The UFC’s first card broadcasting from the long-rumoured Fight Island in Abu Dhabi featured a stacked main card. For only the sixth time in UFC history a fight card boasted three title bouts, complemented by a grudge rematch between two top contenders in their weight class.
Unfortunately, most fans will likely walk away from UFC 251 somewhat sour after the main event failed to deliver for fans that were hoping for an explosive end to the night.
A new player at 205:
There wasn’t much to write home about on the preliminary cards, although Bantamweight fighter Davey Grant will forever hold the distinction of scoring the first knockout on Fight Island, despite suffering a broken jaw earlier in his fight with Martin Day. UFC President Dana White would recognise his efforts with a Performance of the Night bonus, along with Light Heavyweight debutant Jiri Prochazka.
The Czech-born Prochazka has been on the UFC’s radar for years, it being noted in the broadcast that he had previously turned down an offer from the UFC as he felt he was not yet ready for the quality of fighters he would face in the promotion. Despite this, Prochazka would not be presented with an easy opponent for his promotional debut, being matched up with former title challenger Volkan Oezdemir.
Prochazka would finish Oezdemir within the first minute of the second round, hurting the former UFC title challenger in a wild exchange, feigning a flying knee before landing a stiff jab-hook combination that put Oezdemir to sleep.
The last we’ll see of PVZ?
The main card kicked off with Women’s Flyweight fighter Paige VanZant returning to the octagon following an injury-plagued 18 months following multiple surgeries and complications to a broken arm suffered in a fight with Jessica-Rose Clark.
VanZant was emotional while making her walk to the cage and to any fans of ’12-Gauge Paige’, her performance inside the cage would not kick off the main card with a feelgood comeback. Vanzant would be quickly tripped in the clinch by highly touted Amanda Ribas, who fought at Women’s Flyweight for the first time on last night’s card, usually fighting at Strawweight.
Following the trip, Ribas would hold PVZ in a scarf hold and when Paige tried to pull her head out from Ribas’ grip, the Brazilian would transition into back mount and then snag an armbar to force VanZant to tap out just under halfway through the first round.
In the post-fight press conference, Dana White was asked about VanZant’s reported desire to test free agency, the fight with Ribas being the final fight on her current deal. White responded that ‘She should definitely test free agency’.
Vindication for Thug Rose:
The final non-title bout on the card was a rematch between Jéssica Andrade and Rose Namajunas, who are currently ranked number one and number two respectively in the Women’s Strawweight division.
In their first meeting, Andrade would violently unseat ‘Thug Rose’ for the UFC Strawweight Championship with a slam knockout, before losing the title to current champion Weili Zhang. This was Namajunas’ first fight since the loss to Andrade, and she looked sharp throughout, the consensus amongst fans and media being that she won the first two rounds thanks to her superior striking accuracy.
It was not all smooth sailing for Rose as she had to survive a scare in the third and final round, being rocked by Andrade, who immediately landed a strong takedown to wrestle back some momentum and the judges’ attention. Rose would weather the storm, albeit not without some battle scars to show for it, to secure a split-decision victory and a Fight of the Night bonus.
It remains to be seen if this fight will be treated as a title eliminator and Rose will get the next shot at Weili Zhang.
Yan’s ascension marred by late stoppage:
The first of three title fights pitted Russian fighter Petr Yan, who is undefeated in the UFC against former WEC and UFC Featherweight Champion Jose Aldo for the vacant UFC Bantamweight Championship following former champion Henry Cejudo’s retirement.
The fight was entertaining from the opening horn, with both men exchanging lightning-quick strikes, Yan utilising his boxing and Aldo targeting his opponent’s body and throwing some heavy leg kicks. Aldo would shoot for a takedown with less than a minute to go in the first but would be unsuccessful, allowing Yan into his guard.
The Russian would transition into stack guard and bring down a heavy right hand to the midsection of ‘The King of Rio’, causing him to curl up and simply survive the closing seconds of the first. Both fighters would spend the majority of the fight stood in close quarters exchanging blows, with Yan arguably throwing the more powerful strikes but absorbing plenty as well.
Yan’s youth would eventually win out as Aldo would considerably slow in the later rounds, leading to a stiff uppercut in the first twenty seconds of the final round that would drop Aldo.
That would not be the finish however, as Yan would be allowed to continue to execute ground and pound on Aldo for an additional three minutes before referee Leon Roberts finally stepped in. Aldo was clearly in a position where there was no way back for him in the fight but of course was too proud to tap out to Yan’s strikes, he would continue to try to defend himself but Yan was relentless, the late stoppage causing outrage on social media and drawing the ire of Dana White in the post-fight press conference, calling the lack of action by the referee ‘horrible’.
Volkanovski retains by heavily scrutinised decision:
The semi-main event was the heavily anticipated rematch for the UFC Featherweight Championship between champion Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway. Holloway would start off much brighter than in their previous encounter, appearing the more accurate with his strikes and braving Volkanovski’s leg kicks to pick off the Australian champion.
Holloway would knockdown Alexander ‘The Great’ multiple times throughout the five-round affair, leading many to believe he had clinched the victory on the scorecards in the first three rounds. Volkanovski would pour on the pressure late, putting up a much better performance in the fourth round and scoring multiple, if not very impactful, takedowns in the fifth.
The consensus (and my personal opinion watching the fight) leaned towards a certain Holloway victory with Holloway comfortably winning three out of the five rounds, especially the first two. So, when Volkanovski was announced as the winner via split decision, there was immediate outrage on social media with both Holloway and ‘Robbed’ individually trending on Twitter in the minutes following the call.
Dana White was also asked about the contentious decision, saying of the situation, ‘You can’t leave it to these guys, we’ve got some bad judging’, before asking if anybody amongst the attending media had scored the fight in favour of Volkanovski, only to be met with silence. When asked about a potential third fight between the two, despite Volkanovski now holding a 2-0 record against his Hawaiian adversary, White responded ‘I don’t know, we’ll have to figure it out’.
Usman outlasts Masvidal in unpopular performance:
When original title challenger Gilbert Burns announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19, the news that fan favourite Jorge Masvidal would step in on a week’s notice to face UFC Welterweight Champion Kamaru Usman looked to have made one of the biggest cards in recent memory even bigger. Love him or hate him, Masvidal captured the attention of every UFC fan with his outrageous 2019 that just seemed to get bigger with every interview.
There was a fair amount of anticipation going into this matchup as Masvidal is always exciting to watch and Usman had quelled a lot of his detractors’ claims of him being a ‘boring’ fighter with an entertaining slugfest with Colby Covington in his last defence.
To say this fight did not live up to that anticipation was an understatement. The first round started strongly, Masvidal displaying good takedown defence but being somewhat slow to capitalise on gaps in Usman’s block on the feet, but it was clear from as early as the second round that the lack of a proper training camp had left Masvidal without the proper conditioning for a five-round fight.
Usman would respond by spending the next two rounds trying to further sap the gas tank of ‘Gamebred’, pinning him up against the cage in a constant clinch and occasionally trying to wrestle Masvidal to the canvas.
From this point in the fight it was clear that Masvidal had no energy left to contend with Usman’s grappling, which infuriated fans watching even more when Usman continued his cautious approach and refused to look to finish his opponent, even when Usman finally landed a strong takedown in round five, he was content to stay in Masvidal’s guard and barely execute any ground and pound. The fight would go to the judges scorecards for a unanimous decision win for the champion.
In my opinion, despite winning the fight, I would argue that the fighter whose stock has dropped lower because of this fight was Kamaru Usman. Performances like these will only make fans hesitant to buy pay-per-views on which Usman is featured, and while he dominated the tempo of the fight, he inflicted little actual damage to Masvidal. Usman only drew blood from his opponent due to an unintentional clash of heads and fans on social media were continuously mocking Usman’s repeated stamping on Masvidal’s feet in the clinch rather than looking for blows to the head which may have ended the fight.
Masvidal’s stock doesn’t really drop in this situation as he came into the fight with an excuse gift-wrapped for him, he only had a week to cut weight and prepare. A point which makes Usman look even worse when you consider the admirable defensive performance that Masvidal showed while visibly exhausted. Masvidal defended 11 out of Usman’s 16 attempted takedowns and was able to get back to his feet quickly from the takedowns that landed.
What’s next?
In terms of what we know for sure, Dana White has already made his intentions clear to make Gilbert Burns the next challenger for Kamaru Usman and it is likely that Aljamain Sterling with be the first test for Petr Yan after Sterling’s win over Cory Sandhagen at UFC 250 and after Yan explicitly saying in his post-fight press conference that Sterling was the most deserving contender.
There are also 3 more events being held on Fight Island over the next fortnight, including fights like Robert Whittaker vs Darren Till, Fabricio Werdum vs Alexander Gustafsson and a fight for the vacant UFC Men’s Flyweight championship between Deiveson Figueiredo and Joseph Benavidez, a fight which may be in doubt after the former tested positive for COVID-19. Figueiredo is reportedly getting retested but Dana White mentioned in the post-fight press conference to this card that Alexandre Pantoja, who is scheduled to fight on the same card, could be moved into the title match if need be.
The UFC also announced the main card for their next pay-per-view, UFC 252. The card is headlined by the long-awaited rubber match between Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier for the UFC Heavyweight Championship and also features a Heavyweight clash in the semi-main event spot as former champion Junior dos Santos faces off against Jairzinho Rozenstruik, who is looking to bounce back from his first professional defeat to Francis Ngannou at UFC 249.
Full card results:
Main card
Welterweight – Kamaru Usman (c) def. Jorge Masvidal via Unanimous Decision
Men’s Featherweight – Alexander Volkanovski (c) def. Max Holloway via Split Decision
Men’s Bantamweight – Petr Yan def. Jose Aldo via TKO (Round 5 – 3:24)
Women’s Strawweight – Rose Namajunas def. Jéssica Andrade via Split Decision
Women’s Flyweight – Amanda Ribas def. Paige VanZant via Submission (Armbar, Round 1 – 2:21)
Preliminary card
Light Heavyweight – Jiri Prochazka def. Volkan Oezdemir via KO (Round 2 – 0:49)
Welterweight – Muslim Salikhov def. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos via Split Decision
Men’s Featherweight – Makwan Amirkhani def. Danny Henry via Technical Submission (Anaconda choke, Round 1 – 3:15)
Lightweight – Leonardo Santos def. Roman Bogatov via Unanimous Decision
Early Preliminary card
Heavyweight – Marcin Tybura def. Maxim Grishin via Unanimous Decision
Catchweight (129lbs) – Raulian Paiva def. Zhalgas Zhumagulov via Unanimous Decision
Catchweight (141lbs) – Karol Rosa def. Vanessa Melo via Unanimous Decision
Men’s Bantamweight – Davey Grant def. Martin Day via KO (Round 3 – 2:38)
The Inbound Observer 