UFC248: The good, the bad and the ugly of mixed martial arts.

March 7th 2020 in front of over 15,000 fans in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, will go down in UFC and mixed martial arts history for a multitude things. However for me, one of things it will stand out for is displaying the good, the bad and ugly of what this ever changing sport can offer and this was rolled into just two fights in the main and co main event.

UFC248 will be talked about for years to come for many differing reasons. This event saw two intriguing championship fights being contested in the main and co main event. The main event saw the middleweight champion Israel Adesanya defend his title against Yoel Romero and the co main event saw the woman’s strawweight champion Zhang Weili defend her title against former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk.

Both championship fights were extremely intriguing with the champions being slight favourites but the challengers both having their fair share of people predicting a win and expecting a new champion to be crowned. Needless to say it had everyone waiting in eager anticipation of what’s to come.

THE GOOD

The co main even was up first for the woman’s strawweight title. The build up to this fight saw plenty of trash talk, mainly and predictably from Joanna, however, Zhang, showed no signs of intimidation and even with her limited English had her fair share of things to say.

Although both fighters were very capable on the ground, there were both known to be strikers and we were expecting them to throw down and strike.

For what its worth, these two female warriors did not disappoint. From the opening bell they both went at it, neither wanted to take a back step and literally went blow for blow.  We were gripped, enthralled, scared, intrigued and thoroughly entertained. Watching the fight you couldn’t help to shout, scream, wince, be on the edge of your seat, watch through your fingers but couldn’t look away.

The fight was extremely tight, I felt Zhang just shaded it and won the fight. Some may have disagreed but as the challenger, you have to take the title from the champion and I don’t think Joanna did enough to take the title. However, I wouldn’t have been mad if they scored it a draw, it really was that close and it was harsh for anyone to have to lose.

It’s really no exaggeration to say that this fight was the greatest female fight ever in UFC history and has a place in the list of the greatest ever fights in the UFC period. It was an instant, bruising classic where we saw two courageous warriors literally lay it all on the line. The heart, determination and chin displayed by both females was legendary and they both deserved two bonuses.

THE BAD

The main event was equally intriguing. The champion Adesanya in his short time with the UFC had already given us some legendary fights and moments with his meteoric rise to the middleweight title.

In his last three fights he defeated the legendary Anderson Silva via points, beat Kevin Gastelum in the 2019 fight of the year, five round all out brawl for the interim belt and then stopped the tough, durable former champ Robert Whittaker in two rounds to win the undisputed middleweight title.

It was said that Adesanya asked for Romero, a freak of nature who nobody was rushing to fight. Romero had lost his last two fights via unanimous points to Paulo Costa and via split decision to Robert Whittaker but his KO’s of Luke Rockhold before that and Chris Weidman before that told you he was not a fighter to take lightly.

Romero had two previously opportunities to fight for a middleweight title, the first time he lost to Whittaker via points in 2013, then in 2018 where he knocked out Rockhold but he missed weight so was ineligible to win the title.

With all that said, everyone was looking forward to this intriguing looking bout. But unfortunately, it did not live up to the fans expectations the whole fight was a display of postering, posing, anticipating and both fighters being overcautious. There was very little action in the entire fight, the crowd boo’d constantly throughout.

Adesanya did most of the damage with leg kicks and manage to stay out of range for most of the five rounds.

I can remember Romero landing with an over hand right in the first round, one hook in the fourth I think and another in the fifth and that was literally it.

I’m sure it didnt help that it came after the epic woman’s strawweight fight but no matter what fight this would have followed it would have stunk the place out.

To put it into perspective. In the Zhang v Joanna fight, there was a total of 366 strikes landed in the five rounds. In the Adesanya v Romero fight, there was a total of just 88 strikes landed. With the most landed in one round was 12 by Adesanya in both the 3rd and the fifth and the least landed was just 2 by Adesanya in the first round.

THE UGLY

In the co main event between Zhang and Joanna, from about the third round, you could see a huge haematoma on the fight side of Joanna’s forehead I believe was caused by a Zhang elbow and it just grew and grew as the seconds ticked by. With every blow, you couldn’t help to wince as the swell ballooned in size.

By the end fo the fight the swelling had covered half of Joanna’s face to the point where she was unrecognisable to the person who entered the octagon. In her post fight interview she tried to cover it with her flag and you could see how self conscious she was of it and rightly so.

It really was a horrific looking injury and many took to social media which sparked a multitude of insensitive meme’s which could have been seen as disrespectful to a warrior who laid it on the line and entertained the fans. However, It did cause a her comrades to jump to her defence to condemn all the meme’s and pictures that flooded social media.

At the ending bell of the main event that both Adesanya and Romero will want to forget, both fighters squared up to each other shouting nose to nose before being separated by the referee. Joe Rogan commentated it was the most action both did in the entire fight.

In the post fight interview, Adesanya was honest enough to acknowledge the poor spectacle, but showed no remorse, saying he did what he had to do then urged the fans to look at Romero’s leg that he “fucked up”.

Romero was spitting venom in his interview blaming Adesanya’s failure to fight. He accused Adesanya of running, called him not a true champion, as he was expecting to stand in the middle as warriors and fight.

All in all it was another memorable UFC event that will no doubt go down in history, but for contrasting reasons. It’s what makes the UFC and mixed martial arts so intriguing, you just never know what you’ll get…..