Alex Pereira and the Real Winners and Losers from UFC 295
It's not the show the UFC wanted.
But it was still pretty strong.
Though heavyweight champ Jon Jones was forced to withdraw from a would-be title clash with two-time boss Stipe Miocic, the promotion regrouped with a five-bout pay-per-view headlined by a 205-pound match in which high-end contenders Jiří Procházka (No. 1) and Alex Pereira (No. 3) faced off for the title vacated by another injured champ, Jamahal Hill.
Ironically, Procházka had been the division's champ until a shoulder injury forced him to vacate and cleared the way for Hill to capture a belt. Pereira, meanwhile, was making his second appearance as a light heavy since losing his middleweight title to Israel Adesanya.
The co-main was an interim bout to temporarily fill the void left by Jones' absence, matching streaking No. 2 contender Sergei Pavlovich and No. 4 Tom Aspinall.
Pavlovich had finished six straight opponents inside of five minutes since losing his UFC debut to Alistair Overeem in 2018, while Aspinall was also 6-1 in the promotion, having lost only to Curtis Blaydes by an injury-related TKO in 2022.
Overall, it was a 13-bout card that started with early prelims at 6 p.m., a main prelim portion that began at 8 p.m., and a main show that went live at 10 p.m. The B/R combat team was in place to deliver a real-time list of the event's definitive winners and losers.
Scroll through to see what we came up with and share a thought of your own in the comments.
Winner: Legitimizing a Result
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The controversy was all cued up.
The broadcast table was unanimous in its declaration that the stoppage that gave Alex Pereira a second-round win over Jiří Procházka was premature and the pro-Pereira crowd at Madison Square Garden was audibly discontented with the sudden result.
But just as the furor looked ready to take flight, a beaten Procházka grounded it.
"In the end, it was right," the beaten former champion said. "I was out."
And so just like that, the attention can turn to lauding the 36-year-old Brazilian on becoming the ninth fighter in UFC history to reign in two weight classes, after just seven fights in the promotion.
"It's a great honor for me," Pereira said. "I wasn't surprised after that first left hook. He fell down on my legs, so no, I didn't think it was a bad stoppage."
Pereira had competed well in Round 1 with hard kicks to Procházka's left leg before the Czech native got in close and got the fight to the floor in the second half of the round.
The stand-up competition was similar in the second round as well, before Pereira connected with the right hand and left hook that dropped Procházka to his knees. A series of hammer fists and elbows followed, and when Procházka fell to his back with Pereira on top of him, Marc Goddard intervened.
The official time was 4:09 of the second round.
"My immediate thought was that that was a little early," Daniel Cormier said. "I'm not satisfied with that stoppage. I feel like he pulled the trigger a little early. I would've let him take a few more shots because of the importance of the fight.
"But Goddard is in there and he sees it better than anyone else."
Winner: Making a Memory
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The moments, as they say, were priceless.
Referee Dan Miragliotta dove over the prone body of Sergei Pavlovich and left winner and new interim heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall to let the emotion envelop him.
And it did.
The 30-year-old Brit initially went face-first to the mat in jubilation, then alternated between climbing the cage and holding his head in his hands. And when UFC boss Dana White swooped in to wrap the shiny second-tier belt around the winner's waist, the tears arrived.
And when Aspinall unbuckled the strap and laid it across the shoulder of his father, they flowed.
"It's been a crazy two-and-a-half weeks," Aspinall said, referencing the lead-in time he had to prepare after Jon Jones' injury scrubbed the would-be main event. "If you ever get the chance to do something and you're scared to do it, you should definitely f--king do it.
"(Pavlovich) is a big scary guy. I've never been as scared. But I've got power, too, and I believe in myself."
The belief paid off the instant a right hand delivered as the back end of a one-two combination landed high on Pavlovich's temple and left the 6'3", 259-pound Russian stumbling drunkenly.
A follow-up combination landed just as flush and sent Pavlovich to the floor, where three hammer fists drew Miragliotta's arrival.
"I was struggling with the distance," said Aspinall, who stands 6'5" and weighs 261 pounds himself, "but we got there."
Daniel Cormier suggested Aspinall's interim title will ultimately become a full-fledged title if Jones' injury absence lasts several months. And Joe Rogan said, regardless of his belt status, that he'll be tough to beat in the weight class.
"Nobody in the heavyweight division is as fast as that cat," Rogan said. "He's dangerous. For everybody."
Loser: Impressing the Analysts
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The shade was coming hot and heavy toward Mackenzie Dern.
The longtime strawweight contender was in a tough main-card bout with former champ Jessica Andrade and the broadcast team was not impressed with what it was seeing.
Each of the voices at the table took turns questioning Dern's fundamentals while working in a stand-up position, and the technical analyst went one further by sending a full-on shot in the direction of Dern's striking coach, Jason Parillo.
It might not have been as bad as the talking heads made it seem but it certainly didn't end well for Dern, who'd arrived as the division's No. 7 contender but left in a semi-conscious heap after she was dumped by a right hand that forced the hand of referee Keith Peterson.
The official time was 3:15 of Round 2 and the result lifted Andrade, who was ranked fifth in spite of a three-fight losing streak, to a 16th win in 26 UFC fights.
The 32-year-old Brazilian was intermittently effective with her strikes in the first round, then dumped an onrushing Dern face-first to the floor with a precise left-right combination.
The stricken fighter stayed prone in the hope that Andrade would engage her on the floor, but Andrade waved to Peterson to allow Dern to stand up, then promptly dropped her again with the right hand that prompted the official to end the hostilities.
She was patient. She was composed. She was devastating.
"This was the strategy and the strategy obviously worked tonight," Andrade said. "I knew that she was a tough fighter and a good fighter on the ground, so I didn't want to just rush in. I was poised and I was calm and the strategy worked."
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Winner: Fighting the Crowd
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On Veterans Day, Benoit Saint Denis was deep in enemy territory.
The former French special forces fighter heard boos from the Madison Square Garden crowd as he walked to the Octagon for a scheduled three-rounder with streaking U.S. military alum Matt Frevola.
But he didn't let it bother him.
In fact, he reveled in the spotlight.
Saint Denis landed one of the night's most memorable single strikes when he drilled his foe with a left kick to the head and immediately dumped him to the floor, then followed up with a couple ground shots as referee Mike Beltran dove in to rescue the stricken American.
The result made an instant impact on Joe Rogan.
"This guy is something special," he said of Saint Denis, who turned pro in 2019 and debuted in the UFC in 2021. "How did he get so good so quickly? There's something about his intensity that has allowed him to advance and improve."
In the aftermath, Saint Denis strutted across the mat with a silencing finger to his lips, then punctuated the heel turn with a thumb drawn menacingly across his throat.
And then, the requisite callouts of Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje, both of whom were in the building. As he spoke, Gaethje was shown on the video board with a thumbs-up gesture.
"Nobody's gonna last three rounds with me," Saint Denis said. "I'm coming for everybody. I'm coming back here. You can boo me as much as you want. I would love to fight the guy that was just on the screen. I'm a big fan, but I'm gonna give you war."
Winner: Becoming a Star
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Diego Lopes knows how to play to a crowd.
Within moments of turning Pat Sabatini into a semi-conscious bobblehead with a hard right hand and several ground-based follow-ups, the Mexico-based Brazilian scaled the cage adjacent to where Kid Rock and Dana White were seated and gestured toward the boss with a bonus on his mind.
And considering how impressive he'd looked, the reaction may have been understated.
Already a finisher in 20 of 22 wins, Lopes continued his transformation from jiu-jitsu ace to formidable stand-up fighter by stopping Sabatini, who'd arrived with five wins in six UFC fights, in 91 seconds.
"When I felt the first right hand, I knew I really had to go at him," said the 28-year-old Lopes, who turned pro at age 17. "My coach turned a jiu-jitsu guy into a striker."
Sabatini, a grappler by trade, had pressured Lopez in the early stages and had unsuccessfully gone in for a takedown just before Lopes landed a right hand that sent him toppling backward to the floor. Once there, Lopes pounced with another half-dozen shots to a defenseless Sabatini's head before Keith Peterson leapt in to end the carnage.
"I feel incredible," said Lopes, who has a tattoo with the phrase 'Dream. Believe. Make it Happen.' "It's been a dream of my life to be here at Madison Square Garden. This is the fruit after all the labor."
Joe Rogan, for one, was impressed.
"This kid is a star," he said. "Diego Lopes is a star."
Loser: Scorecard Clarity
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Judging, by its very definition, is a subjective task.
So it's no surprise that scorecards occasionally elicit a puzzled reaction or two.
But Bryan Miner took it up a notch.
Already on the margins when he was the lone judge to turn in a 10-9 tally for the second round of the preliminary card opener, he put himself even further out there two bouts later with his view of a strawweight clash between Tabatha Ricci and Loopy Godínez.
While judging colleagues Derek Cleary and Sal D'Amato each awarded Godinez two of three rounds to guarantee her decision victory, the crinkled noses and side-eye glances were caused by Miner's 30-27 score in Ricci's direction that suggested she'd won all three rounds.
Statistically speaking, Godinez had slim significant striking edges in each of the three rounds and successfully defended all six of Ricci's takedown attempts across 15 minutes.
Godinez was rattled by a punch in the last 15 seconds of the second round and briefly hit the floor but didn't appear to be in imminent danger of a stoppage and didn't appear impacted by the blow by the time Round 3 began.
"It was a tough fight. I knew it was close for sure," Godinez said. "I thought I won. You never know, but we got it."
It was a fourth straight win, in fact, for Godinez and improved her UFC mark to 7-3 in 10 fights, while Ricci's four-fight win streak was snapped and her octagonal slate slid to 4-2.
"With those two scorecards," blow-by-blow man Jon Anik said, "it's apparent that (Miner is) clearly not seeing what his colleagues, or any of us, are seeing tonight."
Winner: Calling It Even
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It was like catnip to mixed martial arts fans.
One fighter controlled the stand-up action with prudent movement and precision striking both to the body and head. The other, meanwhile, held his own on the feet and got the fight to the floor via takedown multiple times in 15 minutes.
There were concussive blows. There were mat scrambles. There was blood.
And in the end, after both Nazim Sadykhov and Viacheslav Borshchev had moments where victory looked imminent, the judges got it right when they scored it a majority draw.
Two of the scorecards had it dead even at 28-28, rewarding Borshchev for his superior significant striking—52-20 in Round 1, 49-26 in Round 3—while also citing Sadykhov's clear dominance in Round 2, when a head kick dropped Borshchev and subsequent ground strikes left him bleeding back from a gash on the left eyebrow.
It was Borshchev's first draw in the UFC after going 2-2 in his first four fights, and it stretched Sadykhov's unbeaten streak to three after he'd opened with two wins.
"Great fight. I think this was the right call," Daniel Cormier said. "It feels right to them. That's the accurate call."
Winner: Seizing the Moment
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For four-plus minutes, it was all Mark O. Madsen.
The accomplished Danish wrestler was a silver medalist at the 2016 Summer Olympics, won his first 12 bouts as a mixed martial artist, and was having things all his own way in the early prelim finale against New York native Jared Gordon.
But Gordon had a redemption story to tell. And he refused to be denied.
The product of the nearby borough of Queens began his tale in the final 30 seconds of the opening round of the lightweight duel—landing a paradigm-shifting uppercut that buckled Madsen's knees, dumping him to the floor with a follow-up right hand, and drawing a rescue from referee Marc Goddard after a follow-up flurry of ground strikes.
Game. Set. Match. Interview.
"I grew up in this city. You made me. My grandfather fought in this building," Gordon told Joe Rogan. "I used to shoot heroin in Penn Station under this building. Now I'm fighting in it and knocking guys out.
"You can do anything you want. I was prepared and I'm ready to fight anyone."
Loser: Hometown Heroics
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Dennis Buzukja had high hopes.
He entered the Octagon with an audible pop from the crowd at a still-cavernous Madison Square Garden—about 25 miles from his native Staten Island—and was looking to build momentum for two other fighters on the card from the Serra-Longo gym in Long Island.
To say it didn't work out, though, doesn't quite do it justice.
Instead, the 26-year-old featherweight was territorially pursued and competitively outmatched from the opening tap against UFC veteran Jamall Emmers, ultimately taking a lead right hand straight to the chin that soon led to a stoppage defeat.
The official time was 49 seconds of the first round and came after Emmers followed the knockdown with a half-dozen more hammer fists before referee Keith Peterson intervened.
It was Buzukja's second loss in two octagonal appearances since a win on Dana White's Contender Series 16 months ago, following a loss on the same show in 2020. All told, he's now 1-3 in UFC-related appearances and 11-1 in 12 fights elsewhere.
"This is all the hard work that I put in. Twenty years of hard work," Emmers said. "Having my feet set, having the distances right. That's what happened and that's the outcome."
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Alex Pereira def. Jiří Procházka by KO (strikes), 4:09, Round 2
Tom Aspinall def. Sergei Pavlovich by KO (strikes), 1:09, Round 1
Jessica Andrade def.. Mackenzie Dern by TKO (strikes), 3:15, Round 2
Benoit Saint Denis def. Matt Frevola by KO (kick), 1:31, Round 1
Diego Lopes def. Pat Sabatini by KO (strikes), 1:30, Round 1
Preliminary Card
Steve Erceg def. Alessandro Costa by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Loopy Godínez def. Tabatha Ricci by split decision (27-30, 29-28, 29-28)
Mateusz Rębecki def. Roosevelt Roberts by submission (armbar), 3:08, Round 1
Nazim Sadykhov drew with Viacheslav Borshchev (29-28, 28-28, 28-28)
Early Preliminary Card
Jared Gordon def. Mark O. Madsen by TKO (strikes), 4:42, Round 1
John Castaneda def. Kyung Ho Kang by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Joshua Van def. Kevin Borjas by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Jamall Emmers def. Dennis Buzukja by TKO (strikes), 0:49, Round 1
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