At the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas ( USA) the 300th numbered tournament of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) died down. It turned out amazing, it turned out epic! After all, 12 current or former champions of the organization were involved in the card.
Sports shares emotions from all the confrontations of the anniversary show of the main MMA promotion of the world, which held two title fights in one evening and gave us a sparkling fight for the belt of “The Most Dangerous Gangster”.
A star American was “strangled” for the first time. Never before has a tournament been opened by two ex-UFC champions. However, Brazilian Deiveson Figueredo, who rose from flyweight, and Cody Garbrandt from the USA, who once reigned in the bantamweight division, became pioneers, immediately warming up the audience.
The first round remained with the owner of the cage, but in the second, “The God of War” ” gave the league's favorite hell on earth and forced Garbrandt, who was caught in a chokehold, to surrender.
For Cody, this is the sixth defeat in his last nine fights, the first time No Love lost by submission.
UFC 100, UFC 200… UFC 300! League record holder for the number of fights and victories, Jim Miller, who has been fighting against Dana White since 2008, did something amazing by performing at three anniversary tournaments of the promotion.
And even though in a meeting with another experienced lightweight Bobby Green (67 fights in the organization between two), the 40-year-old veteran washed himself with blood and lost by unanimous decision, this failure did not damage the great legacy.
A bright showdown between the girlsFormer UFC champion Andrade does not please Brazilian fans at all: only one victory in his last four fights. However, the meeting with compatriot Marina Rodriguez turned out to be great! And close. Jessica started a real hunt for her opponent in the second round, and at the end of the hot third round she almost took Marina out of the game with a tight blow to the leg.
Andrade won by a split decision.
The first knockout in his career. Top lightweights Jalyn Turner (USA) and Renato Moicano (Brazil) continued the parade of spectacular fights. However, this time the matter did not reach the decision of the judges: having survived a knockdown in the first round, in the second five minutes Moicano beat the American on the ground.
For the Brazilian, who has been competing in the promotion since 2014, this is the 19th victory in his career, the third in a row… And the first , won by knockout (technical).
The future star wants to beat the champion. In less than a year, Diego Lopez has made the promotion's management and fans fall in love with him. In May 2023, the Brazilian entered a fight on short notice against the undefeated Russian Movsar Evloev and lost in a very close confrontation. And then there were three victories in the first rounds! The last one, over No. 13 featherweight Sodiq Yusuff at UFC 300, took Lopez just a minute and a half.
After the fight, Diego went all in, challenging Movsar and champion Ilia Topuria. It’s difficult to imagine a fight with a Spaniard of Georgian origin now, but there is very little left until the “title”…
Welcome to the UFC! Two-time Olympic champion in judo Kayla Harrison has burst into the league in style. The US representative easily defeated her compatriot, ex-league champion Holly Holm… This is what dominance looks like: The Preacher's Daughter was taken to the floor, bombarded with crushing blows, and in the second round she was forced to “tap”.
In general, the ex-Professional champion The Fighters League (PFL) has not noticed a change of location and continues to perform flawlessly. The only defeat in my career from Larissa Pacheco is left out of the equation.
“Dry”, but won. Perhaps the most boring match of the tournament. Calvin Kattar failed to cope with former bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling, who rose to featherweight. The “newbie” bet on the fight, and the opponent was not ready for such a course of the meeting – total control (7.5 minutes out of 15) under the deafening whistle of the stands brought the American victory by unanimous decision. Kattar left the octagon with a third defeat in a row.
What is significant is that after the fight they did not interview Sterling in the octagon.
Samurai thrillerAfter Sterling's hypnotic fight, the fans were invigorated by the hostilities staged by ex-champion Jiri Prochazka (Czech Republic) and Aleksandar Rakic (Austria). The light heavyweights spent one and a half rounds fighting in the standing position, making exchanges and constantly being on the verge of passing out. The judges could relax and forget about the score – a knockout became a matter of time. It simply doesn’t happen otherwise in Jiri’s fights: all five of the Czech’s fights in the UFC (4-1) did not last the entire distance.
The final match of the prelims met the expectations of the fans, who had no doubt: someone would definitely fall… Rakic, who fell for Prochazka’s game and still got caught in the exchange, fell. And now the main question: will the Czech samurai overtake our Magomed Ankalaev in the title race?
Indestructible Avenue The main card was opened by American wrestler Bo Nickal, one of the main rising stars of the promotion. He is adored by the league, otherwise a guy with five professional fights would not be put on the main card of such a show. And Bo is still living up to the bosses’ hopes – the third early victory in the organization; Cody Brundage capitulated in a not very spectacular fight.
Undoubtedly, ahead of the unbeaten Nickal is an opponent with a bigger name.
There will be a rematch between Makhachev and Tsarukyan! As White stated, the winner of the confrontation between Charles Oliveira and Arman Tsarukyan should meet with the title holder, Russian Islam Makhachev. But it seems that this will happen later: as Khabib Nurmagomedov said the day before, the first number in the rating, regardless of weight categories (P4P), has already received an opponent and found out the date of the fight. Most likely, Islam's opponent in the third defense of the belt will be elite lightweight Dustin Poirier.
In line for the “Diamond” will be Tsarukyan, who fought well against Makhachev in 2019, and today won the main victory of his career. The Russian of Armenian origin almost fell into the guillotine from ex-UFC champion Oliveira, but saved himself and turned the tide of the fight. In the second round, Arman elbowed the league record holder for the number of bonuses and submissions, and at the end of the fight he again suffered a “noose” on his neck.
An amazing 15 minutes, following which two of the three judges made a choice in favor of Tsarukyan. Where was third referee Mike Bell looking, who shocked Armand with his decision? And did he actually referee that fight?
The most dangerous bastard – 3 We saw no less brutal carnage in the third most important event of the evening. Americans Justin Gaethje and Max Holloway, who held the UFC featherweight title, grabbed the “Best Bastard” (BMF) belt and showed Las Vegas 25 minutes of hot stand-up action. With “turnabouts” and balancing on the verge of losing consciousness, a bloody face and constant transitions of initiative from one “gangster” to another.
Despite his status as a favorite, Gaethje lost. Holloway was much more calculating and careful. In the first round, he broke Justin's nose, waited out the storm at the equator, and at the very end he knocked down his opponent… It would seem that you should calm down and bring the fight to victory by decision. But no! Within a few seconds, Max rushed into an exchange with “Highlight” and at the last second completely knocked out Gaethje. A serious application for the title “Knockout of the Year”.
On his second attempt, “Blessed” still won the lightweight division and became the third BMF in the history of the organization. By the way, UFC Hall of Fame member Mark Coleman presented the belt to the victor. In March, the famous fighter was in intensive care after saving his parents from a burning house, and survived.
The women's “title” did not disappoint. The Chinese confrontation between Weili Zhang and Yang Xiaonan for the minimum weight title unexpectedly turned out to be competitive.
The challenger entered the octagon and immediately fell under the skating rink – at first there was not even a hint of a sensation. In a good way, everything should have ended in the first round, but Weili did not have time to finish the choke hold. In the second five-minute round, the champion smashed her opponent on the ground, but the judge categorically did not want to interrupt the déclassé, and Xiaonan saved herself.
But in the third round, Weili was knocked down. In the fourth, the favorite experienced a shock again – only work on the ground helped the champion prevent Yang from believing in herself. On the ground, everything ended: Weili spent the fifth round with full control of the dominant position, but Vegas never saw the finish.
The main event lasted three minutes. Too much has been said about the inconsistency of the main event with the epic poster. So let's go straight to the events in the cage, where the fight between UFC light heavyweight belt holder Alex Pereira and former division champion Jamal Hill took place. The latter left the title due to injury and had the opportunity to return the gold immediately after his return.
Pereira did not harness for long. A calm face, cold-blooded movements and reluctance to take a break after being hit in the groin lulled the talkative Hill, who in the second minute missed the jaw and collapsed, as if “shot” by a sniper. The referee did not record a direct knockout – he had to finish off poor Jamal.
Pereira defended his title for the first time in the UFC. The Brazilian failed to defend his belt in the middleweight division (Israel Adesanya took revenge), but he succeeded in the light heavyweight division.
BONUSES *
- < li class="article__list-item">Best Fight of the Night: Gaethje vs Holloway;
- Best Performance: Max Holloway and Jiri Prochazka.
* in honor of the anniversary show, bonuses were increased to $300 thousand. The standard incentive amount is $50 thousand.
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