In what was only the UFC’s second pay-per-view with fans back in full force, a pair of big losses threatened to take away from the anticipation that had built up around this event as the featured prelim between Jack Hermansson and Edmen Shahbazyan was moved to the following week’s Fight Night event due to a positive COVID test in Hermansson’s camp.
In addition, what was meant to be the co-main event of this event, the first non-title, non-main event bout to be contested over five rounds between Leon Edwards and Nate Diaz was postponed to UFC 263 after an injury to Stockton’s favourite son.
With plenty of hype to live up to and a frenzied crowd in Houston to entertain, the UFC typically delivered.
Lee hunts down ‘La Pantera’:
The opening bout of the night was a Women’s Flyweight bout between number eleven ranked Andrea ‘KGB’ Lee and number twelve ranked Antonina ‘La Pantera’ Shevchenko.
The first round played out mostly on the feet, with Lee trying to keep pace with the credentialed Muay Thai of Shevchenko, and it looked as if the boxing of Lee was paying dividends as she was able to enter and exit striking exchanges well, landing effective combinations and pushing the pace, leaving ‘La Pantera’ trying to counter her American adversary or disrupt her momentum, usually with a front kick to the body.
With just over ninety seconds left in the opening frame, Lee would land her biggest shots up to that point, landing a left high kick, followed by a right hand that wobbled Shevchenko.
However, instead of trying to follow up on the feet, Lee would engage the elder Shevchenko sister in a clinch against the cage, eventually securing the body lock and taking her opponent down with an inside trip.
Lee would close out an impressive first round in a positive position on the ground.
The second round would begin with a wild sequence as Lee attempted a spinning backfist, which Antonina attempted to counter by grappling her opponent, but Lee was able to roll, sending Shevchenko to the ground and ending up on top, with Shevchenko in a headlock.
Shevchenko would get to her feet soon after but would almost immediately be sent back down via a judo throw by ‘KGB’.
It was then that Lee would start to pull away in the fight as she landed in side control and immediately looked to put ‘La Pantera’ in a crucifix, leaving her unable to block oncoming ground and pound, but when Shevchenko was able to resist, Lee moved into mount and secured a triangle hold.
Despite the dominant position, the American just didn’t have the angle or the leverage to complete the choke and force Shevchenko to submit, so what followed was an extended period on the ground of Lee landing a host of brutal elbows in the position and trying to find the leverage to either push Antonina’s head down, further into the choke or isolate an arm to attempt a triangle armbar.
With less than ten seconds left in the second round, Lee was able to do the latter and forced the sister of the division’s champion to submit.
‘Jacare’ suffers broken arm in loss to Muniz:
The featured preliminary bout of the night was a Middleweight bout between Andre Muniz and the revered Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza. The matchup was given a little extra fuel on the fire after Muniz claimed that he was a better grappler than the legend.
His claims wouldn’t immediately be backed up as ‘Jacare’ would land a takedown, but Muniz would be seated up against the cage. As ‘Jacare’ tried to pull Muniz away from the cage to initiate his grappling, Muniz would threaten with up-kicks to ward off his opponent.
Muniz would land a pair of takedowns to reverse his fortunes and the finishing sequence would begin with Muniz jumping onto Souza’s back to threaten with a rear-naked-choke.
Muniz was too high on ‘Jacare’s’ back however and the veteran would try to send Muniz over the top to end up in a dominant position on the ground. The arm of ‘Jacare’ would be trapped by Muniz, however and as he tried to move over to the side, he would snap Souza’s arm, causing the immediate stoppage of the bout.
Barboza stops Burgos in fun scrap:
The opener of the main card was a Featherweight clash between number nine ranked Shane Burgos and number thirteen ranked Edson Barboza.
This was Barboza’s third fight at 145lbs after spending the majority of his career at Lightweight and has a reputation as one of the slickest kickboxers in the UFC’s history. Despite this, it was highlighted in the pre-fight introductions that Barboza would likely be at a disadvantage in traditional boxing.
Barboza would begin the fight with repeated leg kicks, and it was clear that they were quickly taking their toll on his opponent as Burgos would start to check and avoid them after some time.
Similarly, to the pre-fight predictions, Burgos would find more success as he moved into close range and landed punches. The American would open up the defence of Barboza with choice body shots and a sharp jab that opened up a cut over the right eye of the Brazilian.
With a minute left in the opening frame, Barboza would almost secure another highlight reel knockout with a spinning heel kick; Burgos would manage to get enough of his block up to shield himself from the complete impact.
In the second round, Barboza would set the tone with a spinning back kick to the body on Burgos, immediately drawing redness from the stomach of the American.
The kicks of both men would be a focal point of the second round as Burgos was able to find success with his calf kick, while Barboza would continue to throw his kicks with venom, to the point where he suffered a cut on his shin.
Barboza would force a peculiar finish in the third round with jab and a right hook that Burgos appeared to shake off, before his body seemingly gave out, stumbling back into the cage and forcing the referee to stop the fight.
Three losses in a row for ‘El Cucuy’:
It would be incredibly difficult for fight fans to find a fighter that had a worse 2020 than Tony Ferguson. At the beginning of the year, it looked as if Ferguson was finally going to get his first opportunity to become the undisputed UFC Lightweight Champion as, for the fifth time, he was booked to face long-time rival Khabib Nurmagomedov at UFC 249.
But after travel restrictions were put in place due to the pandemic, Khabib was stuck in Russia and the fight was cancelled again. Instead of waiting for ‘The Eagle’ to be available, Ferguson elected to put his interim UFC Lightweight Championship on the line against Justin Gaethje.
In a cruel twist, Gaethje would defeat ‘El Cucuy’ to secure his own title shot against Nurmagomedov and after Khabib beat Gaethje, he would announce his retirement.
Then, in his first fight trying to get back to the top of the division, Tony would be dominated by Charles Oliveira, giving the former interim champion a two-fight losing streak after previously winning twelve in a row.
This fight against the surging Beneil Dariush would be extremely telling of Ferguson’s future in the division.
The opening round was a rough one for the frenzied crowd in Houston that was clearly behind ‘El Cucuy’ as Dariush would rush forward, unafraid of Ferguson’s unpredictable striking and he would begin by attacking the back leg of his opponent, before securing a takedown and spending the rest of the round in top position landing ground and pound strikes.
In round two, Dariush would immediately shoot in for a takedown, but Tony would attempt to counter with his favoured D’Arce choke, but the elite jiu-jitsu of his opponent left him without the requisite angle to leverage the choke.
In almost a mirror image of his previous fight against Oliveira, Ferguson would find himself caught in a deep submission after a scramble as Dariush was able to secure a heel hook, leaving Ferguson in agony as he increased the pressure on the hold.
Similarly, to his fight with Oliveira, Ferguson displayed his otherworldly toughness as in the midst of the submission, he would kick at the arms of Dariush to break the hold.
Unfortunately for fans of Ferguson, his toughness would not be the beginning of a comeback as his left leg was clearly compromised, allowing Dariush to slam him to the ground and grind out the rest of the fight on the ground, racking up over ten minutes of ground control time.
Dariush’s efforts would be rewarded with a clean sweep of 30-27 scorecards for a unanimous decision victory.
Oliveira knocks out Chandler in wild comeback:
All that was left to decide was the main event as two men in vastly different stages in their UFC careers went to battle over the vacant UFC Lightweight Championship.
Charles Oliveira was preparing for his twenty-eighth UFC fight, after having mixed results at Featherweight, a move up to Lightweight proved to take ‘Do Bronx’ to the next level, going on an immense winning streak to become the promotion’s best kept secret in a stacked division and also breaking the record for the most submission wins in UFC history.
Conversely, Michael Chandler has spent the majority of his career in Bellator, and this would be only his second fight under the UFC banner after putting a stamp on his debut with a first round knockout of Dan Hooker at UFC 257.
The fight would start with immediate fireworks as Oliveira would begin the fight with a hard leg kick that almost sent Chandler to the ground, but ‘Iron’ Michael would soon respond with a big left hook, forcing ‘Do Bronx’ to shoot in for a takedown in retaliation.
Chandler would attempt to counter the takedown with a guillotine choke and while it looked for a moment that the choke was too deep for Oliveira to escape, he was able to slip his head out and after a scramble, would take Chandler’s back.
Chandler would stand up with Oliveira on his back and throw himself to the ground in an attempt to knock Oliveira off the hold, but the Brazilian was able to maintain the body triangle.
In a wild finish to the opening round, Chandler was able to escape Oliveira on the ground after some hand-fighting and soon after the men got back to their feet, Chandler would again put his punching power on display after a series of stiff shots left his opponent clinging on.
Oliveira would save himself from the onslaught of his American adversary by pulling Chandler down into his guard, with the commentators questioning why Chandler would not try to force Oliveira back to his feet.
For anyone who believed that Oliveira was saved by the bell in the first round, he quickly proved that he would not be left struggling through the remainder of the bout as less than ten seconds into the second round, he would land a big left hook that sent Chandler stumbling towards the cage.
As Oliveira rushed in to pursue the finish, Chandler would try to circle away from the cage to his right, giving ‘Do Bronx’ the perfect window to land another huge left to put Chandler down again, finishing the fight and giving the Brazilian his first piece of UFC gold after over a decade in the promotion.
The emotion of the moment was apparent as Oliveira would celebrate his victory by rushing out of the cage and celebrating around the floor of the arena and thanking UFC president Dana White before finally being presented with the championship.
What’s next?
The UFC’s next pay-per-view offering will be headlined by a pair of championship rematches as Deiveson Figueiredo will defend his UFC Flyweight Championship against Brandon Moreno, in what will hopefully be a repeat of their classic bout from late last year.
In the main event of UFC 263, UFC Middleweight Champion Isreal Adesanya will put his belt on the line against Marvin Vettori, with Vettori claiming that he is the man to crack the puzzle that is the ‘Last Stylebender’ in the Middleweight division, believing that he gave the Nigerian-born champion his toughest test in their previous meeting.
UFC 263 will also feature the aforementioned five-round bout between Leon Edwards and Nate Diaz.
In terms of Oliveira’s first defence as champion, Dana White said in his post-fight press conference that he hadn’t thought about the Brazilian’s first challenger.
But there will be no shortage of exciting fights in the 155lbs division as Justin Gaethje still hasn’t fought since his loss to Khabib, Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor will complete their trilogy at UFC 264 and there is the aforementioned surging Beneil Dariush.
Full Card Results:
Main card
Lightweight – Charles Oliveira def. Michael Chandler via TKO (Round 2 – 0:19)
Lightweight – Beneil Dariush def. Tony Ferguson via Unanimous Decision
Catchweight (137lbs) – Rogerio Bontorin def. Matt Schnell via Unanimous Decision
Women’s Flyweight – Katlyn Chookagian def. Vivianne Araujo via Unanimous Decision
Featherweight – Edson Barboza def. Shane Burgos via KO (Round 3 – 1:16)
Preliminary card
Middleweight – Andre Muniz def. Ronaldo Souza via Technical Submission (Armbar, Round 1 – 3:59)
Featherweight – Lando Vannata def. Mike Grundy via Split Decision
Middleweight – Jordan Wright def. Jamie Pickett via TKO (Round 1 – 1:04)
Women’s Flyweight – Andrea Lee def. Antonina Shevchenko via Submission (Triangle Armbar, Round 2 – 4:52)
Early preliminary card
Women’s Flyweight – Priscila Cachoeira def. Gina Mazany via TKO (Round 2 – 4:51)
Featherweight – Tucker Lutz def. Kevin Aguilar via Unanimous Decision
Lightweight – Christos Giagos def. Sean Soriano via Technical Submission (D’Arce choke, Round 2 – 0:59)
The Inbound Observer 