The Real Winners and Losers from UFC Fight Night 197
If you thought it felt different, you were right.
Though it was another in a line of weekly Fight Night shows before few fans at the UFC's Apex facility in Las Vegas, the Saturday edition this time around had a bit more star power.
Featherweight Max Holloway, listed in single digits on the promotion's pound-for-pound list and a pay-per-view commodity in each of his last 10 fights dating back to 2015, was on the premium cable main-event marquee for a date with third-ranked 145-pounder Yair Rodriguez.
Their match topped a card that featured a handful of other ranked fighters as well as a recent title-fight challenger among its other 10 bouts.
Brendan Fitzgerald, Michael Bisping and Paul Felder had the announce-table call for ESPN, which went live at 1 p.m. and carried on through the main event's conclusion at 7 p.m.
The B/R combat sports team was in place for the special Saturday show and took it all in while assembling a definitive list of winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and let us know what you think with a thought or two of your own in the comments section.
Make no mistake, Holloway has done more than 99.9 percent of UFC fighters.
Still, he remains as willing as any to get in the trenches.
The 29-year-old Hawaiian was damaged by hard kicks to his left calf and bloodied over his right eye thanks to a deep and jagged cut, but it didn't deter him from getting down and dirty to secure a narrow but clear decision over Rodriguez in their violent five-rounder.
The scores were 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47, all in Holloway's favor.
The B/R card was also 49-46 in the direction of Holloway, who scored a career-best three takedowns and landed 143 significant strikes to the head of Rodriguez, who was cut and swollen around both eyes and had a sickeningly swollen left foot thanks to the frequency of his kicks.
Both fighters were taken to a local hospital after leaving the Octagon.
"You can hit Max with a sledgehammer and he's gonna walk forward and hit you with a six-piece combo," Felder said. "Even if you don't understand the rules, that was a fight you had to enjoy.
"I'm trying to think of the last time Max has shown this much damage after a fight."
It was the first fight in two years for Rodriguez, who entered as the No. 3 featherweight contender and threw 79 strikes in the opening round, landing 37 of them and setting a tone of damage to his foe's legs.
Holloway became the aggressor in the second and drove his man backward with punches, a theme he continued over the balance of the fight while mixing in more ground work than usual, probably to avoid the uncharacteristic attacks that Rodriguez was delivering.
The ex-champion landed more shots in each of the subsequent rounds and punished Rodriguez on the ground, too, but the Mexican answered back with submission tries and flying strikes.
"Max is an amazing fighter," Rodriguez said. "He was better than me tonight."
If you like one-shot knockouts, it was exactly the ending you sought.
But Miguel Baeza wasn’t quite so pleased.
The Florida-based welterweight won the second round with increasingly effective use of calf kicks to the left leg of opponent Khaos Williams, and began the third round with a similar game plan.
He landed two straight shots to the target at the end of the final session’s first minute, but the second of them left him open to return fire from a foe only too happy to throw potentially decisive punches.
Williams landed one of those—in the form of a hard right hand—as Baeza pulled back from the second leg kick, and it instantly left the once-beaten 29-year-old flat on his back as Williams pounced.
A quick follow-up brought a quick hook from referee Chris Tognoni, who declared the combat over at 1:02 of the third even as Baeza signaled his disagreement.
“I was waiting for this. I was counted out before I got in here, but I’m used to it,” said Williams, who arrived as a +125 underdog. “But I’m battle tested. I just battled through it and did what I had to do.”
Julio Arce was saying all the right things.
He spent much of a non-combative first round reading ranked bantamweight opponent Song Yadong, and went back to his corner saying he'd go ahead and step on the gas when the second round began.
But instead of accelerating his chances at a win, the turbo-charged approach backfired.
Arce's decision to engage put him directly into the line of fire of his aggressive Chinese foe and specifically a high kick to the head that brought and end to things soon after at 1:35 of the second.
Yadong's shin made unimpeded contact with the left side of Arce's head, leaving the 32-year-old New Yorker stiff-legged and in the path for a follow-up right hand that drove him backward to the cage.
A follow-up fusillade rendered Arce unable to defend himself and prompted an intervention from Herb Dean.
It was Yadong's seventh win in nine UFC fights alongside a loss and a draw.
"I was on the hunt," he said menacingly. "I was looking for opportunities to knock him out."
It wasn't as if underdogs weren't winning.
In fact, of the five fights on the main card, the betting favorites lost two of them.
But if you went into Saturday afternoon thinking an underdog would provide a significant financial uptick, you thought wrong.
Heavyweight Marcos Rogerio de Lima and aforementioned welterweight Williams paid off on their plus-money tickets, each winning by TKO in the second and fourth headline fights, respectively.
"I knew it was a tough fight, but I've been training hard," said Lima, who went off as a +135 pick and dusted heavyweight Ben Rothwell in just 32 seconds of the co-main event.
"I knew that I had speed and I knew that I could strike."
He could indeed, wobbling his mammoth opponent with a long right hand before following up with a brutal onslaught of flailing punches. He had Rothwell on the verge of knockdowns with several subsequent shots and buckled him badly with a right hand that brought Dean to the brink of a wave-off.
Rothwell stumbled forward and grabbed his foe in what looked like a takedown attempt, but Lima didn't pursue an escape and instead let Dean follow through on the intervention.
"I don’t think anyone has done that to Ben," he said.
Among the favorites, Yadong, Holloway and Felicia Spencer paid off, with the latter pounding featherweight foe Leah Latson for all but 35 seconds of a scheduled three-rounder before finally getting a TKO.
A significant pick at -310, Spencer was aggressive from the opening jump and consistently had her opponent up against the cage as she bombarded her with elbows and punches.
Letson was bloodied and exhausted by the end of the first round, but did just enough to keep the fight going in spite of a 227-69 deficit in overall strikes, a 56-17 deficit in significant strikes, a 4-1 deficit in takedowns and an 11:58-1:01 deficit in control time.
Spencer got her down again late in the third and reacted to his corner team's urging to get the referee a reason to stop the fight, which Mark Smith ultimately did at 4:25 of the third.
"I expected a really tough opponent and that’s what I got," Spencer said. "I wasn't surprised by her toughness. I'm always ready for a war. It's been part of my game plan to have intensity and turn it up when I need to to end it."
Overall, bets on the five favorites would have yielded a loss of $90, while wagers on the five underdogs would have incurred a loss of $40.
Ranked lightweight Thiago Moises leaned back on the fence and briefly looked ready to discuss Marc Goddard’s decision to stop his featured prelim bout with Joel Alvarez.
Instead, as blood flowed freely from a cut alongside his left eye, he simply sagged to the floor.
It was the story of the entire prelim card, in fact, which had five of six bouts end in finishes—including four in the first round—as aggressive fighters flexed their offensive muscles.
Four finishes came by TKOs. Another ended via guillotine choke.
Alvarez was the poster boy for that quick-strike approach and secured his 19th victory, and 19th finish, since he turned professional in 2013. He landed 44 strikes on Moises, included several with punishing elbows, and dismantled an opponent who’d arrived at No. 15 in the division and a -240 favorite.
“That was Joel Alvarez with a master class,” Bisping said.
“He just went out there and destroyed Thiago Moises.”
Moises, who’d arrived with four wins in seven UFC fights, landed just 11 strikes before he was humanely rescued by Goddard at 3:01 of the first.
The previously unranked Alvarez has now won four of five in the UFC since arriving in 2019.
“I’ve always said I was a striker. I’m here to strike,” he said. “I’ll take anybody, because any one of them can wind up like this.”
Main Card
Max Holloway def. Yair Rodriguez by unanimous decision (49-46, 48-47, 48-47)
Marcos Rogerio de Lima def. Ben Rothwell by TKO (punches), 0:32, Round 1
Felicia Spencer def. Leah Letson by TKO (elbows), 4:25, Round 3
Khaos Williams def. Miguel Baeza by TKO (punch), 1:02, Round 3
Song Yadong def. Julio Arce by TKO (punches), 1:35, Round 2
Preliminary Card
Joel Alvarez def. Thiago Moises by TKO (elbows), 3:01, Round 1
Andrea Lee def. Cynthia Calvillo by TKO (could not continue), 5:00, Round 2
Sean Woodson def. Collin Anglin by TKO (punches), 4:30, Round 1
Cortney Casey def. Liana Jojua by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Rafael Alves def. Marc Diakiese by submission (guillotine choke), 1:48, Round 1
Da-Un Jung def. Kennedy Nzechukwu by TKO (elbows), 3:04, Round 1
