UFC 259 went down last night (Sat., March 6, 2021) inside UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada, providing combat fans with an exciting night of fights. In the main event of the evening, Jan Blachowicz retained his Light Heavyweight title by defeating Israel Adesanya via unanimous decision (see it again here). In the co-headlining act, Amanda Nunes absolutely dominated Megan Anderson to score a first round knockout win (video replay here). In further action, Aljamain Sterling became the new Bantamweight champion after Petr Yan was disqualified for an illegal strike that left “Funkmaster” unable to continue (highlights).
Biggest Winner: Amanda Nunes
Nunes further cemented her status as the greatest female mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter of all time with an effortless finish over Anderson just two minutes into the fight. Bottom line: there simply isn’t anyone who can touch “Lioness” at the moment … at Bantamweight or Featherweight. Speaking of which, with her win over Anderson, Nunes may have put the final nail in the coffin in the 145-pound weight class because there simply isn’t anyone left to challenge her. She now has 12 straight wins, two title defenses at 145 pounds and five at 135 pounds. There likely will never be another female fighter who will get close to accomplishing that. And the scary part is that Nunes isn’t done just yet. While there may not be anyone who can challenge her at any division, for now, Nunes will keep chugging along, keep taking fights and keep collecting paychecks. It’s good to be a dominant champ.
Runner Up: Jan Blachowicz
Blachowicz picked up a huge win by taking out Middleweight kingpin, Israel Adesanya, after 25 minutes of hard-fought action. In doing so, the Polish bruiser earned his first-ever Light Heavyweight title defense, fifth straight win and handed “The Last Stylebender” his first-ever MMA defeat. While the win wasn’t so impressive that it could’ve convinced Jon Jones to drop back down to attempt to reclaim his strap, it was still a great performance that ultimately prevented Adesanya from achieving “champ-champ” status. Jan can now look ahead to his second title defense against a true 205-pounder in Glover Teixeira.
Runner Up: Islam Makhachev
You can chalk up another win for Makhachev after he submitted Drew Dober with an impressive arm-triangle choke in the third and final round to earn his seventh straight win, putting him at eight of nine overall inside the Octagon. A training partner of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s, Makhachev is following in the direct steps of the dominant Lightweight champion after drawing numerous comparisons to him because of their similar and dominant fighting styles. “The Eagle” himself predicted that his training partner would be running the 155-pound weight class soon. And while Islam still has a way to get there, he is doing all of the right things to do so, and putting the entire Lightweight division on notice in the process. We can expect bigger fights for Makhachev moving forward, assuming no one turns him down.
Biggest Loser: Petr Yan
Yan was looking great in his first-ever title defense against Sterling before he unfortunately landed an illegal (and powerful) knee that put an end to the fight in rather anti-climactic fashion. As a result, Yan loses his belt and took somewhat of a hit to his reputation in the eyes of many due to the blatant nature of the strike. While there is still major controversy surrounding the strike due to the leaked audio of the directions Yan’s corner gave to him and how he interpreted it, the fact of the matter is the blow was illegal. Yan is no longer the champion and will now have to fight Sterling once more, this time as the challenger.
For complete UFC 259 results and coverage click here.