Author: Anton Tabuena

This is UFC 266 in a few short tweets!

UFC 266 is in the books, and it saw two impressive and successful title defenses, along with a pretty entertaining senior-circuit bout between Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler. The fan favorites may have been clearly past their prime, but they still put on a fun contest while it lasted.

Alexander Volkanovski won majority of the exchanges throughout 25 minutes against Brian Ortega. Although he also had to dig deep to survive some pretty deep guillotine and triangle chokes, in what was probably the best round ever for a championship fight.

In the co-main event, Valentina Shevchenko continued her string of dominance, as she completely picked apart and shut down Lauren Murphy’s game. That check hook was a thing of beauty, and she landed it constantly until that final knock down.

Here’s a quick twitter thread with a brief recap and analysis of the event, that’s fitting for people’s social media era attention spans:

And that’s about it. For more social media musings, follow me on twitter over at @antontabuena, and of course you should do that for Bloody Elbow’s official twitter account as well.

Watch video from the UFC 266 co-main event.

The co-main event of UFC 266, and the first of two championship bouts was a flyweight title bout between Valentina Shevchenko and Lauren Murphy. Murphy had an impressive run at 38-years-old to earn her shot, but Shevchenko has been a dominant force in the division.

The speed, athleticism and technique gap was evident from the get go. Shevchenko dominated and Murphy just had nothing to offer. I’m curious how many 10-8 rounds were scored before the finish.

Watch video from the bout below, along with a snippet from our play-by-play of the contest:

Valentina Shevchenko vs. Lauren Murphy, Round 4

Murphy is trying to stay outside and fight at range, but Shevchenko is just lighting her up. Head/body 3-step combo from Shevchenko. Oh she hurt Lauren with a counter check hook and got her to wobble! Valentina took her down and looked for the finish but Murphy persevered! Well she did until Valentina passed her guard into mount and beat the dog out of her! The ref stepped in, mercifully, and Shevchenko just added to her mystique. WOW.

.Valentina Shevchenko defeated Lauren Murphy via TKO (strikes), 4:00 of round 4

Watch footage from Nick Diaz vs Robbie Lawler.

Perhaps the biggest draw and unofficial main event of UFC 266 was the rematch between Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler. The Stockton-native won their first fight by knockout all the way back in 2004. The rematch 17 years later wasn’t quite the same. It was fairly competitive and actually really entertaining for the most part, despite both men looking clearly past their prime.

Diaz slowed down and eventually was clipped by Lawler. He then refused to get back up and lost by TKO.

Watch video from the bout below, along with a snippet from our play-by-play of the contest:

Nick Diaz vs. Robbie Lawler (!), Round 2

Lawler closes the distance and lands the hands and some knees. He touches Nick up, but he’s faing it. They straight up brale! Nick walks away but it’sjust to reset. Nick is throwing the kitchen sink at him but Robbie’s in control. For now. Body shot, damn. Robbie just walks right through it and stays in his face. He’s landing more now. Diaz, for the first time in his career, looks overwhlemed. Lawler unloads in the final minute. They trade. Body shot and Nick looks hurt! 10-9 Lawler.

Nick Diaz vs. Robbie Lawler, Round 3

Lawler is on fire right away. Whoa, Robbie drops him! And back off, willing him to his feet! But Diaz wouldn’t! IT’S OVER! WOW. Not the best way to go out, but Diaz gonna Diaz. He did get effin tagged by that left.

Robbie Lawler defeated Nick Diaz, TKO (strikes), :44 of round 3

Watch the full video of Nick Diaz vs Robbie Lawler.

UFC 266 marks the second bout between Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler, with their original contest happening all the way back at UFC 47 in 2004. To give an idea of how long ago that was, and what the landscape was back then, that PPV was an event headlined by the first ever fight between Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz.

Diaz was able to knock out Lawler in the second round of that contest, and both men have had stellar careers since both in and out of the UFC. Diaz went on to become a Strikeforce champion and huge UFC star, while Lawler had a much rockier stint in Strikeforce before turning a page and eventually becoming UFC champion from 2014-2016.

Watch the full fight on the YouTube embed above, and get hyped for the rematch that is 17 years in the making.

When they first fought, Lawler was 22 and Diaz was not even 21. Lawler had 9 fights, while Diaz had 11. Heading into this rematch, Lawler is now 39 with 44 pro bouts to his name, while Diaz is 38 with 37 fights.

Dana White reacts to Jon Jones’ latest arrest.

Jon Jones was honored in the UFC Hall-of-Fame for his classic bout against Alexander Gustafsson. He also revealed that UFC negotiations are finally going well, and he’s optimistic that his heavyweight debut will be finalized soon.

Just as things seem to have been looking up for the decorated former champion, Jones got himself in trouble and has been arrested, again. Just a few hours after the Hall-of-Fame ceremony in Las Vegas, Jones was arrested and charged with “battery domestic violence” and “injuring and tampering with a vehicle.”

Dana White, who has dealt with a fair share of Jones’ legal and professional issues, said this was par for the course when the former champion and Vegas are involved.

“Let’s see how this plays out legally for him, and where this ends up going,” White told the assembled media. “It’s hard to bring this guy to Las Vegas for any reason.

“This city is not good for Jon Jones, and here we are again. It’s not even shocking anymore. When we bring him here, it’s almost expected. You can’t even get him to Las Vegas for less than 12 hours to induct him into the hall-of-fame. It’s a problem.

“The guy has a lot of demons, man, a lot of demons,” White said.

“Is it really shocking anymore? It’s really not. It’s become not shocking. It’s almost like ‘uh oh, he’s in Vegas again, what’s gonna happen today?’ You want to hope that the guy is better, and that won’t be the case, but he proves every time he comes to this town that he can’t handle this place.”

Jones has been arrested multiple times before, including a 2012 DWI arrest, a 2015 hit-and-run on a pregnant woman, a 2019 battery charge in a strip club, and another 2020 arrest for DWI and negligent use of a firearm.

Interestingly enough, those arrests happened in New Mexico where he currently lives, and one in New York where he grew up. With the way White describes things though, he’s seemingly implying that there were much more issues that just didn’t lead to arrests or became public.

Jones fought eight times in Las Vegas during his career. Apart from his legal issues, he also had four UFC events mired with drug testing controversies and was stripped of his light heavyweight title on three separate occassions.

Can Nick Diaz get his first win in a decade?

UFC 266 will mark Nick Diaz’s return from competition after spending almost seven years in the sidelines. He will take on a man he already beat 17(!) years ago in Robbie Lawler, but the former welterweight champion has been far more active as of late.

Many are curious about how the longtime fan-favorite would look on his return, but some are already getting worried for Diaz’s chances after seeing a recent shadowboxing video.

There are much more in the replies, but here are some of the reactions:

It’s obviously not fair to jump to conclusions or judge speed and technique over a promotional video, as opposed to actual training, but Diaz admittedly does not look good here. Even just physically, he looks far from his past self. And if we add in how they suddenly asked to bump the fight up from welterweight to middleweight just days before weigh-ins, and it’s understandable why people are reacting that way.

Even without seeing this though, there’s always been more than enough reason to be concerned about Diaz’s return.

Now 38, the elder Diaz brother hasn’t won a fight in a decade. Before going back to a healthier lifestyle for this return, he also had a long worrying stretch of getting “out of control” just drinking and partying in Las Vegas.

Diaz also recently expressed how he doesn’t even enjoy fighting. He said he had “a lot of resentment towards the sport for taking so much from me, but not giving anything back.”