The T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas was once again graced with a crowd for UFC 285 on Saturday night. The exciting card was headlined by Jon Jones’ heavyweight debut against Ciryl Gane with the vacant UFC heavyweight title on the line. Four out of five main-card bouts ended in submissions as ‘Bones’ returned to the octagon after a hiatus of three years.
While the showing was absolutely unreal from ‘Bones’, the main-event lost some of its charm due to its short nature. The MMA G.O.A.T contender made quick work of ‘Bon Gamin, effortlessly taking him down and securing a guillotine submission all in hardly two minutes.
Jones called out former UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic in his post-fight interview.
Valentina Shevchenko looked to defend her flyweight title for the eighth consecutive time against Alexa Grasso in the co-main event of the night. While Grasso hurt Shevchenko with a 1-2-3 early on, ‘Bullet’ strongly bounced back to dominate the Mexican on the ground in subsequent rounds.
Grasso successfully stubbed two of Shevchenko’s takedown attempts in the fourth round before completely turning the tables. Capitalizing on a missed spinning-back kick from ‘Bullet’, Grasso took the champ’s back with amazing deftness and went on to sink in a rear-naked choke. While Shevchenko’s tap did not come immediately, it was a mere eventuality considering how powerful the choke was. Grasso became the first female mexican UFC champion and the first fighter to submit Shevchenko.
Welterweight contender Shavkat Rakhmonov established himself as a legitimate contender by becoming the first fighter to finish Geoff Neal on the UFC 285 main-card.
Lightweight contender Mateusz Gamrot bounced back from a Beneil Dariush loss with a split decision win over a surging Jalin Turner.
The main-card action started off with Bo Nickal scoring a dominant first-round submission win in his UFC debut.
UFC 285 full card results
Main card:
Jon Jones def. Ciryl Gane via submission (guillotine) (2:04 of Round 1)
Alexa Grasso def. V. Shevchenko via submission (RNC) (4:34 of Round 4)
Shavkat Rakhmonov def. Geoff Neal via submission (RNC) (4:17 of Round 3)
Mateusz Gamrot def. Jalin Turner via split decision (29-28, 30-27, 28-29)
Bo Nickal def. Jamie Pickett via submission (arm triangle) (2:54 of Round 1)
Prelims:
Cody Garbrandt def. Trevin Jones via unanimous decision (29-28 x3)
Dricus Du Plessis def. Derek Brunson via TKO (4:59 of Round 2)
Amanda Ribas def. Viviane Araujo via unanimous decision (29-27, 30-26, 30-27)
Marc-Andre Barriault def. Julian Marquez via TKO (4:12 of Round 2)
Early prelims:
Ian Machado Garry def. Song Kenan via TKO (4:22 of Round 3)
Cameron Saaiman def. Leomana Martinez via majority decision (29-26, 28-27, 28-28)
Tabatha Ricci def. Jessica Penne via submission (armbar) (2:14 of Round 2)
Farid Basharat def. Da’Mon Blackshear via unanimous decision (29-28 x3)
Loik Radzhabov def. Esteban Ribovics via unanimous decision (29-28 x3)
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