Renan Barao came into his UFC bout as the interim bantamweight champion and was able to leave with exactly the same title next to his name after a telling victory over Michael McDonald.
Tom Watson too earned himself a huge victory against Stanislav Nedkov when it looked like the latter of those two would cruise to an easy win this weekend.
Both came away from UFC on Fuel TV 7 as huge winners on the night and will no doubt take plenty away from their respective bouts. But who else were the big winners from an epic night in London?
Read on to find out.
Tom Watson
We start with Watson here, who did incredibly well to come back from a crushing first-round to record a key victory in the second round against Stanislav Nedkov.
The Brit looked for all money like he would lose this fight, but showed great heart and determination to will his way back into the contest—and then to take the result.
True grit from Watson no doubt made him a big winner on the night.
Renan Barao
Barao did everything he needed to do in this fight—beat Michael McDonald and set himself up for a key fight against Dominick Cruz sometime in the future.
His victory here in a dominant performance showed that he is without doubt the bantamweight division’s best fighter at the moment, and he could well turn out to be a huge threat to Cruz’s title chances when the pair eventually clash.
He was patient in this one and endured some difficult strikes from his opponent but was too strong in the end—capping off a very clinical fight with a great arm-triangle choke midway through the fourth round.
Jimi Manuwa
Jimi Manuwa was the only other fighter to stop his opponent in their UFC fight this weekend, but it was the complete game that the Englishman showed in his fight against Cyrille Diabate that made him a real big winner on the night.
Manuwa showed off his prolific striking ability once more with some clean punches but also achieved several effective takedowns as well—one of which seemingly injured the Frenchman and handed Manuwa the fight in the end.
If he can continue to develop his game to become a more complete fighter, like he showed in just one round tonight, Manuwa will certainly progress to even greater heights and become an even tougher fighter to defeat.
Who were the big winners for you from UFC on Fuel TV 7?
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