UFC on ESPN 68 Live Winners and Losers, Results
It was supposed to be Ladies Night in Las Vegas.
Single-digit flyweight contenders Erin Blanchfield and Maycee Barber were set for a turn in the headlining position on Saturday as the UFC returned from a one-week hiatus with a shuffled-up Fight Night show from its Apex home base facility.
The card was trimmed thanks to visa issues with two fighters, and another matchup was adjusted after another fighter's illness.
Additionally, Barber missed the contracted 126-pound weight limit by half a pound and forfeited 20 percent of her purse.
Blanchfield, ranked fourth, arrived after a narrow five-round decision over ex-strawweight champ Rose Namajunas last November, while Barber, a slot below at No. 5, had won six in a row since a two-fight skid across 2020 and 2021.
The B/R combat team was in position to take in all the action and deliver a real-time list of the show's definitive winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the app comments.
Loser: Unsatisfying Finish
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Well, that was unprecedented. But not in a good way.
Blanchfield and Barber were cued up and ready to walk to the cage when Barber was called back due to a medical issue and declared unable to compete.
A pre-fight feature about the matchup was being shown in the arena but it was followed not by introductory music but instead by an announcement that left everyone slack jawed.
“This is crazy. I’ve never been involved with anything like this,” analyst Daniel Cormier said. “(Blanchfield) is frustrated and I don’t blame her. And you wonder what this does to Barber going forward, too.”
Blanchfield said she was given a heads-up that walkouts were six minutes away, but then sensed things were in peril when UFC executive Hunter Campbell entered her locker room. Analyst Din Thomas suggested Barber may have suffered a seizure of some sort that prompted the snap decision to wave things off.
“I was literally ready to go. I could already smell the cage,” Blanchfield said. “I definitely thought we were in the clear. I didn’t expect this.”
Barber, who missed weight by half a pound on Friday, hadn’t fought in 14 months since beating Katlyn Cerminara at UFC 299. She’d been sidelined by multiple medical issues since, including one that prompted an 11-day hospital stay.
Blanchfield had said during fight week that she was concerned about Barber making it to the cage and said after the cancelation that she’d not pursue a rescheduled meeting.
“(My team said) don’t entertain her,” Blanchfield said, “she’s not on your level (and) super unprofessional.”
Loser: Blind Ambition
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Sometimes, the reach exceeds the grasp.
Unranked lightweight Ludovit Klein was riding a 6-0-1 streak in his last seven fights and the success prompted a prodigious callout of seventh-ranked contender Mateusz Gamrot.
He gets full credit for the ambition. But as for the results, not so much.
The comparative upstart was taken down early in each of the first two rounds and then late in the third, snuffing out any fleeting chance at a rally and locking up Gamrot’s unanimous shutout decision in the show’s co-main event.
It was Klein’s first loss since a choke-out by Nate Landwehr on a Fight Night show in 2021, and a significant blow to his 90-plus percent takedown defense, which was breached six times across Gamrot’s 11 attempts and gave the winner nearly nine minutes of control time.
“This was a dominant performance,” Gamrot said. “I always represent wrestling. Nobody can stand up to my shoot. No one defends my takedowns. I am one of the best guys in the world and I proved it.”
Winner: Beautiful Violence
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It was sudden. It was violent.
And, if you like that sort of thing, it was beautiful, too.
Ramiz Brahimaj quickly turned a 50/50 position along the fence into a submission victory when he seized welterweight opponent Billy Ray Goff’s neck and abruptly choked the Connecticut fighter to semi-consciousness at 3:16 of the first round.
“My last fight I was the Bronx Bomber,” he said, referencing a first-round KO of Mickey Gall last fall, “and in this fight I was the Bronx Boa.”
Brahimaj burst from his corner and scored a takedown within the first half-minute before Goff got back to his feet and into a stalemate tie-up along the fence.
The finishing sequence then came subtly as Goff lowered his head and was snapped up into a standing guillotine, a position Brahimaj adjusted as he lifted his stricken foe off the ground by his neck before letting him flop to the floor as referee Chris Tognoni intervened.
“I was gonna hang these gloves two years ago, but I’m here and it means everything to me to be here,” the emotional winner said. “I owe it to this organization. All it takes is one person to believe in you. And when you better yourself you never, ever regret it.”
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Winner: Derailing the Train
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Dustin Jacoby knows all about hype trains.
His last two victories, both by early finishes, had come against rising opponents who’d won four of their last five fights and three in a row, respectively.
So, when he was paired with another streaking foe in Bruno Lopes, who’d won 14 of 15 overall and was unbeaten in the octagon, he wasn’t too concerned.
“I’m no steppingstone,” Jacoby said. “I’ve been through it to get to it.”
The 37-year-old performed like a confident fighter for each moment of a brief encounter with Lopes, whom he staggered with a left jab and bludgeoned along the cage with right hands until Lopes collapsed to the floor and was rescued by referee Mike Beltran.
It was the ninth win in 14 bouts of a second UFC run for Jacoby, who’d lost his first two appearances with the promotion in 2011 and 2012.
“It feels really good, like a fine wine that keeps getting better with time,” he said. “When I smell blood I go for the kill, baby, every single time.”
Loser: Heeding the Call
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Sayif Saud clearly understood the urgency.
The veteran MMA trainer’s voice was the loudest in the room as he pleaded with his fighter, Macy Chiasson, to find her way out of a grounded Round 2 position against Ketlen Vieira.
Given that she’d likely lost Round 1, a desperate Saud urged Chiasson to stand, urged her to maneuver toward the fence, urged her to do anything other than accept her fate.
But it never happened.
Not only was Chiasson unable to rise in the second, but she was down again to start the third and found herself smothered nearly to the final horn of a bout that was moved to featherweight when Vieira—ranked third at bantamweight to her foe’s fifth—was unable to make 136 pounds.
All three scorecards went for Vieira, with two providing 29-28 margins and the third 30-27. It was a ninth win in 13 UFC fights for the Brazilian, who racked up better than 10 minutes in positional control time and landed nearly 100 more—182 to 83—overall strikes than Chiasson, who fell to 8-4 with the promotion and had a two-fight win streak snapped.
Winner: Finding a Way
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Zachary Reese is a terrifying-looking individual.
He stands 6’4”, wears tattoos from his shoulders to his feet and has the sort of power that’s provided KOs in more than half of his professional victories.
But against Duško Todorović, it was less about ferocity and more about strategy.
The lanky Texan’s long-range weapons were intermittently effective, but it was the training time spent on the mat that he said prepared him most for the unanimous decision with which he escaped—by a trio of 29-28 scores—after 15 minutes in the main card opener.
The B/R card had it 29-28 in the other direction, giving Todorović rounds two and three.
Reese credited pre-fight mat work with ex-middleweight champ Sean Strickland as key to helping him defend nine of Todorović’s 13 takedown attempts and survive despite spending better than five minutes under the Serbian’s positional control.
“I did expect that much (wrestling),” Reese said, “after spending all that time under Sean Strickland’s big a--.”
Loser: Grounded Excitement
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They’d racked up 25 submissions in 36 combined pro wins.
So, it’s no surprise that the three-round prelim feature between streaking flyweights Jafel Filho and Allan Nascimento was spent almost exclusively on the ground.
But because both men were so adept at chasing and defending finishing scenarios, the competition between them drifted into tedium.
“It’s such a chess match that it’s almost difficult to commentate,” analyst Laura Sanko said, “because there are so many little things that we’re seeing.”
A grappling savant like Sanko was satisfied, but the action-starved mainstream was restless for much of what ended in a narrow, unanimous win for Nascimento by three 29-28 scores.
The needle moved toward excitement when Filho chased a finish by mounted guillotine in the waning seconds of the opening round, but he was unable to capitalize in rounds two and three as Nascimento reversed and maintained a top position for more than seven minutes.
It was his first appearance in more than two years, but a third straight UFC win and 21st in 27 pro fights.
“Long time no see,” Nascimento said, “you miss me?”
Loser: Veteran Talking Points
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Well, so much for the Kurt Holobaugh storylines.
The 38-year-old debuted in the UFC when lightweight opponent Jordan Leavitt was still a teenager and he strutted to the cage with his wife, a two-time world jiu-jitsu champion, alongside.
Once the fight started, though, there was little else to offer.
Holobaugh got slammed to the canvas inside the first half-minute and found peril when Leavitt began seizing his neck. A guillotine choke attempt soon transitioned into an anaconda that put the veteran to sleep and prompted a rescue from Beltran after just 99 seconds.
"The Hurt" was near the fence when Leavitt first went for the submission, and he immediately braced his feet as if he’d try to push out of danger. Instead, his legs wilted as the choke was locked in, and his arm flopped limply as Beltran intervened.
He’s now 2-3 in a third UFC stint that began in 2023, after he’d gone 0-1 in 2013, then 0-3 after a no contest in a Contender Series appearance in 2017.
“One strike, one takedown, one submission,” said Leavitt, who'd not fought since November 2023. “A pretty good night.”
Loser: Cinderella Story
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Michael Aswell Jr. had a lot of things going against him.
The Contender Series alum didn’t get an immediate contract after a loss on the UFC’s feeder show last summer, then was called for his octagonal debut just four days in advance and was matched 10 pounds above his comfort zone with hulking Belgian lightweight Bolaji Oki.
Not surprisingly, Oki was the biggest betting favorite—at -375—on the preliminary card.
And though Aswell started well and was busy throughout, he had a hard time dealing with the bigger man’s sustained pressure and ultimately lost a predictably unanimous decision with a matching trio of 29-28 scores.
The moral victory? He got some broadcast love from analyst Daniel Cormier.
“This Aswell is a good fighter, fearless and really tough,” Cormier said. “A lot of guys would have gone down either from one shot or the volume of them. You don’t take these types of shots without being in shape.”
Winner: Third Time Lucky
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Eventually, the recipe was bound to come together.
British-based Romanian flyweight Alice Ardelean was a frustrated scorecard loser after chasing fleet-footed foes in her first two UFC bouts, so it was easy to see her happiness when matched with aggressive Brazilian Rayanne dos Santos in Saturday’s opening bout.
The style blend clearly worked for the 33-year-old, who was faster and sharper through the first two rounds and sturdy enough to withstand a push in the final five minutes on the way to a decision victory—by scores of 30-27, 29-28, 29-28—that may have saved her octagonal job.
It was Ardelean’s 10th win in 17 pro bouts while dos Santos plunged to 14-9 and lost for the fourth straight time, three in the UFC and one in a Contender Series fight, in a Dana White-connected competition.
“After two losses this fight camp was so focused from the physical to the mental,” Ardelean said. “I changed a lot of stuff, and I improved a lot. I enjoy fighting. I like getting punched in the face. I need to thank my opponent, Rayanne, she’s a dog.”
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Erin Blanchfield v Maycee Barber, canceled
Mateusz Gamrot def. Ludovit Klein by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Ramiz Brahimaj def. Billy Ray Goff by submission (guillotine choke), 3:16, Round 1
Dustin Jacoby def. Bruno Lopes by KO (punch), 1:50, Round 1
Ketlen Vieira def. Macy Chiasson by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
Zachary Reese def. Duško Todorović by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Preliminary Card
Allan Nascimento def. Jafel Filho by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Jordan Leavitt def. Kurt Holobaugh by submission (anaconda choke), 1:39, Round 1
Bolaji Oki def. Michael Aswell Jr. by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Alice Ardelean def. Rayanne dos Santos by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
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