A look at the main card from the first UFC card of 2023.
You might not agree with some of the things Sean Strickland says, but you have to give it up for him as a fighter. Less than a month after suffering a controversial split decision loss to Jared Cannonier, he jumped right back into a five-rounder as a late replacement against a dangerous prospect – and he won. You can talk about the weight difference (the fight took place at 205 and he outweighed Nassourdine Imamov by 10 pounds on the scale), but he did what he had to do to get a huge W.
Was the fight amazing? Not really. It was tactical and Imamov was competitive. The fight stats seemed a bit strange to me because I didn’t see Imamov landing as much as the numbers indicated. But Strickland mixed it up between landing at range and clinching to stay out of danger effectively. It was a good win for him. And a large setback for Imamov, but you can throw an asterisk on that with the late opponent change and the weight difference.
- As a fight fan, it’s hard to not like Dan Ige. He always brings it, and while he doesn’t always come away with the win, you feel like you watched something fun. This was another example of that, at least to me. He came out and dropped Damon Jackson pretty much immediately, and then sort of just let him up. Jackson wanted the takedown after that, but he also countered well enough to not get stung again. For a bit. Until Ige cuts him with a stiff shot and Jackson gets compromised. And then gets destroyed with a perfectly-timed uppercut. Pretty as hell.
- The rest of the main card was decent. Umar Nurmagomedov proved his burgeoning contender status by turning Raoni Barcelos’ lights out inside around with a deadly late in the first. I’m still not sure what Raquel Pennington did to earn a split decision victory over Ketlen Vieira when it seemed that Vieira took the first and third, but go judging. And Roman Kopylov picked up the biggest win over his career by taking out hard-hitter Puna Soriano after a wild but sloppy eight minutes or so. Soriano’s body was his weakness, and that’s the way he went out. Liver kick stunned him, then the beat down. It always keeps me out how a person’s body short circuits like that.
Preliminary Card
Javid Basharat defeated Mateus Mendonca via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
Abdul Razak Alhassan defeated Claudio Ribeiro via KO (punch), :28 of round 2
Mateusz Rebecki defeated Nick Fiore via unanimous decision (30-26, 30-27, 30-27)
Allan Nascimento defeated Carlos Hernandez via submission (rear naked choke), 3:16 of round 1
Daniel Argueta defeated Nick Aguirre via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Charles Johnson defeated Jimmy Flick via TKO (strikes), 4:33 of round 1