UFC on ABC 8 Live Winners and Losers, Results
The UFC got its global on this weekend.
Rather than a run-of-the-mill show in Las Vegas or a jaunt to a familiar site on the U.S. east coast, the mixed martial arts conglomerate pulled up stakes and headed to the Eurasian country of Azerbaijan, where it put on a 12-bout card headlined by a pair of ranked light heavyweights at Crystal Hall in the capital city of Baku.
Ex-champ Jamahal Hill faced streaking contender Khalil Rountree Jr. in a matchup of the No. 4 and No. 7 fighters at 205 pounds. Hill had lost two straight fights since winning the belt in January 2023, while Rountree had won five in a row before he was stopped in four rounds by Alex Pereira last October.
The B/R combat team was in place to take in the main event and the other 11 bouts, which included three other ranked fighters, and delivered 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: End of an Era
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The Jamahal Hill Era may be over before it began.
The former champion and incumbent No. 4 contender in the light heavyweight division had his base chopped out from under him courtesy of Khalil Rountree Jr.’s calf kicks and was thus rendered ineffective with his own offense in a frustrating main-event loss.
All three judges gave it to the seventh-ranked Rountree with scores of 49-46, 50-45 and 50-45.
Hill, 33, was a champion in 2023 but had to surrender his title thanks to an Achilles injury and had subsequently lost two fights before encountering Rountree, a Muay Thai specialist whose game plan was clearly to attack the legs.
Hill scored with some kicks of his own in a competitive first round, but Rountree was clearly more successful in Round 2 and his work paid dividends in the third when he was able to shift the attack upstairs and score two knockdowns with punches to Hill’s head.
More of the same followed down the stretch, with Hill unable to fully pursue a rally because of the compromised legs, while Rountree stayed patient and safely picked his spots.
“I didn’t come in here underestimating Jamahal. The plan was to be smart,” said Rountree, whose 10 wins since 2016 are third-most in the weight class. “I made some mistakes in the (Pereira) fight. I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. That’s how champions think.”
Loser: Streaking into Contention
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Maybe Ignacio Bahamondes will be a UFC world champion someday.
But he’s not there yet.
Despite a lanky 6’3” frame and a pterodactyl-like reach for a lightweight, the streaking Chilean—who’d arrived on a three-finish win streak—saw his bid for a rankings spot turned away by a gritty performance from veteran 11th-ranked contender Rafael Fiziev.
All three judges scored it 30-27 for the popular winner, who was the first UFC fighter to compete under the Azerbaijani flag when he arrived to the promotion in 2019.
Fiziev was busier and more effective while moving in and out and striking in the opening round, then cranked up the aggression and scored two takedowns in the second.
He withstood Bahamondes’ rally in the final round and left his foe bloodied by the time the final horn sounded.
“I cannot lose in my home. I cannot lose in front of these people,” Fiziev said. “These people deserve to be happy. To smile and be screaming. These people deserve that and I’m happy to represent my homeland.”
Winner: Heavyweight Introduction
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Say what you will about the decision, one thing is for certain:
The UFC has a new heavyweight contender.
Russian-born big man Rizvan Kuniev came out on the short end of a somewhat unpopular split decision against fifth-ranked Curtis Blaydes, but the two-time Contender Series alumnus certainly appeared world-class based on his 15-minute performance.
Kuniev was taken down twice in the first round but subsequently defended 13 takedown tries and began rattling Blaydes with hard jabs and combinations to the head. Kuniev dominated the second round and left Blaydes gasping and swollen, but was less active in the final five minutes, perhaps leading to two 29-28 nods against him.
The B/R card agreed with the dissenting judge and saw it 29-28 for Kuniev.
Blaydes, who’d lost twice to former champ Francis Ngannou in addition to top-ranked Tom Aspinall, No. 4 Sergei Pavlovich and No. 10 Derrick Lewis, said he injured the MCL in his left knee in the first and was subsequently impacted.
“I’m not happy with that performance. Too much grappling,” he said. “It took away my movement. I just started surviving.”
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Winner: Fan Favorite
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The hometown hero put on a hometown show.
Crowd favorite Nazim Sadykhov and Brazilian-born lightweight Nikolas Motta officially put themselves in the running for Fight of the Year honors with a classic back-and-forth slugfest that ended with a sudden one-punch KO that left Motta in a heap.
“This,” analyst Paul Felder said, “is one of the best fights I’ve seen in a very long time.”
The 31-year-old winner was nearly on the losing end of a finish in the first round after Motta landed a hard shot and a follow-up flurry in which he threw several dozen punches. Referee Lukasz Bosacki leaned in close to monitor Sadykhov’s condition, but the show’s first fighter billed from Azerbaijan rolled with several shots and was able to respond with shots of his own before the round’s end.
It was more of the same in the second before Sadykhov bloodied his rival and began taking control, ultimately pinning Motta along the fence and unloading with shots to the body and head before eventually landing a hard right hand that floored Motta and drew Bosacki’s intervention at 4:17.
“He probably landed a good 20-30 punches before I got my wind back, but you’re going to have to kill me to beat me in Azerbaijan,” Sadykhov said. “This is my country. I give my heart and my soul for Azerbaijan.”
Winner: Victorious Villain
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Sometimes there’s a hero. Sometimes there’s a villain.
One fight after the Azerbaijani crowd popped with glee at a local fighter’s win, Kyrgyzstani interloper Myktybek Orolbai not only spoiled the vibe but reveled in doing so after a first-round submission of Baku-born Tofiq Musayev in a catch-weight bout.
Orolbai secured the victory by seizing his foe’s left arm and wrenching it behind his back, forcing the tap-out at 4:35. Upon doing so, he immediately leapt to the top of the cage and drank in the boos while craning his ears toward the irritated fans.
“I told everyone I’d have a surprise for him,” Orolbai said.
It was an unsuccessful UFC debut for the 35-year-old Musayev, who’d run up a 22-5 pro record across multiple promotions since 2013. Meanwhile, it was a third win in four performances with the company for Orolbai, who arrived in 2023.
Winner: Grasping Reality
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The crowd seemed stunned, greeting Bruce Buffer’s announcement that Muhammad Naimov had won a unanimous decision in the main-card opener over Bogdan Grad.
But the fighters seemed to know better. Or at least they acted like it.
Naimov and Grad contested a technical, grappling-heavy 15 minutes and then embraced for several moments in the aftermath, with Grad congratulating Naimov on the victory that came by matching 29-28 scores across the board.
The product of Tajikistan landed 70 strikes to Grad’s 49, though the Austrian had an edge in significant strikes (31-18), takedowns (3-1) and control time (5:09 to 2:53).
Nevertheless, it’s Naimov who improves to 5-1 in the UFC after a Contender Series loss in 2020, while Grad is 1-1 in the promotion after splitting two Contender Series appearances in 2023 (KO loss) and 2024 (split-decision win).
Winner: Rise of the B-Sides
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Maybe it was the novel surroundings in Azerbaijan.
Whatever the reason, the undercard portion of Saturday’s show was a haven for the B-sides, with pre-fight betting underdogs winning four of the six early fights.
South Korean welterweight Seokhyeon Ko was the most lucrative of the unlikely winners, going off at +380 before smothering -500 favorite Oban Elliott in the prelim feature.
Ko, who’d won on Dana White’s Contender Series last September, landed 80 strikes to Elliott’s 19 and scored each of the fight’s six takedowns on the way to 30-27 margins on all three official scorecards.
Elliott lost for the first time in four UFC bouts after his own Contender Series win in 2023.
Also winning as underdogs were Daria Zhelezniakova (+195), Klaudia Syguła (+200) and Mohammed Usman (+164).
Loser: Official Chaos
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It’s a good thing JunYong Park wound up winning.
Because if the South Korean had ended up on the losing side of his middleweight bout with Ismail Naurdiev, Bosacki would’ve had some explaining to do.
The official seemed on the wrong side of logic in the second round when, after Naurdiev landed an illegal knee to his grounded opponent that caused a bloody cut over Park’s left eye, he decided not to end matters via disqualification.
The foul prompted a four-plus-minute delay in which confusion and language barriers reigned, with Park’s corner suggesting their fighter couldn’t see out of the damaged eye while the cage-side physician gave the stricken man a thumbs up to continue.
Instead, Bosacki docked Naurdiev two scorecard points and Park bailed him out down the stretch, taking control over the clearly exhausted Moroccan and chasing a submission down the stretch before settling for a unanimous verdict via scores of 29-26, 29-26 and 29-25.
It was the unheralded Park’s ninth win in 12 UFC bouts while Naurdiev fell to 3-3.
Winner: Familiar Contempt
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Anyone for a three-match?
Bantamweight rivals Zhelezniakova and Melissa Mullins were already quite familiar with one another heading into Saturday’s preliminary matchup, given that Mullins had scored a first-round TKO finish when they met in the French Ares FC 9 promotion in 2022.
Well, now that Zhelezniakova has evened the scored with a unanimous decision after a three-rounder in which both women were wobbled, reddened and bloodied, it makes sense that they get together again at some point down the road.
Zhelezniakova earned the rematch victory with one 29-28 score and two 30-27s, a fair result given that she hurt Mullins badly with head shots in both the first and third rounds and landed a damaging left to the body in the second, too.
Mullins chased a takedown down the stretch and was near securing it, though Zhelezniakova stopped the maneuver with a blatant fence grab. Referee Rich Mitchell issued a verbal warning but did not stop the action or award the takedown, leaving Felder angry enough to throw his pen at the broadcast table.
“That could have cost Mullins the fight,” he said.
Loser: Naming Rights
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Well, so much for cool nicknames.
Russian bantamweight Irina Alekseeva was menacingly introduced as the “Russian Ronda” in an homage to UFC women’s pioneer Ronda Rousey, but that was about it for her on Saturday.
Instead of blitzing through her Polish rival Syguła, who’d lost her lone appearance with the promotion, Alekseeva was schooled from a distance, outworked in the third round, and punished down the stretch on the way to a clear decision loss.
All three judges leaned in favor of Syguła, a +200 underdog, who landed more strikes (147-85), scored the fight’s lone takedown, and had a 32-second advantage when it came to positional control time.
For Alekseeva, it was a second straight UFC loss after she’d debuted two years ago. She’d not fought since dropping a decision to Melissa Mullins on a Fight Night show in October 2023 and is now 5-3 in a pro career that began in 2019.
Winner: Brave in the Effort
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Tagir Ulanbekov arrived as the biggest favorite on the 12-bout show and the only ranked contender—No. 12 at flyweight—on the preliminary card.
And there’s no real controversy that he was awarded the decision after three hyper-competitive rounds with unranked Kazakh foe Azat Maksum.
But if you’re asking who “won” the perception battle, it’s Maksum by a mile.
The unheralded 30-year-old defended each of Ulanbekov’s eight takedown tries and ultimately gave as good as he got on the feet, though he was on the short end of a unanimous verdict in which one judge saw it 2-1 and the others each had it 3-0.
Again, to suggest Ulanbekov deserved the decision is no crime—after all, the B/R card gave him two of three rounds—but to call it 3-0 against Maksum, given that he out-landed Ulanbekov, 36-27, in the third round and scored its only two takedowns, is ridiculous.
Regardless, the spirited effort will surely open future doors for Maksum, who’d split his first two UFC efforts and hadn’t fought in 16 months.
Winner: Winning Connections
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There’s nothing like an all-star team.
Nigerian heavyweight Usman is the brother of former welterweight champ Kamaru Usman and the training pupil of former light heavyweight star Rashad Evans, and he took advantage of those connections on the way to a card-opening win.
Usman was outworked and wobbled by previously unbeaten Hamdy Abdelwahab in the opening round on Saturday, but he channeled his brother and listened to his coach while getting busier and doing enough in rounds two and three to earn a decision.
All three judges scored it two rounds to one, matching the B/R card. Usman, who arrived as a slight underdog, ended a two-fight skid and upped his UFC record to 4-2, while Abdelwahab slipped to 6-1 as a pro and 1-1 with a no contest with the promotion.
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Khalil Rountree Jr. def. Jamahal Hill by unanimous decision (49-46, 50-45, 50-45)
Rafael Fiziev def. Ignacio Bahamondes by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Curtis Blaydes def. Rizvan Kuniev by split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
Myktybek Orolbai def. Tofiq Musayev by submission (kimura), 4:35, Round 1
Nazim Sadykhov def. Nikolas Motta by TKO (punches), 4:17, Round 2
Muhammad Naimov def. Bogdan Grad by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Preliminary Card
Seokhyeon Ko def. Oban Elliott by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
JunYong Park def. Ismail Naurdiev by unanimous decision (29-26, 29-26, 29-25)
Daria Zhelezniakova def. Melissa Mullins by unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
Klaudia Syguła def. Irina Alekseeva by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Tagir Ulanbekov def. Azat Maksum by unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
Mohammed Usman def. Hamdy Abdelwahab by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
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