It was the biggest UFC event ever held in England, with gates broken at Manchester’s new Co-op Live Arena.
However, many were baffled at the fight start times, which catered to the American audience, causing the fighters to fight at unusual times in the early hours of Sunday morning.
This could have been a factor in 9 of the 14 fights going the distance and not much competition for the fight of the night. However, the event still provided some drama, with some big questions answered.
TOP PERFORMER: PADDY PIMBLETT
With the pressure of fighting in his home country, near his home city with his home fans. The pressure of having to entertain, plus facing a ranked opponent.
Pimblett passed with flying colours. In his toughest assignment to date, it was his best performance in his now 6-0 UFC career.
Transferring from the defence in a takedown to an instant attack to lock in the triangle choke. Then when Green was fighting it, he turned and locked it in to put Green out and claim a fourth performance of the night in his six UFC fights.
TOP PERFORMER 2: TOM ASPINALL
The interim UFC heavyweight has now stopped his last five opponents in the first round.
He avenged his one loss in the UFC due to a knee injury. That defeat to Blaydes in 2022 was also his only loss since 2016, and you can see why as he came out to blitz Blaydes with a lovely, quick left and overhand right.
This sent Blaydes to the canvass. Aspinall followed it up to deliver a few clubbing rights to Blaydes face down on the canvas to force the ref to stop the fight.
TOP PERFORMER 3: BILAL MUHAMMAD
Although it wasn’t a fight to write home about, you still have to give credit to Bilal for becoming the new welterweight champion.
Four years after his no-contest match with Edwards, he went into enemy territory, and although all the pressure was on Leon, Bilal had to battle against a partizan crowd to stretch his winning streak to 10 fights.
It was a masterful performance, outstriking Leon to the head and taking him down nine times in a dominant victory to claim the welterweight belt.
Honourable mentions
Mick Parkin lit up the prelims with a devastating first-round knockout of Tukasz Brzeski. It started with a heavy overhand right that rocked his opponent. He then wasted no time to follow with several left and right shots to drop Brzeski, calling a halt to proceedings.
Bruna Brazil impressed in her unanimous points victory over home town hero Molly McCann. Coming into this fight with a UFC record of 1-2, you were expecting McCann, being roared on by the home town, to overwhelm her. But she showed tremendous movement, composure and accurate striking throughout to claim a comfortable win.
