In a year filled with memorable MMA events for the UFC, Bellator, PFL, ONE Championship and more, one stood out from all the rest.
A disclaimer: We’re sorry, UFC Austin. We’re sorry, Bellator 300 and Bellator 301. We’re sorry UFC 285. You all were good. Great, really.
But you fell just short of the top.
UFC 295 at the mecca of combat sports, Madison Square Garden in New York, is MMA Junkie’s 2023 Event of the Year.
The UFC’s 30th anniversary event was supposed to feature one of its biggest all-time stars, Jon Jones, in a heavyweight title defense against former champion Stipe Miocic, regarded by many as the best heavyweight in MMA history because he had three consecutive UFC title defenses – a low number for a record, but the record nonetheless.
But Jones injured his shoulder training, and rather than keep Miocic on the card, they saved the two of them for (hopefully) this year, and put an interim title on the line between Tom Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich.
The previous co-feature vacant light heavyweight title fight between former middleweight champ Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka was elevated to the headliner on the pay-per-view main card, which kept the show with a pair of title fights at the top of the bill.
When it comes to star power at the end of the night, UFC 295 may not have been the promotion’s sexiest offering ever at the Garden. It has to compete with previous MSG headliners with names like McGregor and St-Pierre and Cormier and Diaz and Adesanya and Covington and Masvidal, so there’s no shame in that.
But what UFC 295 lacked in mega-names, it made up for when it mattered. All five fights on the main card were finishes for the 19,000-plus in the building, and eight of the 13 bouts overall were stoppages. And let’s face it: Finishes go a long way.
That’s why it was hard to pass up UFC on ESPN 52, which took place less than a month later in Austin, Texas. That show didn’t have the promotional punch a pay-per-view provides – it merely was a Fight Night card streamed on ESPN+. Hell, UFC Austin wasn’t even officially announced by the company until several weeks before the show.
But from a highlights standpoint, UFC on ESPN 52 came through with a ridiculous nine submissions in 12 fights. Add in a Fight of the Night bonus and $50,000 for every stoppage on the card, and the UFC gave out $500,000 in extra checks in just that one night.
But UFC 295 inches above UFC Austin for its main card finishes under a much brighter spotlight in Midtown Manhattan, and with the pressure to deliver absent the previously planned heavyweight headliner. That one of those finishes was Pereira in the co-feature to win a title in a second division just seven bouts into his UFC tenure is the icing on the proverbial cake.
We’d be remiss to not shout out Bellator 300 and Bellator 301 again, as well as UFC 285 and UFC 290. Bellator 300 was a historic event number for the promotion and came at a time of uncertainty in the promotion. Four title fights were scheduled, though the show wound up with just three. Still, the ambition behind setting out to do four to begin with is admirable. Bellator 301 in November will go down as the promotion’s final show before its sale to the PFL, and it doesn’t get much more historic than the last of anything.
At UFC 285 in March, Jones won the heavyweight title with a quick submission of Ciryl Gane to become a two-division titleholder. That show in Las Vegas had four submissions on the main card.
