belt was at stake, which became vacant after the end of the Brazilian’s career Amanda Nunes, often called the greatest woman in MMA history. Raquel Pennington will definitely not be able to eclipse her achievements (she lost ahead of schedule to “Lioness” in 2018), but the girl definitely shouldn’t be sad because of this. Just as you shouldn’t be sad about the boring fight against the Brazilian Mayra Bueno Silva, in which the US representative delivered four times as many strikes that reached the target (252 versus 88) and not without difficulty suppressed the threat on the ground.
Let the fans who miraculously did not fall asleep during 25 minutes of female showdowns be discouraged.
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