Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) staged UFC Vegas 6 last night (Sat., Aug. 8, 2020) from inside UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada. In the main event, Derrick Lewis scored his record-setting eleventh knockout win in the Heavyweight division by knocking out Aleksei Oleinik in devastating fashion (see it again here). In the co-headlining act, former Middleweight champion, Chris Weidman, defeat Omari Akhmedov via unanimous decision, ending his two-fight losing streak in the process (recap).
Biggest Winner: Derrick Lewis
Not only did “Black Beast” set a record for scoring 11 knockouts inside the Octagon in the 265-pound weight class, he inched closer to a shot at the Heavyweight title. With his third straight win, Lewis likely set himself up for a huge title eliminator fight against Curtis Blaydes, a man who has claimed many times before that Lewis has been avoiding fight between them. Since Francis Ngannou will fight for the title next, it makes perfect sense for UFC to make this fight next. Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic will fight one more time next weekend (Sat., Aug,. 15, 2020) at UFC 252, so that means Francis will likely fight for the strap by years end. There is no way Lewis will want to wait that long just to see if he’s next, so he can punch his ticket to another title fight if he defeats Blaydes.
Runner Up: Chris Weidman
“All American” ended his two fight skid and avoided losing six of his last seven by defeating a streaking Amir via unanimous decision. It wasn’t easy by any means, but Weidman earned himself some breathing room because a third straight defeat would have left him in no-man’s land. For now, Chris can breathe easy knowing that he will live to fight another day inside the Octagon. He still has a ton of work to do and road to cover if he ever wants to get closing to sniffing a title shot, but a win was huge here. It may not have been the most exciting performance from the ex-champion, but at this point getting the “W” is the only thing that mattered for “All American.”
Biggest Loser: Omari Akhmedov
Omari was looking to make a big leap and perhaps get over the hump into the Top 10 by taking out former 185-pound champion, Chris Weidman. In doing so, “Wolverine” would earn himself his sixth straight win in a crowded division. Unfortunately, Akhmedov could not come up clutch in his biggest opportunity to date, losing to “All American” after 15 minutes of action and getting sent back to the drawing board. Now he will have to start from scratch and hope the loss doesn’t knock him down more than one peg in the 185 pound rankings. It’s fights like these that are must-wins for contenders looking for their big breakthrough, and unfortunately “Wolverine” simply couldn’t capitalize on it.
For complete UFC Vegas 6 results and coverage click here.