Sean O'Malley and the Real Winners and Losers from UFC 292
It was a double-title night in Boston.
The UFC was at the TD Garden along the waterfront in the city's West End section for one of the promotion's most significant pay-per-view shows of the summer.
Champions Aljamain Sterling and Zhang Weili carried their belts into a pair of scheduled five-rounders atop the five-bout main card labeled as UFC 292, with Sterling facing No. 2 bantamweight contender and promotional "it" guy Sean O'Malley, while two-time claimant Weili defended against fifth-ranked strawweight Amanda Lemos.
Unbeaten welterweight Ian Garry put his pristine record up against veteran Neil Magny in another main-card bout, while ex-middleweight champ Chris Weidman wrapped up the night's seven-bout preliminary portion and made his first octagonal appearance since a horrific leg injury suffered more than two years ago.
The B/R combat team was in position to take it all in while compiling a definitive real-time list of the show's winners and losers. Take a look at what we come up with and drop a thought or two of your own in the comments.
Winner: Welcome to a New Era
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Ladies and gentlemen, there's a new MMA superstar.
Let the record show that Sean O'Malley officially entered the realm of Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey just after 1 a.m. EST Sunday with a right-hand shot heard 'round the world.
"You just saw Sean O'Malley go to the next level," Daniel Cormier said. "Since Day 1, people said he could be here."
The "Suga Show" arrived by TKO just 51 seconds into the second round when O'Malley slid backward to evade a rush and countered with a right hand that instantly sent Aljamain Sterling face-first to the canvas, where he followed with a series of ground strikes that forced the hand of referee Marc Goddard.
The broadcast crew hinted that the stoppage might have been a shade premature, but Sterling issued zero complaints during a brief post-fight chat.
"Sean is a lot better than I thought," he said. "He did a really good job being elusive. I can't say nothing bad about the guy. Congrats to him and his team. I've lost before, I've been KO'd before, and I became UFC champion."
Indeed, O'Malley avoided Sterling's pressure and attempts to get the fight to the floor in a largely non-violent first round and wriggled out of Sterling's attempt at a single-leg takedown early in the second.
And not long after, the UFC was turned on its head.
"It feels right, baby. This feels right," O'Malley said. "This was the most nervous I've ever been for a fight, but I never lost the confidence because I know what I possess in this right hand. It only takes one mistake against me. I don't even know if that was a mistake. I'm just that f--king good."
It was his ninth win in 11 UFC fights, with the only loss having come to Marlon Vera, who defeated Pedro Munhoz in Saturday's main card opener. O'Malley immediately called for a December bout with Vera.
"This is just beginning of the 'Suga' era," he said. "I'm running this sh-t until 2035."
Winner: Championship Caliber
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Mauling. Smothering. Grinding.
Whatever one-sided phrase you prefer, chances are it aptly described the main-card number than champion Zhang Weili did on challenger Amanda Lemos in their strawweight title fight.
The UFC's only Chinese champion, Weili took advantage of every mistake made by her Brazilian foe and doled out nearly five full rounds of punishment in winning her four championship match in six tries.
Weili won the 115-pound belt from Jessica Andrade in 2019 and defended once before losing to Rose Namajunas in consecutive fights in 2021. She recaptured the belt with a second-round submission over Carla Esparza at UFC 281 last November at Madison Square Garden.
Against Lemos, Weili scored takedowns and had extended control time in each of the first three rounds while running up a ridiculous 80-10 edge in significant strikes.
Lemos stayed on her feet for much of the fourth round and landed a few effective strikes, but Weili took control again by dropping Lemos with a kick and finished strong in the fifth—establishing a UFC women's record for strike differential.
Her four title-fight victories at strawweight are second in history behind Joanna Jedrzejczyk's six.
"I'm so happy. I'm training every day," she said. "I'm not surprised because I have a great team. All the coaches give me all the techniques to make my fights go like this."
Winner: Walking the Walk
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The only thing Ian Garry didn't do was get a finish.
But the 25-year-old Irishman did everything else against Neil Magny, brutalizing the promotion's all-time winningest welterweight on the way to a unanimous decision in their main card three-rounder.
There was no love lost between the combatants during fight week and the enmity continued in the Octagon, with a consistent flow of chatter and intermittent gesturing between the two as Garry continued to chop at the 36-year-old's legs with hard kicks, rendering him all but ineffective.
"This was a big test for him," analyst Joe Rogan said, "and he got an A-plus."
It was a 13th straight victory overall and sixth straight in the UFC for Garry, who, at 25, is likely to leapfrog Magny's No. 11 contender status and break into the top 10. He landed 60 percent of his significant strikes, scored the fight's lone two takedowns and connected on 43 leg kicks.
"He's fought everybody," Garry said. "That was his 31st fight (in the UFC) and I made it look like he's never fought in the Octagon before. That was domination from start to finish. I hurt him, I hurt him, and I kept on hurting him."
The star-making turn then prompted another of Garry's high-profile callouts, this time of seventh-ranked 170-pounder Stephen Thompson.
"I need to prove myself as the best striker this division has ever seen," Garry said. "Everyone has Stephen 'Wonderboy' Thompson on that list. So give me Stephen 'Wonderboy' Thompson."
Winner: Moral Victories
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The record shows he had a .500 record.
But it was still a pretty good week for Da'Mon Blackshear.
The 29-year-old from North Carolina was a winner by unorthodox submission—scoring just the UFC's third finish by twister—on the prelim show last Saturday night in Las Vegas, then stepped into the PPV breach when he jumped in as a late sub against surging bantamweight Mario Bautista.
And though Blackshear's try for the promotion's quickest turnaround between victories was foiled when Bautista was awarded a fair unanimous decision by scores of 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27, he did nothing across 15 minutes to suggest he's not ready for another primetime slot.
A pro since 2016, Blackshear was 12-4 in 16 fights before arriving to the UFC last summer. He was 2-1-1 through his initial four fights in the Octagon before stepping in to meet Bautista when ex-champ Cody Garbrandt pulled out during fight week.
Blackshear controlled the initial round against Bautista, scoring takedowns on four of five attempts and outlanding his foe by a 38-27 margin.
He was foiled on two straight takedown tries in the second round, however, and was taken down twice himself in the third as his energy seemed to fade while Bautista landed 41 strikes and racked up more than 2:30 in control time.
Loser: All-American Ending
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It wasn't the comeback Chris Weidman wanted.
The ex-middleweight champ hadn't been in a UFC cage since breaking his right leg against Uriah Hall more than two years ago in Jacksonville and he hoped Saturday's return against veteran Brad Tavares would trigger another late-stage run toward 185-pound supremacy.
But the fairy tale may not end so poetically after all.
The 39-year-old Weidman was a step slower across 15 minutes than a foe four years his junior, sustaining persistent damage to his left leg thanks to Tavares targeting the limb with kicks as Weidman approached in an orthodox stance.
He was left limping and reeling several times across three rounds and was never consistently successful with his own offense outside of a few landed punches.
Tavares defended each of Weidman's eight takedown attempts and had a large advantage—70 to 37—in overall significant strikes, including a career-best 41 via leg kicks.
Weidman, who won the middleweight title from Anderson Silva in 2013 and defended three times before a loss to Luke Rockhold, fell to a pedestrian 2-6 in eight fights since the title loss. He's not won since outpointing Omari Akhmedov in 2020 and will likely at least ponder retirement.
"We hope to see Chris Weidman in the Octagon again," blow-by-blow man Jon Anik said, "but at this point, you never know."
Loser: Enforcing Rules
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Gregory Rodrigues did everything asked of him.
The muscular Brazilian middleweight got Denis Tiuliulin to the ground, quickly took his back upon doing so and ended the fight in violent fashion with a pair of ground-and-pound elbows.
The official result was a KO win at 1:43 of the first.
But upon further review, it may not have been as perfect as it seemed.
Replays from multiple angles showed that the first of the two decisive elbows landed on the back of Tiuliulin's head, which analyst Daniel Cormier insisted was an illegal blow though it generated no authoritative action from referee Bryan Miner.
The strike appeared to leave Tiuliulin barely conscious, and he was nearly motionless a moment later when the second shot, legally delivered to the side of the head, landed.
"If I'm Denis Tiuliulin and I'm going to 1-3 in my UFC career," Cormier said, "I'm protesting."
Until decided otherwise, the win pushed Rodrigues to 5-2 in his two-plus-year UFC run and was his fourth straight victory by finish.
"I'm like RoboCop, I never die," he said. "That's how we work it. The game plan was there. I took this guy down. I needed to fight smart and we worked some ground and pound."
Winner: Ultimate Returns
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It's not quite champ-champ status.
But there is something special about what Brad Katona accomplished on Saturday.
The 31-year-old Irish-based Canadian became the first man to win two seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, earning this year's bantamweight trophy and a contract with a classic three-rounder over Cody Gibson.
The two 135-pounders combined for 303 significant strikes, making it the fourth-most active striking fight in weight class history.
"It feels good to be home, baby," Katona said. "I honestly thought Cody might have faded just a touch, but he didn't. 'Superman' has a third gear. We've got a fourth and fifth, too, if it's needed.
Katona won his first TUF title four years ago and went 1-2 in his subsequent UFC run, losing a decision to top-ranked contender Merab Dvalishvili before a release in 2019.
He'd won five straight fights in the meantime before facing Gibson, who'd begun the season as a teammate on Team Chandler before Katona was pulled over to Team McGregor in the tournament semifinals.
Later, in the lightweight finale, veteran Kurt Holobaugh was a Round 2 submission winner over Austin Hubbard. The 36-year-old was 0-4 across two UFC runs in 2013 and again in 2018 and 2019.
"I've dreamt about being in this arena, every Sunday morning in Ireland watching the fights," Katona said. "I've been living at this level since I was 14 years old."
Winner: Vengeance Delayed
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When it comes to Karine Silva anyway, Joe Rogan has it right.
"She looks like a totally different fighter out there," he raved on the early prelim broadcast, moments after the 29-year-old Brazilian finished second-time foe Maryna Moroz with a single second remaining in Round 1 of their flyweight rematch.
The guillotine choke Silva seized in the final 15 seconds of the round yielded her 17th finish in 17 pro victories and convincingly reversed the result of a first-round armbar loss she'd suffered in just her seventh career fight nearly nine years ago.
She's 11-2 in 13 fights since the Moroz loss, including victories in her last seven fights overall and submissions in four straight UFC-sanctioned bouts, including a 2021 triumph on Dana White's Contender Series followed by two wins in 2022 and another pair this year.
It's good for the fifth-longest win streak in the promotion's flyweight division.
"When I get in a position," Silva said, I finish. I do this. I train for this. I think about this every single day when I train. So when I'm in here, it flows."
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Sean O'Malley def. Aljamain Sterling by TKO (strikes), 0:51, Round 2
Zhang Weili def, Amanda Lemos by unanimous decision (50-43, 50-44, 49-45)
Ian Garry def. Neil Magny by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-24)
Mario Bautista def. Da'Mon Blackshear by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
Marlon Vera def. Pedro Munhoz by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
Preliminary Card
Brad Tavares def. Chris Weidman by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Gregory Rodrigues def. Denis Tiuliulin by TKO (elbows), 1:43, Round 1
Kurt Holobaugh def. Austin Hubbard by submission (triangle choke), 2:39, Round 2
Brad Katona def. Cody Gibson by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
Early Preliminary Card
Andre Petroski def. Gerald Meerschaert by split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
Natalia Silva def. Andrea Lee by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Karine Silva def. Maryna Moroz by submission (guillotine choke), 4:59, Round 1
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