Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
There were no losers in the main event of UFC Vegas 14
Paul Felder might have walked away with a second straight loss on his record, but anyone who saw his five-round lightweight fight opposite Rafael dos Anjos at the top of last night’s UFC Vegas 14 fight card would be hard pressed to call Felder a loser. As for the former 155-pound champion, dos Anjos stamped his pass back to the list of lightweight title contenders with a clinical victory.
There were two major concerns regarding this matchup. The first, how would Felder perform with less than a weeks’ notice to face the former lightweight titleholder? The second? How would dos Anjos look in his return to a weight division he had not competed at since a decision loss to Tony Ferguson in November 2016.
Felder and dos Anjos answered those questions early in the fight and the two competitors were rewarded for their efforts at the end of the evening when they took home well deserved “Fight of the Night” bonuses.
After the fight, Felder—who had flirted with retirement—said his career was not over.
“I can tell you guys with certainty, I’m not going anywhere right now,” Felder told UFC commentator Michael Bisping during his post-fight interview. “I lost my passion for this sport pretty bad. I can tell you I’m not done. I might lose my ranking a little bit, but what I’ve learned in this sport is none of that matters. What matters is going out there, showing up, showing who you are inside and what determination you have.”
As for the former champ, who was unranked at lightweight before his split-decision win over Felder, dos Anjos put his sites on a fight he missed out on in 2016.
“Khabib (Nurmagomedov) leaving the division, I think it will leave the division wide open,” dos Anjos said after the event. “If you look at the rankings, we have three former interim champions: Tony (Ferguson), (Justin) Gaethje and Dustin Poirier. The only two real champs in that division are me and Conor. We were scheduled to fight twice. If the champ leaves the division, why not (book me vs. McGregor)?”
McGregor is expected to face Poirier in January, but he replied to dos Anjos via social media, saying he was “in for sure.”
The UFC’s lightweight division, which was already an elite division before Saturday night, just got a lot more interesting after dos Anjos’ win over Felder.
Below are the final fight stats for the main event of UFC Vegas 13.