The Real Winners and Losers From UFC Fight Night 224
The UFC was back in beautiful London, England on Saturday, with the 15-fight UFC Fight Night 224 event. And because of the time difference, it kicked off in the morning or early afternoon for fans in North America, and was done in time for dinner.
The most significant fight of the card was of course the main event, which saw rising English heavyweight Top Aspinall take on Polish veteran Marcin Tybura. It was the Brit's first fight back since he lost a fight with Curtis Blaydes due to a freak leg injury last year, and he rebounded in style with a first-round knockout win.
In the co-main event, Lithuania's Julija Stoliarenko disappointed the fans in the building with a quick and brutal armbar defeat of British star Molly McCann.
Earlier on the card, British featherweight Nathanial Wood picked up an exciting decision win over Andre Fili, and former light heavyweight contender Paul Craig, from Scotland, debuted at middleweight with an impressive TKO win over No. 14 contender Andre Muniz.
Keep scrolling for the biggest winners and losers of the night.
Winner: Getting Back on Track
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Tom Aspinall's last fight ended in disaster.
After five straight stoppage wins to start his UFC career, he suffered a catastrophic leg injury just 15 seconds into a crucial contender clash with Curtis Blaydes.
That injury kept him out of action for a year, and in the main event of UFC Fight Night 224, he finally returned to action in front of a supportive British crowd.
His opponent in London was Poland's Marcin Tybura, who has been a staple of the Top 15 for years. It was a tough welcome back for the Brit, but he won his fight in emphatic fashion, knocking his rival out inside the first round to the roar of the crowd.
"It's been a really tough year for me," he said in his post fight interview with Michale Bisping. "I wasn't my self last year. This is a whole new version."
Aspinall capped off his performance by laying out his plans for his next two fights.
First, he wants to fight the winner of Ciryl Gane and Serghei Spivak's upcoming fight in Paris. If he wins that one, he wants the champion Jon Jones, who is considered one of the greatest fighters of all time.
Jones, who is set to defend his title against Stipe Miocic in New York City this November, may retire before that happens, but many fans will be hoping to see it after Aspinall's latest showing.
Winner: Playing the Spoiler
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UFC Fight Night 223 was co-headlined by a clash of flyweight finishers, with Liverpool's Molly McCann taking on Julija Stoliarenko of Lithuania.
McCann, a close friend of lightweight star Paddy Pimblett, is one of the biggest British stars on the UFC roster. While this was clearly a tough matchup, the fans were clearly hoping to see her shine in London.
Unfortunately for them, Stoliarenko had other plans, locking up a violent first-round arm bar that seemed to cause an injury.
It was a huge moment for the Lithuanian. While her 11-8-2 record leaves a lot to be desired, she has now won 10 fights by armbar, which is pretty impressive. It also separated her from a tough, first-round stoppage loss to Chelsea Chandler in her last fight.
For McCann, things couldn't have gone much worse. She's now on a two-fight skid, and whenever her arm is healed up, will probably be in a must-win situation if she intends to keep her job with the UFC.
Winner: Featherweight Fireworks
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The featherweight division has got to be one of the most consistently exciting divisions in the UFC. Not only is the the weight class absolutely brimming with world class fighters, but many of them have a habit of getting into wild, back-and-forth scraps, which is fantastic for fans.
The division had another big moment in the third last bout of the UFC Fight Night 224 main card, with American Andre Fili taking on England's Nathanial Wood.
It was a wild one from the opening round.
Early in the fight, Fili began to sting Wood with shots at range. Then, just as commentator Michael Bisping was commending the American for the way he was using his reach advantage, Wood slipped a punch and sent his foe crashing to the mat with a huge shot of his own.
Miraculously, Fili survived that scare and made it the second round.
The second round began with Wood pushing the pace, evidently looking to pick up where he left off. Just when it looked like he was taking control of the fight, however, Fili turned things around by dropping his foe with a devastating knee, and finished the round in top position.
The third round didn't have quite as much action, but was plenty exciting in its own right.
In the end, Wood walked away with a unanimous-decision win, but it was the kind of fight with no real losers, and a great endorsement of the featherweight division.
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Winner: Setting the Tone
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Last weekend's UFC Fight Night card in Las Vegas kicked off with five straight decisions. There were some decent moments in those fights, but in sequence, they made for pretty tedious viewing.
Things got off to a much better start in London.
The first fight of the night was contested at flyweight, with Brazil's Jafel Filho taking on Daniel Barez from Spain. Barez got off to a great start, stinging his foe with a body punch in the early going. But Filho was undeterred, and immediately returned fire. Once he had the Spaniard on the back foot, he hit a takedown, and a few moments later, locked up an arm-triangle for a first-round finish that was sweetened by a pretty dramatic comeback.
It was a great way to start the night.
"Unfortunately I felt those shots, but I came through," he said in his post fight interview with Michael Bisping, admitting that he was hurt by Barez's body shots. "My master told me to keep coming forward and I have heavy hands."
"I'm a complete MMA fighter."
The win was Filho's first in the UFC after a submission loss to rising contender Muhammad Mokaev in his debut. He earned his UFC contract with a first-round TKO win over Roybert Echeverria on Dana White's Contender Series in 2022.
Barez was making his debut.
Loser: Setting Yourself Apart
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This is an exciting time for the top contenders in the UFC women's bantamweight division. The title has been vacant since Amanda Nunes retired in June, and while Julianna Peña and Mayra Bueno Silva look like the frontrunners to fight for the vacant throne, that isn't set in stone just yet. There are several fighters near the top of the weight class who could conceivably skip the line with impressive wins.
Brazil's Ketlen Vieira, ranked No. 4, is one of those fighters, and she had the opportunity to assert herself as a top contender on the UFC Fight Night 224 undercard, when she took on the No. 7-ranked Pannie Kianzad.
It would be unfair to say Vieira blew it. She won her fight in lopsided fashion, dominating the first two rounds and a substantial portion of the third on the ground en route to a clear cut unanimous decision win. But the fight earned some pretty scathing rebukes from fans on social media, and did very little to improve Vieira's position in the race for a title shot.
Her No. 4 spot in the rankings is definitely safe, but she will definitely need to do more before she gets that opportunity.
Winner: Breaking the Rules
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Fouls are extremely common in MMA. It is unusual, however, to see three in one fight.
That's just what we got in a UFC Fight Night 224 undercard fight between middleweights Bryan Barberena and Makhmud Muradov.
First, Muradov hit Barberena with a massive head butt while they were tied up on the mat against the cage. We're not here to comment on whether it was intentional or not—it certainly looked like it could have been an accident—but it was a pretty devastating impact.
Barberena, who is known for his iron chin, survived that foul, only to suffer a pretty serious eye poke soon thereafter, and unfortunately for him, the ref didn't seem to notice it, so he didn't get any relief.
It was hard to imagine things going much worse for Barberena at that point—he was also getting beaten on the feet and the mat—but he ultimately suffered a third clash of heads in the third round, as he and Muradov ducked at the same time.
Unfortunately, there was another brutal head butt two fights later, in a lightweight bout between Marc Diakiese and Joel Alvarez.
It was Alvarez who landed the foul, and again, it seemed to be unintentional. However, the impact clearly rocked Diakiese, and he was tapped out only moments later. Given that he was still struggling to keep his feet as the verdict was announced, it was obvious that he was badly compromised when the submission occurred.
Again, it's unclear whether these incidents were accidental or intentional. We're happy to give both Muradov and Alvarez the benefit of the doubt. But neither guy had so much as a point deducted, which provided a clear reminder of how infrequently fouls are actually penalized in MMA.
Why follow the rules at all of there's no repercussions for breaking them?
Loser: the Judges
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It wouldn't be a UFC card without some kind of judging controversy.
This time around, the controversy occurred in the opening bout of the main card, which pitted unbeaten Peruvian bantamweight Daniel Marcos against British veteran Davey Grant.
It was a great fight that was contested almost exclusively on the feet, and both men had their moments, but by the time the third round was over, Grant looked like he had a decision win in the bag—even with his face covered in blood.
That was ultimately not the case, as the judges gave Marcos a split-decision victory to an immediate shower of boos from the fans inside the host O2 Arena. It wasn't the worst decision we've ever seen, but it was certainly dubious, and fans will surely be chattering about it on social media for days.
Nonetheless, Marcos will head home from London with a perfect 15-0 record, and a 2-0 mark in the Octagon after a stoppage win over Saimon Oliveira in his debut. That should get him another tough test in his next fight.
Grant, meanwhile, had a two-fight streak derailed by the controversial loss, which has got to sting. At 37, he doesn't have a lot of time for these kinds of setbacks.
Winner: Greener Pastures
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One of the biggest storylines ahead of UFC Fight Night 224 was Paul Craig's drop from light heavyweight to middleweight.
The Scotsman had a pretty solid run at career at 205 pounds, and even holds a win over recent champion Jamahal Hill. He also never seemed particularly undersized for the weight class, which made his choice to drop to 185 pounds a bit of a head-scratcher.
Craig was also given a very tough welcome to the division in the former of fellow submission specialist Andre Muniz, who entered the fight with the No. 14 spot in the division's rankings.
There was plenty of reason to doubt the him, but after successfully making the middleweight limit at Friday's weigh-ins, he pulled off an impressive second-round TKO win in his debut in the weight class.
Muniz had some success with his striking early, but in the second round, Craig began to time his takedowns. After getting the fight to the mat for a second time, he climbed into top position, and rained down elbows until the referee stopped the action.
"Listen to that noise," Craig said as the crowd cheered through his post-fight interview with Michael Bisping.
With a successful middleweight debut in the books, the future looks bright for Craig. He will almost certainly land in the Top 15 when the rankings are updated, and can expect another big name in his next appearance.
It feels like division changes rarely go as planned for fighters these days, but for the UFC's most prominent Scotsman, the experiment couldn't have gone much better.
UFC Fight Night 224 Full Card
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Main Card
Tom Aspinall vs. Marcin Tybura
Molly McCann vs. Julija Stoliarenko
Nathaniel Wood def. Andre Fili via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Paul Craig def. Andre Muniz via TKO (strikes) - 4:40, Rd. 2
Fares Ziam def. Jai Herbert via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
Lerone Murphy def. Joshua Culibao via unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-27)
Daniel Marcos def. Davey Grant via split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
Preliminary Card
Jonny Parsons def. Danny Roberts via TKO (punches) 4:57, Round. 2
Joel Alvarez def. Marc Diakiese via submission (D'arce choke) - 4:26, Rd. 2
Mick Parkin def. Jamal Pogues via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Makhmud Muradov def. Bryan Barberena via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Ketlen Vieira def. Pannie Kianzad via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Chris Duncan def. Yanal Ashmouz via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
Bruna Brasil def. Shauna Bannon via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
Jafel Filho def. Daniel Barez via submission (arm-triangle choke) - 1:34, Rd. 1
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