In the early promotional stages for UFC 252, there were concerns that this card could have been dismissed by many as a one-fight show, especially after the stacked card boasted in the UFC’s last pay-per-view outing.
However, as it often does, this crazy sport has presented MMA fans with plenty to talk about. From upsets to injuries and potential future matchups, this card proved that you simply cannot skip a UFC event.
Brazilian Strawweights light up Prelims:
After UFC 251 hosted a return to form for top Women’s Strawweight contender and former champion Rose Namajunas, last night’s card featured potential fresh faces in what is easily the UFC’s strongest women’s division.
The opener of the preliminary card was contested between Ashley Yoder and Livia Renata Souza. Souza would prove confident and comfortable wherever the fight went and outscored Yoder 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27 to earn a unanimous decision victory.
The second of the two Women’s Strawweight bouts on the prelims was much more explosive with #15 ranked Felice Herrig returning from an injury layoff to face Virna Jandiroba. Jandiroba would immediately land a strong takedown that left Herrig desperately trying to keep the jiu-jitsu practitioner from passing her guard.
Herrig was momentarily able to kick her opponent off of her but Jandiroba would immediately dive back onto her American adversary, keen to keep the fight on the ground. In her efforts to escape the crushing ground presence of Jandiroba, Herrig found herself up against the cage.
A few well-placed strikes from Jandiroba was enough to force Herrig to give up her back and while she did well to defend in that position, Jandiroba would transition straight into full mount and lock in an armbar to force Herrig to tap within the opening two minutes of the fight, earning Jandiroba a Performance of the Night bonus and likely a place in the Women’s Strawweight rankings when they are next updated.
Pineda braves a heavy Blaze:
One of the more unusual fights to make it onto the main card was the matchup between Herbert Burns and Daniel Pineda.
This fight was Pineda’s first in the promotion since 2014 and would come against a much more favoured Burns, coming off an impressive first-round submission of Evan Dunham at UFC 250.
Considering the peculiar optics of this matchup on paper, the fight itself was fittingly unpredictable, with Herbert ‘The Blaze’ weighing in 3.5 pounds over the Featherweight limit prior to the bout.
Inside the cage, the uninitiated would be forgiven for believing that Pineda was the fighter to watch out for in this contest as he controlled large portions of the fight while slowly sapping the gas tank of his heavier opponent.
Pineda would wrestle Burns to the ground and eventually hold him in the crucifix position, leaving the Brazilian helpless as the returning Pineda rained down vicious elbows to the top of his opponent’s head to force the TKO near the end of the second round.
Bigi Boy bounces back:
Following a devastating first-career loss at UFC 249 inside 20 seconds at the hands of Francis Ngannou, Jairzinho Rozenstruik was not faced with an easy task to regain his momentum. Rozenstruik would stand across the octagon from former UFC Heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos.
The bout was your typical exciting Heavyweight clash between two mammoth strikers. Dos Santos was arguably the aggressor throughout the first, with Rozenstruik electing to search for counter strikes. However, there were still some tense exchanges between the two, reminiscent of the explosive bout against Ngannou.
With ninety seconds left in the second round, the fighter from Suriname would back Dos Santos up against the cage and land a straight-hook combination to drop JDS. Rozenstruik would immediately jump on his opponent, landing follow-up strikes to look for the finish and after dropping Dos Santos again while he was trying to climb back to his feet, he would be awarded with the TKO victory.
A big question coming out of this event will be the status of Junior Dos Santos as this marks his third defeat in a row by KO/TKO, another title shot is looking less and less likely with every new development in the Heavyweight division and JDS has nothing left to prove after a stellar career in the promotion.
A big blow to the Suga Show:
The co-main event looked to be set up as a showcase for the promotion’s new rising star, ‘Suga’ Sean O’Malley. This would mark the second fight in a row that O’Malley would compete on the main card and after opening the main card of UFC 250 with a stunning one-punch knockout of Eddie Wineland, one might suspect that the UFC was eager to put this matchup as the co-main as a means to raise O’Malley’s stock even further.
The placement of this fight on the card, and the pre-fight video package that focussed almost entirely on O’Malley, narrated by Stephen A. Smith comparing him to some of the greatest athletes currently competing in American sports left the hype for this contest at a fever pitch.
O’Malley would not be presented with an easy opponent to show off against, however as Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera would come into this bout with five wins in his last six fights.
‘Suga’ would start this fight much more reserved than we’ve seen him in the past, not throwing as many flashy strikes and mostly keeping his heavy hands on the backburner, instead landing straight kicks to Vera’s body and respecting his opponent’s striking power with slick movement on the feet.
This movement would seemingly sink the ‘Suga’ show, however as while feinting rushing towards Vera, O’Malley would stumble to the ground and clearly injure his right foot, his movement throughout the rest of the first being much less fluid, while trying to keep Vera on the back foot to survive the round.
With thirty seconds left in the round, after an exchange up against the cage, O’Malley would fall to the ground and opt to stay there rather than trying to quickly get up and put more weight on the injured foot. ‘Chito’ would take advantage, immediately going into O’Malley’s guard and throwing vicious elbows that caused referee Herb Dean to stop the fight.
The extent of O’Malley’s injuries are not yet clear, but he was helped out of the arena on a stretcher.
DC retires following decision loss:
That took us to the main event, the trilogy fight between Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier, with the winner likely being regarded as the greatest Heavyweight of all time.
It was a predictably close fight, with both men landing heavy strikes on one another throughout and leaning towards the tactics that gave them their respective victories in this series, Miocic attacking the body of his opponent and Cormier landing his best strikes coming out of close striking and grappling exchanges.
Cormier would finish round one the strongest, rocking Stipe with a right hook coming out of an exchange, Miocic staying on his feet thanks to being up against the cage, meaning that Cormier would not be credited with a knockdown.
Throughout the fight, Miocic would prove to be the more accurate of the two, utilising his ridiculous 7.5-inch reach advantage to execute the jab and leaving Cormier chasing him to get on the inside, tiring him.
Cormier would be saved by the bell in round two, Miocic catching him up against the cage with a series of right hooks that dropped his opponent. Miocic would finish the round in full mount with ‘DC’ sat upright against the cage desperately defending himself, if not for the horn to end the round, this position would have likely spelt the end of the fight if Miocic had the time on the clock to continue to attack Cormier.
This would arguably prove to be the turning point of the fight, as many had ‘DC’ winning the opening round thanks to his late flurry and the significant strikes before Miocic’s knockdown had Cormier on top with a +4 advantage, without the knockdown, it could be argued that Cormier would have won both of the opening rounds, putting him at a huge advantage for the rest of the fight.
Round three would further swing the pendulum in Stipe’s favour as Cormier was clearly still wobbled and looked to take the third round to recover, allowing Miocic to push the tempo and clearly win round three.
Towards the end of the round, however, Cormier would suffer a nasty eye poke while in an exchange with Miocic that he said on his stool at the end of the round and his post-fight interview left him seeing nothing but black in that eye.
Cormier would put up an admirable effort in rounds four and five, but with the injury to his eye, Miocic was able to land with his right hand at a much higher rate and with Cormier’s conditioning fading, Miocic was able to stifle his opponent with clinch work up against the cage to close out the fight and win the trilogy with a unanimous decision.
What’s next?
In terms of the UFC’s next pay-per-view event, after weeks of rumours and speculation, it was finally made official that UFC 253 would be headlined by the grudge match for the UFC Middleweight Championship between champion Isreal Adesanya and Paulo Costa, with both fighters boasting undefeated records.
In the post-fight press conference, Dana White made his intentions clear on the future of the Heavyweight title picture, saying ‘Francis (Ngannou) is definitely next, you can’t jump over Francis. Francis has been out there destroying everybody, and if you look at how long ago it was that he got that title shot, he’s worked his way back, it belongs to Francis Ngannou’.
It will be interesting to see how things pan out in the Heavyweight division as while Dana has made it clear that Miocic’s next challenge will be a rematch with the division’s bogeyman Francis Ngannou, UFC Light Heavyweight champion Jon Jones took to Twitter following the fight to seemingly announce his intentions to move up to the Heavyweight division.
To any fans that would be disappointed for some reason that Jones is not going to be brought up to the Heavyweight division immediately to fight Stipe, it bears repeating that this is not the first time that Jon Jones has openly flirted with the idea of moving to Heavyweight, a fight with Ngannou earlier in the year reportedly falling through due to Jones’s reportedly outrageous financial demands for that fight.
In my opinion, Ngannou is the more deserving opponent, there will likely be no hiccups in the negotiating process that could derail the fight and to many, Jones still owes Dominick Reyes a rematch for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship after a contentious decision decided their first fight.
For ‘DC’, it does indeed look to be the end of the road for the former two-weight champion, saying in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, ‘I’m not interested in fighting for anything but titles and I don’t imagine there’s going to be a title in my future, so that’ll be it for me. I’ve had a long run, it’s been great, I just fought in my last fight for a Heavyweight championship and it was a pretty good fight.’
Full card results:
Main Card
Heavyweight – Stipe Miocic (c) def. Daniel Cormier via Unanimous Decision
Men’s Bantamweight – Marlon Vera def. Sean O’Malley via TKO (Round 1 – 4:40)
Heavyweight – Jairzinho Rozenstruik def. Junior Dos Santos via TKO (Round 1 – 3:47)
Catchweight – Daniel Pineda def. Herbert Burns via TKO (Round 2 – 4:37)
Men’s Bantamweight – Merab Dvalishvili def. John Dodson via Unanimous Decision
Preliminary Card
Lightweight – Vinc Pichel def. Jim Miller via Unanimous Decision
Women’s Strawweight – Virna Jandiroba def. Felice Herrig via Submission (Armbar, Round 1 – 1:44)
Catchweight – Daniel Chavez def. TJ Brown via Unanimous Decision
Women’s Strawweight – Livia Renata Souza def. Ashley Yoder via Unanimous Decision
Early Preliminary Card
Heavyweight – Chris Daukaus def. Parker Porter via TKO (Round 1 – 4:28)
Men’s Featherweight – Kai Kamaka def. Tony Kelley via Unanimous Decision
The Inbound Observer 