#ufc297

That was the most middleweight title fight I think this division has had since Rich Franklin was champion. Do not ask me to expound.

Another coin flip fight to end the night. DDP and the team came in with the plan of pushing Strickland back and taking away his ability to dictate the pace of the fight. While they accomplished half of that, Strickland still managed to land 100 jabs on DDP when they were planted at range or on Du Plessis' entries. Probably would have helped if DDP was attacking the body on a lot of those Strickland retreats as he was often leaning back as he exited. Scored a couple of nice takedowns that did not really lead to anything as he struggled to keep Strickland down. Strickland, for his part, could have done more to punish the often cartoonish bull rushes DDP was pulling as he spun his way forward in an attempt to push Strickland back.

Well, that was shit. I didn't expect Bueno SIlva to have a gas tank for 5 rounds of fighting so I was really hoping this one would end early. Rocky could have knocked Bueno Silva out in like the third round but for whatever reason decided she was going to continue cage wrestling MBS for the last two rounds to a decision win. I don't really know what MBS was doing. For someone who was comfortable stepping into the pocket with Holm, she had 0 desire to throw any strikes that weren't in the clinch. Straight tired herself out chasing bad takedowns and losing clinch exchanges along the fence. For all of Pennington's limitations, cage wrestling has never been one of them. In fact, she has out wrestled every credentialed wrestler women's bantamweight has ever had (Tate, Vieira, and McMann).

If I'm Allen, I'm pissed cause those knees were good. None of them connected when Evloev had his hand down (and he shouldn't be allowed to play that game away). Could have had a fight ending moment instead Evloev gets to recover.

Otherwise, a good performance from Evloev. Don't think he's going to shake the "boring" accusations with this type of win but I thought he did really well. The constant threat of the takedown made Allen fight from further out than he likes to. Evloev did a great job of keeping the range he wanted and timing his entries perfectly. Then Allen is forced to step in from too far out in the 2nd round and ends up getting dropped and falling in a 2-0 hole. This is one of those ones I feel would have benefited from 5 rounds but that wasn't in the cards I guess.