If you thought the only weird thing about UFC 208 was that the promotion planned a big event for Brooklyn, New York, in the dead of winter, you have only begun to scratch the surface of this card’s weirdness.
When Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie met in Saturday’s main event, it was for the inaugural UFC women’s featherweight title. That’s a brain teaser, because the best fighter in women’s MMA and maybe any other MMA—Cris “Cyborg” Justino—makes her home at this weight class.
But she wasn’t involved in this, thanks in large part to her drug-test troubles, though this booking predates that. Holm and de Randamie are both excellent, likable competitors, but Justino hangs over the division like an unfinished thought balloon.
At the same time she was competing for this title, Holm was attempting to avoid becoming the Buster Douglas of MMA. Harsh, perhaps, but true. If she didn’t want to go down in history as the fighter who de-pedestaled Ronda Rousey but didn’t do much else, she had to beat de Randamie.
And then there was Anderson Silva. Descending like an ace hostage negotiator, Silva was enlisted to enliven a lackluster pay-per-view event. At 41 years old, this may be the Spider’s last credible chance to do that, as he took on wrestle-boxer Derek Brunson in the co-main event.
So the main and co-main had their share of strangeness, and that was only the beginning. UFC 208 was undoubtedly an odd duck—up and down the 11-fight slate and even a little beyond.
At the Barclay’s Center, maybe even more than normal, the final stat lines didn’t reveal everything. These are the real winners and losers from UFC 208.
Full results appear at the end.