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Both defending champions successfully retained their titles at UFC 259 as light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz and female featherweight champion Amanda Nunes scored significant victories at UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
In the main event, Pole Blachowicz produced a controlled and calculated performance to hand middleweight champion Israel Adesanya the first loss of his career in MMA.
Blachowicz and Adesanya exchanged shots in the first three rounds, and the faster and sharper Adesanya appeared to lead the action heading into the championship rounds.
But Blachowicz, 38, switched gears in rounds four and five and turned to wrestling while taking the 31-year-old to the mat midway through each of the final two rounds, and he didn’t let the kiwi The Nigerian-born turned his feet as he dominated the action on the mat.
After the fight went a long way, the three Octagon judges each scored the fight for the Pole, with Blachowicz recording his first title defense with scores of 49-46, 49-45, 49-45.
“It was a tough fight, it was a close fight,” Blachowicz said. “I’m happy to be the first to beat him. He’s one of the best in the world. I had to defend the division and I did.
“I proved that I am a true champion. Now I am going to celebrate. We have a refrigerator full of beer. We are going to start drinking and I don’t know when we will finish.”
‘The lioness is always dangerous. But when she has a baby, no one can stop her ‘
In the evening’s co-feature event, women’s two-division champion Nunes retained her featherweight title with ease as she overwhelmed top contender Megan Anderson with strikes before submitting her with an arm bar after just two minutes and three seconds.
Anderson, 31, looked hesitant from the start, and Nunes, 32, took advantage immediately when he hit the challenger with a big right hand. Then Nunes rebooted and severely rocked the Aussie with punches before taking the action to the canvas and blocking a triangular arm to claim her twelfth straight victory and record her seventh UFC title defense: five at bantamweight, two at featherweight. .
Such was Nunes’s dominance that the fight was described by former two-division champion Daniel Cormier as a “no event,” and also raised questions about the future of the women’s featherweight division, which is the only weight category. in UFC it does. not having an official ranking list.
Following her win, Nunes (21-4), who became a mother along with his wife and fellow UFC fighter Nina Ansaroff earlier this year, said fighting as a mother now makes her even more dangerous.
“The lioness is always dangerous. But when she has a baby, no one can stop her,” he said.
“Now I’m more dangerous with my little girl, so no one is going to stop me. I’m going to retire undefeated and with both belts at home.”
Yan’s illegal knee gives Sterling bantamweight title
The UFC bantamweight title fight between Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling produced one of the most controversial finishes in recent memory, as Sterling was crowned champion after defending champion Yan was disqualified in the fourth round.
Yan, 28, was ahead on two of the three judges’ scorecards heading into the championship rounds, but a deliberate illegal knee from the Russian to the clearly grounded challenger left Sterling badly shaken and unable to continue. .
After seeking the advice of the cage doctor, referee Mark Smith stopped the fight, with an excited Sterling (20-3) crowned champion by disqualification.
“I thought the fight was very close, I thought I had lost two rounds,” the New York native said after leaving the Octagon.
“That’s not the way I wanted to win. That’s not the way I envisioned this. I was messed up and it would have just been the ego to take over to receive additional punishment.”
It happened that a member of Yan’s corner team wrongly told him to throw the illegal hit that led to his disqualification, and Yan took to social media to apologize to Sterling for the foul and wish the new champion a speedy recovery.
Makhachev bets on being the mentor to Khabib’s throne
Earlier in the night, retired UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov was in the corner of his old friend, sparring partner and teammate Islam Makhachev, who scored a third round submission win over American Drew Dober in his fight on the lightweight main card.
Nurmagomedov has made no secret of his belief that Makhachev can take command at the top of the UFC’s 155-pound division, but a successful year from Covid that also saw the deaths of Makhachev’s head coach and Nurmagomedov’s father, Abdulmanap. Nurmagomedov, meant the Russian contender. He hadn’t fought since September 2019.
Makhachev defeated Dober with relative ease, using his takedowns to bring down the heavy-handed American.
After two dominant rounds spent largely on the mat, Makhachev made his grip advantage pay off in the third round when he blocked an arm triangle choke to force the tap. The victory extended his winning streak to seven and improved his record to 19-1 as he bet his claim for a shot at the biggest names in the division.
