A second-round stoppage of Chad Mendes saw Conor McGregor clinch the interim featherweight championship at UFC 189 on Saturday night in what was one of the finest events in the competition’s history.
The co-main event served as a climactic end to the mixed martial arts extravaganza, but wins for Robbie Lawler, Jeremy Stephens and Thomas Almeida ranked as some of the best moments of the main card.
They triumphed over Rory MacDonald, Dennis Bermudez and Brad Pickett, respectively, in a flurry of early stoppages that split opinion as to where the fight night bonuses should be allocated.
Read on for a breakdown of the main card results, along with dissection of the most impressive fights of the night in what will surely be remembered as a historic night for the sport.
Robbie Lawler Defeats Rory MacDonald via TKO
An all-out brawl unfolded between two of the biggest names in the welterweight division on Saturday, with reigning champion Lawler defeating MacDonald in the fifth round with a thundering left punch.
Per ESPN Stats & Info, it was the first time in UFC history that a welterweight bout had ended in the fifth round following 21 minutes of blow-for-blow entertainment:
It was clear early on that MacDonald had suffered a broken nose, but Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com referenced the loser’s trainer Firas Zahabi as saying after the bout that his fighter had suffered a broken foot, too:
The defeat will be somewhat difficult for MacDonald to swallow, too, considering he was in the ascendancy for much of the matchup, and Lawler was understandably emotional in his post-fight comments:
Both fighters received $50,000 bonuses for their Fight of the Night display, but it speaks volumes of the collision’s quality that neither fighter suffered a drop in reputation from such a classic UFC showcase.
Jeremy Stephens Defeats Dennis Bermudez via TKO
Stephens inflicted one of two flying-knee finishes at the MGM Grand to bounce back from two successive defeats in 2014, finishing Bermudez early in the third round of their encounter.
Prior to the meeting between MacDonald and Lawler, this matchup was on track to claim Fight of the Night, and MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn was by no means overstated in describing the bout as “incredible”:
Dropping weight was an obstacle for Stephens, however, meaning the bonus award may not have been awarded in any case:
But that shouldn’t take away from the pedigree of the contest itself, where Bermudez fell to a piece of flash-in-the-pan brilliance that could have caught him even if Stephens had made weight.
Thomas Almeida Defeats Brad Pickett via KO
Sao Paulo native Almeida is well on track to becoming a major force in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and an innovative outing against Pickett once again showed the youngster’s class.
ESPN’s Darren Rovell compared the all-action nature of the Brazilian’s approach to the lacklustre entertainment value sometimes seen among the elite of the boxing world:
At 23 years of age and unbeaten after 20 fights, Almeida is swiftly carving up a path as one of the most promising bantamweights in the world, boasting a vicious knockout potential.
Alongside McGregor, his display was good enough to earn a Performance of the Night bonus, just reward for a flying knee that stopped Pickett early in the second round, as well as showing off an admirable gluttony for punishment.
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