Tag: UFC 248

Former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk expects Zhang Weili rematch in UFC return

Former UFC champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk is targeting a 2022 return with a rematch against Zhang Weili.

The wheels seem to be turning for a [autotag]Joanna Jedrzejczyk[/autotag] long-awaited octagon return.

The former UFC strawweight champion is targeting a comeback this year and hopes it’s against one of her most memorable rivals – [autotag]Zhang Weili[/autotag]. The initial meeting was Jedrzejczyk’s (16-4 MMA, 10-4 UFC) most recent fight, as they put on the Fight of the Year at UFC 248 in March 2020 at UFC 248, with Weili (21-3 MMA, 5-2 UFC) winning a split decision in the unforgettable contest.

Jedrzejczyk has teased a return in the nearly two years since, but nothing has materialized. Speaking in Polish with Kanal Sportowy, Jedrzejczyk opened up about her plans to return to action in 2022.

“Everyone thinks I’m not in the UFC anymore,” Jedrzejczyk said (translation via Sport.pl). “I am, I just dropped out of the rankings, because I haven’t fought for a dozen or so months. But I’m coming back and fighting (the No. 1 contender). It will probably be Zhang Weili.”

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Jedrzejczyk, 34, last lost four of her past six fights, but all of the defeats were for a championship. The Polish fighter said UFC president Dana White offered her another title opportunity next, but she didn’t want to wait until late in the year to challenge the winner of Rose Namajunas vs. Carla Esparza.

The UFC has yet to officially book the strawweight title fight, but White already announced that Esparza will be the next challenger for champion Namajunas.

“I thought it might be Carla Esparza, but (it’s) confirmed that she is the next to fight the championship,” Jedrzejczyk said. “Somewhere there is (Maria) Rodriguez, who also fights Yan (Xiaonan) in March, and (then it) becomes Zhang Weili. I don’t see any other fight. Just going for the belt.

“Dana made me an offer to fight for the championship, but I would have to wait until November, December and I don’t want to wait. I want to fight.”

Jedrzejczyk didn’t reveal when the fans could possibly expect a potential rematch with Weili, but she’s confident it’ll come to fruition in 2022.

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MMA Junkie’s 2020 ‘Fight of the Year’: Weili vs. Jedrzejczyk, the GOAT of women’s fights

Check out MMA Junkie’s top five fights for 2020, including the first women’s bout to take top honors.

With another action-packed year of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie takes a look at the best knockouts from January to December. Here are the top five and winner of MMA Junkie’s “Fight of the Year” award for 2020.

At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice for “Fight of the Year.”

Mike Brown sees Yoel Romero returning to title contention: ‘He’s the greatest athlete I’ve ever seen’

Coach Mike Brown can ‘definitely’ see Yoel Romero fighting for the middleweight belt again.

Counting [autotag]Yoel Romero[/autotag] out of getting another crack at the UFC middleweight championship might be a silly idea, at least according to [autotag]Mike Brown[/autotag].

The former WEC featherweight champion and current coach at American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Fla. envisions Romero (13-5 MMA, 9-4 UFC) challenging for the title once again.

Romero recently lost a close decision to champion Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 248. It was an uneventful contest where both fighters took heat from fans due to the bout’s anti-climactic nature, which promised to be an entertaining affair in the lead-up to the event.

Much of the narrative and talk leaving UFC 248 in March was how that was likely the last time Romero fought for gold. The decorated wrestler turned 43 this year, he’s failed to win title (both interim and regular versions) on multiple occasions, and he’s now 1-4 in his past five UFC outings.

Yet Brown, who worked with Romero for the first time in preparation for the Adesanya fight, will not discard the idea of another title shot for “The Soldier of God.”

“He’s the greatest athlete Ive ever seen, (even) at this age,” Brown told MMA Junkie. “What he can do with his body is incredible, I’ve never seen anything like it: speed, reaction time, agility. I mean, he’s in his 40s and his reaction time is incredible, the speed is incredible, his coordination is incredible.

“The more I see guys like him, the more I realize what a terrible athlete I am. I can’t imagine what he was like when he was 30 or 25. It must have been unbelievable. I know he’s a world champion in wrestling and this is so difficult, wrestling is so deep and so many people are competing for the same title, it’s very competitive. He got a very late start in MMA and he’s done some amazing things.

“You have to worry about time catches up to everybody, but right now – how he looks in the gym and what he can do – I mean, I definitely see him getting back to the title.”

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Romero said before his title fight with Adesanya that he plans to fight for another decade. Brown doesn’t know if that’s possible, but he also didn’t imagine a fighter performing the way Romero does in the gym at 43.

“I don’t know about that, but I mean I can’t believe he looks like de does right now,” Brown said. “You don’t know when things are going to change, but right now, he can beat anybody in the world. On any night he’s as good as anybody. He was right there that night. That night, when it came down to the scorecards – even though it was a boring fight, people didn’t like it – but in my head I thought he had done enough in those rounds to win.

“Watching it live, the leg kicks didn’t feel like enough. To me, it felt like Adesanya was on the run more or maybe in danger of getting finished more. I mean you can’t always see the angles if the punches are landing or not, but Yoel would attack and Adesanya was stumbling around, maybe the punches were missing, but its hard to tell sometimes. But from the outside I thought he had won. But again I knew they were close again, so I didn’t know how the judges had scored it, but if I were scoring it I’d say he had won three of those rounds, but again, I knew they were close enough to argue either way.”

Brown believes Romero did enough to win the belt that March night in Las Vegas. Some of the criticism on Romero’s performance was that he needed to do more than Adesanya since he was the challenger and not the champ.

Brown couldn’t disagree more with that type of thinking.

“I feel like people think that when you’re the challenger you have to do this, you have to do that, but you’re just in a fight,” Brown explained. “You’re reacting to moment-to-moment action as it comes to you.

“You’re not thinking, ‘I’m the challenger, I need to get him,’ you’re just solving the puzzle that’s in front of you, I’ve never liked that mentality. You have to score the round. You can’t say, ‘You have to beat the champion convincingly,’ no, you have to beat him, thats it – especially these world-class athletes. It’s not easy to finish these guys, to hurt these guys.”

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Champ Zhang Weili returns to China six weeks after UFC 248 classic

Zhang Weili is finally going back to China after defending her strawweight title at UFC 248 in March.

[autotag]Zhang Weili[/autotag] is finally going home, more than a month after her all-time great title fight with Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248.

Weili (21-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC), the reigning UFC strawweight champion, endured a wild travel experience leading up to her encounter with Jedrzejczyk on March 7. She was forced to leave her native China far ahead of the event as the coronavirus pandemic started to become a serious threat, but after much headache, managed to make it to Las Vegas.

Despite all the travel hiccups, Weili produced an incredible fight with Jedrzejczyk, edging out a thrilling split decision to defend her belt for the first time in the “Fight of the Year” frontrunner.

Unlike most fighters, though, Weili didn’t go home immediately after her fight. According to her manager, Brian Butler of SuckerPunch Entertainment, Weili remained in Las Vegas for the past six weeks to minimize risk traveling from the U.S. to China as the coronavirus crisis worsened.

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Butler told MMA Junkie, following an initial report from ESPN, that Weili, along with two of her team members, are set to embark on the journey home beginning Sunday.

Weili has been out of the country since early February. It remains to be seen when she will be booked to fight again as the UFC attempts to put fights back together in the midst of the pandemic.

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Michelle Waterson hails Weili-Jedrzejczyk battle as perfect showcase for UFC’s strawweights

Michelle Waterson said defending champion Zhang Weili and Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s bout at UFC 248 made her proud of the 115-pound division.

When [autotag]Zhang Weili[/autotag] and [autotag]Joanna Jedrzejczyk[/autotag] went to war in their instant classic title fight at UFC 248, [autotag]Michelle Waterson[/autotag] was a more interested spectator than most.

Waterson’s hope of challenging for the UFC strawweight title were put on hold after her loss to Jedrzejczyk at UFC on ESPN+ 19 in Tampa, Fla., this past October, and she admitted that she had to take some time to get over the pain and disappointment of that loss.

“It took me a while to even build up the courage to rewatch the fight, just because there was so much riding on that fight and the way that it happened – there was a huge let-down for me,” Waterson told MMA Junkie. “I think when you lose, you don’t give yourself enough credit. You only see the loss. It’s not like a scoreboard when it’s like, ‘OK, 80-100, you almost won.’ I know that we went five rounds and they gave those scores, but there’s so much that happens within a fight that the average fan and even the judges (and) commentators don’t see.”

After the pain of defeat had subsided and she was able to watch the fight with a clearer head, Waterson (17-7 MMA, 5-3 UFC) came away feeling more positive about her performance and her standing in the UFC’s women’s strawweight division.

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“When I watched the fight back with my husband, I was able to walk away with my head held high,” she said. “I think that there are definitely things I could improve on – there are always things that I could improve on. But after watching the fight, I do know that I belong at the top of the division and I’m literally inches away from that belt. When you’re competing against girls at that high of a caliber, it is just an inch to the left or an inch to the right that will determine whether you win or lose.”

Motivated by that morale boost, Waterson settled down to watch the title fight between Weili and Jedrzejczyk, and said that it was a fight that not only did both fighters great credit, but also served as a statement of excellence for the strawweight division as a whole.

“Seeing that war with Joanna and Weili, honestly, I’m incredibly proud of the strawweight division,” she said. “Every time the strawweights fight, we bring it and we put on a show. Regardless of which strawweight you fight, we definitely bring the heat.

“When my husband and I watched the fight between Weili and Joanna, we were so entertained. I was on the edge of my chair the whole time. I felt like I was in the octagon with them. It was so entertaining. In my opinion, none of those ladies walked away with a loss that night. They both showed the heart of a champion.

“I did edge it to Joanna before they called the scorecards. I can understand why they would give it to Weili because of the amount of damage Joanna took toward the end of the fight. So like I said, going away from that fight I think that both of the ladies win.”

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MMA Junkie’s ‘Fight of the Month’ for March: A title fight for the ages

With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from March 2020.

With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from March 2020: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s “Fight of the Month” award for March.

At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice.

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The Nominees

Alex Oliveira def. Max Griffin at UFC 248

[autotag]Alex Oliveira[/autotag] (21-8-1 MMA, 10-6 UFC) went to great lengths to leave his welterweight fight with [autotag]Max Griffin[/autotag] (15-8 MMA, 3-6 UFC) as a winner.

The Brazilian fighter had a back-and-forth war with Griffin in a bout where both men were bloodied. Oliveira defeated Griffin by split decision with a pair of 29-28s from two judges’ scorecards.

Beneil Dariush def. Drakkar Klose at UFC 248

[autotag]Beneil Dariush[/autotag] (18-4-1 MMA, 12-4-1 UFC) produced arguably the greatest highlight of his career when he scored a spectacular knockout of [autotag]Drakkar Klose[/autotag] (11-1-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC) in the second round of their lightweight bout.

After a solid first round, the fight got crazy in the second when Dariush and Klose slugged it out and stunned each other. Dariush was able to push through it better, though, and finally landed a devastated overhand left that sent Klose bouncing off the fence and crashing into the canvas.

Zhang Weili def. Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248

[autotag]Zhang Weili[/autotag] (21-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC) and [autotag]Joanna Jedrzejczyk[/autotag] (16-4 MMA, 10-4 UFC) put on arguably the greatest title fight in women’s MMA history when they went tooth and nail for five rounds to determine who would be the UFC strawweight champion.

Weili ultimately emerged victorious by split decision to retain her belt, but not without going through 25 minutes of hell. The Chinese titleholder and Jedrzejczyk combined for the third most significant strikes in a UFC title fight. It came down to the wire, but there could only be one winner and it was Weili.

Maryna Moroz def. Mayra Bueno Silva at UFC on ESPN+ 28

[autotag]Maryna Moroz[/autotag] (10-3 MMA, 5-3 UFC) and [autotag]Mayra Bueno Silva[/autotag] (6-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) produced the “Fight of the Night” in Brasilia with a three-round banger in the women’s flyweight division.

Moroz was seemingly one step ahead of Bueno Silva over the course of the bout to take a unanimous decision victory. The win kept Moroz unbeaten since moving up to 125 pounds, and netted her some extra money in the process.

Charles Oliveira def. Kevin Lee at UFC on ESPN+ 28

[autotag]Charles Oliveira[/autotag] (29-8 MMA, 17-8 UFC) picked up his first UFC main event when he defeated [autotag]Kevin Lee[/autotag] (18-6 MMA, 11-6 UFC) to extend his winning streak to seven.

Oliveira extended his streak with a third-round submission win over Lee courtesy of a guillotine choke. The Brazilian waited for his moment to attack with the choke, and when he got it tied the UFC’s all-time stoppage record.

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The Winner: Zhang Weili vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk

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Weili and Jedrzejczyk put themselves through the ringer for the entertainment of the fight world. In the end, the champion prevailed.

Weili and Jedrzejczyk stood toe to toe for five rounds, exchanging strikes and not backing down in a bout that will go down as an all-time classic, resulting in Weili winning by split decision to retain her strawweight title.

By the end of it, Jedrzejczyk was nearly unrecognizable with a bad hematoma causing her entire forehead to swell.

Jedrzejczyk opened the fight by, as promised, using a lot of movement to avoid Weili’s aggression and power. She worked well behind the jab, while Weili attacked with low kicks. The strikes came fast and furious from each side as Weili worked the body, and Jedrzejczyk teed off with combinations. Weili landed her best punch with roughly 90 seconds remaining, but Jedrzejczyk seemed to take it well and continued to fire back.

The action picked up where it left off to begin the second round. The output of both fighters was absurdly high, but Jedrzejczyk seemed to be more composed and accurate in her approach against Weili’s power shots. Weili went for the first takedown of the fight, but Jedrzejczyk shrugged it off, answered with some knees in the clinch, then evaded. Weili landed a huge punch that staggered her opponent, but Jedrzejczyk managed to shake off the cobwebs and do some work to make up the deficit of Weili’s big moment.

The leg kicks from Jedrzejczyk seemingly took a toll on Weili going into the third round. The movement and output slowed, which allowed Jedrzejczyk to pick up the pace and find her range on a less mobile target. Jedrzejczyk landed some very good strikes, both as the aggressor and the counter-striker, and Weili knew she needed something to change. Weili attempted to grapple in the final two minutes, but Jedrzejczyk’s takedown defense couldn’t be penetrated and she ended the round in striking range, but Jedrzejczyk developed a gruesome hematoma on her forehead.

With the momentum seemingly on Jedrzejczyk’s side going into the championship rounds, Weili did not appear deterred. She continued to be aggressive, but Jedrzejczyk showed to be more technical both offensively and defensively. Weili certainly found her openings, landing clean punches. Jedrzejczyk’s chin continued to hold up, though, and the pace of the fight was perfectly suiting her style. She found a strong groove going into the final round, despite having a disturbing amount of bruising on her face.

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With the title hanging in the balance, both fighters came out determined to put an exclamation mark in the fifth round. Jedrzejczyk stayed true to her game plan despite awful damage to her face, stepping in the pocket and engaging Weili in a firefight. Weili’s straight punches did her well, but Jedrzejczyk appeared to be more than comfortable with the power and landed some shots that had Weili briefly on some shaky legs. Weili wouldn’t go way, though, and answered back. They kept at it down the home stretch, both landing clean to cap off an incredible 25-minute championship fight.

“We are all martial artists here,” Weili said through an interpreter in her post-fight interview. “We want to set an example for the kids. Thank you everyone.”

[opinary poll=”fight-of-the-month-for-march-2020_mmajun-QRAQuK” customer=”mmajunkie”]

MMA Junkie’s ‘Submission of the Month’ for March: A tapout for the record books

With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best submissions from March 2020.

With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best submissions from March 2020: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s “Submission of the Month” award for March.

At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting for your choice.

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The Nominees

Damon Jackson def. Mauro Chaulet at LFA 83

[autotag]Damon Jackson[/autotag] (17-3-1) rebounded from a winless 2019 when he quickly dispatched of an overmatched Mauro Chaulet (13-7) in their featherweight headliner.

Chaulet got in an advantageous position over Chaulet on the ground and managed to lock in a rear-naked choke a little more than two minutes in. Chaulet couldn’t escape, and Jackson secured his 13th career submission finish.

Gerald Meerschaert def. Deron Winn at UFC 248

[autotag]Gerald Meerschaert[/autotag] (31-12 MMA, 6-4 UFC) got his first win of 2020 when he submitted American Kickboxing Academy’s Deron Winn (6-2 MMA, 1-2 UFC) in a fun fight that went down in the middleweight division.

Meerschaert took some big shots early in the fight but eventually found his range, rocked his opponent and finished with a rear-asked choke in the third round. The win saw “GM3” improve to 2-1 in his past three UFC outings.

Rodolfo Vieira def. Saparbek Safarov at UFC 248

Rodolfo Vieira (7-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) likely was on his way to a doctor’s stoppage loss against Saparbeg Safarov (9-3 MMA, 1-3 UFC). Fortunately for him, he finished the fight before the doctor could intervene.

With his eye mangled and swollen shut, Vieira took care of business inside the first round against Safarov in their middleweight bout, securing an arm-triangle choke for the submission.

Renato Moicano def. Damir Hadzovic at UFC on ESPN+ 28

[autotag]Renato Moicano[/autotag] (14-3-1 MMA, 6-3 UFC) shined in his lightweight debut when he steamrolled Damir Hadzovic (13-6 MMA, 3-4 UFC) in the first round to put a fresh coat of paint on his career.

The former featherweight contender needed just 44 seconds to dispatch of Hadzovic with a rear-naked choke. He quickly got the fight to the ground, took the back and then finished the job to conclude a short night at the office.

Charles Oliveira def. Kevin Lee at UFC on ESPN+ 28

[autotag]Charles Oliveira[/autotag] (29-8 MMA, 17-8 UFC) picked up his first UFC main event win when he defeated Kevin Lee (18-6 MMA, 11-6 UFC) to extend his winning streak to seven.

Oliveira extended his streak with a third-round submission win over Lee courtesy of a guillotine choke. The Brazilian waited for his moment to attack with the choke, and when he got it tied the UFC’s all-time stoppage record.

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The Winner: Charles Oliveira

Oliveira’s day finally has come, even if it came on a strange day.

“Do Bronx” has long been a talented competitor, but never quite put it all together over a sustained period of time.

Those days are over, though. Unfazed by the strange setting of an empty Ginasio Nilson Nelson in Brasilia, Brazil, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Oliveira put on a masterful show in the main event of UFC on ESPN+ 28.

Oliveira finished former interim lightweight title challenger Kevin Lee with a guillotine choke 28 seconds into the third round. The bout was contested at a catchweight of 158.5 pounds after Lee missed weight the previous day.

With that, Oliveira won his seventh straight bout. They’ve all come by way of finish. He added to his UFC submission record at 14 and tied Donald Cerrone’s company mark for finishes at 16.

It didn’t take long to figure how the fight was going to flow. Lee’s base is wrestling, and he scored an early takedown, but Oliveira immediately went for heel hooks and leg locks. Lee’s wrestling is crafty enough that he managed to scramble bad spots, but as often as not, he’d wander into another submission attempt.

The second proved to be bad news for Lee, too, as Oliveira showed off his much-improved stand-up game, stalking Lee down and landing uppercuts. Lee went for a takedown, but that once again simply got him tangled in a spider web of submission attempts.

Lee did manage his best offense of the fight at the end of Round 2, when he got top control and landed solid right hands and elbows. But in the third, he once again had to land a defensive takedown, and from there, it was a mere matter of second before Oliveira finished him with the choke.

Lee, who may have gone out with the choke, protested that he didn’t tap, but the replay made it clear he did on several occasions.

[opinary poll=”submission-of-the-month-for-march_mmajun-JPhSBM” customer=”mmajunkie”]

Beneil Dariush says he intentionally played with words in Robert Whittaker callout to get everyone’s attention

Beneil Dariush explains how it was all part of his plan to confuse everyone with his callout of Robert Whittaker.

[autotag]Beneil Dariush[/autotag] is not the calling-out type, which is why he surprised everyone with his callout of [autotag]Robert Whittaker[/autotag].

Dariush (18-4-1 MMA, 12-4-1 UFC) knocked out Drakkar Klose at UFC 248 in one of the best fights on the card. The soft spoken lightweight then took the mic to call out Whittaker – not for a fight, but for being a great dad.

But Dariush used the word “callout” instead of “shoutout,” which had people momentarily confused as to why Dariush would try to get a fight with a middleweight.

He said it was all part of his plan.

“I know what I did there, and I knew it was going to confuse some people, but that was the whole point,” Dariush told MMA Junkie. “To get everybody’s attention, I played with words a little bit. Plus, I’m sure if I go down to Australia, there’s a good chance Rob will call me to throw some pieces – and who’d say no to that? I’d love to go a few rounds with a champion.”

After a rough patch, which included a couple losses and a draw, Dariush has bounced back with four straight wins and three straight performance bonuses.

The win over Klose will likely set Dariush up for big things in the lightweight division, but he’s looking to take things one fight at a time.

“I always tell people your next fight is the most important fight of your career. So with that said, it would mean that my last fight was the most important one,” Dariush said. “I consider my last fight extremely important, and I’m putting it at the top. Obviously, it’ll fall into its natural order as soon as I fight again.

“Honestly, I’m not interested in picking names. Also, I have no clue what the UFC is thinking as far as my matchups. So I guess I’ll be just as surprised as you are when we find out, which in a way, I guess, is fun – all the anticipation. In all honesty, I just want to continue to compete with the highs.”

The coronavirus outbreak has altered fighters’ daily training regiments, but Dariush is using it as an opportunity to recover from nagging injuries that he’s ignored over the past few years.

“Coronavirus has definitely been a pain, but I’m grateful that it’s only been a small inconvenience because I know a lot of other people have had much worse issues,” Dariush said. “Training has not been ideal, but I’m also recovering from many injuries. So in a way, it works with my schedule of rehab.

“I had some serious injuries that I was ignoring and just trying to push through, but now I see that was a big mistake and a great learning experience. Being healthy allows me to train at a higher level and train more in general. So with that being said, I think the thing I would attribute most to my improvement would be keeping myself healthier.”

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MMA Junkie’s ‘Knockout of the Month’ for March: A wild brawl ends with one punch

With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best knockouts from March 2020.

With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best knockouts from March 2020: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s “Knockout of the Month” award for March.

At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting for your choice.

* * * *

The Nominees

Danaa Batgerel def. Guido Cannetti at UFC 248

[autotag]Danaa Batgerel[/autotag] (8-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) got his first UFC victory in impressive fashion when he became the first to knock out Guido Cannetti (8-5 MMA, 2-4 UFC) in their bantamweight matchup.

The fighter from Mongolia landed an absolute bomb of a left hand on Cannetti about three minutes into the opening round of the bout. Cannetti was unable to recover from Batgerel’s power and the fight was called off.

Sean O’Malley def. Jose Quinonez at UFC 248

“The Suga Show” had a triumphant reboot when bantamweight prospect [autotag]Sean O’Malley[/autotag] (11-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) made quick work of Jose Quinonez (8-3 MMA, 5-2 UFC) in his first fight in two years.

O’Malley, who had been out of action since March 2018 due to injuries and a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency situation that ultimately resulted in his innocence, put on a striking clinic against a helpless Quinonez to finish the fight in just 122 seconds.

Beneil Dariush def. Drakkar Klose at UFC 248

[autotag]Beneil Dariush[/autotag] (18-4-1 MMA, 12-4-1 UFC) produced arguably the greatest highlight of his career when he scored a spectacular knockout of Drakkar Klose (11-1-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC) in the second round of their lightweight bout.

After a solid first round, the fight got crazy in the second when Dariush and Klose slugged it out and stunned each other. Dariush was able to push through it better, though, and finally landed a devastated overhand left that sent Klose bouncing off the fence and crashing into the canvas.

Gilbert Burns def. Demian Maia at UFC on ESPN+ 28

[autotag]Gilbert Burns[/autotag] (18-3 MMA, 11-3 UFC) continued a successful campaign in the welterweight division when he beat former title challenger Demian Maia (28-10 MMA, 22-10 UFC).

After getting taken down by Maia and surviving his famous back take, Burns managed to get the fight back to the feet where he connected with a sharp left hook, sending Maia straight to the canvas. Burns hesitated, thinking the shot ended the fight, but the referee didn’t jump in. Burns then followed up with rapid ground-and-pound, forcing the referee to wave it off.

Coner Hignett def. Darren O’Gorman at Cage Warriors 113

[autotag]Coner Hignett[/autotag] (8-5) lived up to his nickname of “The Hand Grenade” when he blew up for a brilliant win over Darren O’Gorman (6-5).

Hignett pulled off one of the best comebacks and knockouts of the year thus far when he stopped O’Gorman in the third round of their flyweight matchup. A series of precise and powerful right hands were the culprit behind Hignett’s comeback.

* * * *

The Winner: Beneil Dariush

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Dariush didn’t need jiu-jitsu to win at UFC 248.

The UFC veteran scored one of the best finishes of his career against Klose, but it didn’t come by way of his nifty ground game. Dariush knocked out Klose in the second round of their lightweight contest after a wild exchange that had the crowd on its feet.

The final seconds were completely opposite to what went down in the first round. For the majority of the opening round, Dariush controlled Klose as he had taken his back and worked for a standing rear-naked choke.

In the second round, Klose attempted to make up for lost ground and came out swinging hard at Dariush. Klose connected, wobbled Dariush and began to pressure him looking for the finish. But instead of going into defense mode, the Iranian fighter stayed in the pocket and managed to switch the momentum with a hard hook, hurting Klose.

Once rocked, Dariush followed up with a brutal left hook that sent Klose straight to the canvas. It was Dariush’s first KO win since stopping James Vick in 2016.

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[opinary poll=”knockout-of-the-month-for-march-2020_mma-NAg80v” customer=”mmajunkie”]

Daniel Cormier breaks down Weili-Jedrzejczyk classic from UFC 248 in new ‘Detail’ on ESPN+

UFC 248 is only a little more than two weeks old, and the co-main event already is an all-time classic.

UFC 248 is only a little more than two weeks old, and the co-main event already is an all-time classic.

Monday on ESPN+, former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion [autotag]Daniel Cormier[/autotag] will do a deep dive into the women’s strawweight title bout between champ [autotag]Zhang Weili[/autotag] (21-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC) and former champ [autotag]Joanna Jedrzejczyk[/autotag] (16-4 MMA, 10-4 UFC) in a new episode of “Detail.” The show airs at 6 p.m. ET on ESPN+.

Weili beat Jedrzejczyk with a split decision to retain her title in her first defense after winning the belt from Jessica Andrade in 2019. There was an argument to be made that Jedrzejczyk did enough to win the fight. But regardless of the outcome, the fight was close enough and bloody enough to go down as arguably the best fight in women’s MMA history and had many fans and analysts talking about the need for a rematch straight away.

Cormier, who along with being an all-time great fighter also works as an analyst on UFC broadcasts, will break down the fight and give his take on “Detail.”

But what did you think of the “Fight of the Night” classic? How did you score it? Weigh in below in our poll, and then don’t miss Cormier’s breakdown on Monday’s new episode.

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