By: Frank Hyden, MMATorch Senior Columnist
UFC 285 was this past weekend and featured two title fights and the
heavily anticipated heavyweight debut of Jon Jones. Who won and who
lost? Let’s get to the rundown.
UFC 285
GOOD- Bo Nickal submits Jamie Pickett
Nickal takes Pickett down and starts hunting for submissions. He keeps
trying until he locks in an Arm Triangle Choke to get the tap not
quite three minutes into the first round. Upon seeing a replay it
appears Pickett got blasted low but it wasn’t called. I don’t imagine
that’ll get overturned, these kinds of things pretty much never are.
Nickal improves to 4-0 while Pickett drops to 13-9 and has now lost 3
straight fights. Good win for Nickal.
GOOD- Matuesz Gamrot vs. Jalin Turner
They start the first round with kicks before mixing in a few punches.
They fight on the fence before separating. A very close first round
comes to an end. The second round opens with them trading more punches
and kicks. Gamrot’s having a little better time of it. Turner’s able
to turn away some shots but Gamrot keeps trying and eventually lands
the takedown. He works a little ground-and-pound and the second round
ends. The third round opens with Gamrot getting an early takedown. Not
a lot happening so the referee separates them. Gamrot gets another
takedown and we’re going to the judges. Gamrot wins the Split Decision
and improves to 22-2 with 1 No Contest while Turner drops to 13-6 and
has his 5 fight winning streak snapped. Good win for Gamrot but this
was super close and could have easily gone either way.
GOOD- Shavkat Rakhmonov submits Geoff Neal
Rakhmonov is throwing early, landing some knees and kicks. Neal lands
some good strikes of his own and they exchange until the end of the
first round. The second round starts with more striking exchanges.
Rakhmonov is coming at Neal from all directions. Neal is firing back,
however, and lands some nice counters before the second round ends.
The third round opens with Rakhmonov landing some big head kicks until
Neal staggers him with some hard punches. They fight on the fence for
a while and are connecting with bombs. Neal gets hurt by some punches
and gets his nose busted open with a bunch of elbows but he keeps
fighting. Neal battles on but Pakhmonov locks in a rear-naked choke
and gets the tap with only about forty seconds left in the third
round. Rakhmonov improves to a perfect 17-0 while Neal drops to 15-5.
Good win for Rakhmonov.
GOOD- Alexa Grasso submits Valentina Shevchenko
Shevchenko was trying to defend the UFC Flyweight Championship for the
eigth time but Grasso had other plans. We start with some sparring to
warm up before they start throwing some heavy leather at each other.
Grasso lands some heavy combinations before they fight on the fence
until the first round ends. The second round begins with Shevchenko
getting an early takedown. They grapple back and forth for a while
until Grasso gets up. They strike for a bit until Shevchenko lands a
trip at the end of the second round. The third round opens with some
heavy striking exchanges. Shevchenko lands some nice strikes before
Grasso stuffs a takedown. A short time later, Shevchenko gets a
takedown and starts working her ground-and-pound. The referee stands
them up for some reason but Shevchenko quickly gets another takedown
and they grapple until the third round ends. The fourth round starts
with both women exchanging strikes until Grasso stuffs a takedown
attempt and they fight on the fence. Shevchenko tries a spinning back
kick but misses. Grasso jumps on her back as Shevchenko spins around
and locks in a rear-naked choke/face crank and Shevchenko has to tap.
Grasso is your new UFC Flyweight Champion and improves to 16-3 and has
won 5 straight fights while Shevchenko drops to 23-4 and has her 9
fight winning streak snapped. Good win for Grasso.
GOOD- Jon Jones submits Ciryl Gane
This fight was for the vacant UFC Heavyweight Championship. They trade
low kicks before Jones gets a takedown and starts looking for the
submission. He locks in a guillotine on a seated Gane and that’s it.
Jones wins his heavyweight debut a little over two minutes into the
first round. Wow. Jones improves to 27-1 with 1 No Contest and has
won 5 straight fights while Gane drops to 11-2. Good win for Jones.
It seems Stipe Miocic is next and that’ll be a really good fight but
we all know the fight everyone wants to see is with Francis Ngannou.
He just beat Gane (by Decision, though) and before that he knocked out
Miocic. We’ll have to wait to see how all this shakes out but I don’t
imagine the UFC will cave on Ngannou’s demands so it looks like it’ll
be Miocic vs Jones at some event in the future. It’s an interesting
fight but Miocic is 40 years old (turns 41 in August) and hasn’t
fought in 2 years. We’ll see what happens, though.
My new fantasy book is now out. It’s called Kingdom of Zarias: A Fight For
Survival. It’s the third book in my epic fantasy Kingdom of Zarias
series and follows the adventures of the Summers siblings as they
fight to defend the world from an evil villain named Galren. This book
also introduces lots of other characters as the scope of the world
grows. There’s lots of action, magic, and monsters in the Kingdom of
Zarias. It’s like a tabletop game in novel form. It’s on Amazon,
Barnes & Noble, and many other places. If you’re interested, I would
greatly appreciate it if you would check it out and support me. Also,
here’s the link to my new Compendium book about the Kingdom of Zarias
series- KoZ Compendium
Thank you very much, have a good day.
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at
hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank.
Thanks for reading and have a good day.
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