UFC Fight Night 257 Live Winners and Losers, Results
Johnny Walker had the ranking. Zhang Mingyang had the momentum.
The world-class light heavyweights put their respective assets on the line in Saturday's early morning hours (U.S. time) when they headlined a 12-bout Fight Night card at Shanghai Indoor Stadium in Shanghai, China.
Walker, ranked a slot ahead of Mingyang at No. 13 among the 205-pounders, arrived in the Far East having not won a fight in 27 months, emerging with a no-contest and a second-round loss to Magomed Ankalaev and a first-round TKO loss to Volkan Oezdemir since beating Anthony Smith by decision in May 2023.
Mingyang, meanwhile, hadn't lost in any manner in nearly six years and was 3-0 in the UFC after consecutive first-round finishes of Brendson Ribeiro, Ozzy Diaz and Smith.
The B/R combat team was bleary eyed but took in all the action from China's most-populated city and delivered a real-time list of the show's definitive winners and losers. Take a look at what came up with and drop a thought or two of your own in the app comments.
Winner: Finishing Kicks
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Mingyang had it all going his way.
The Chinese favorite was controlling distance, landing hard shots and certainly seemed on the verge of running his unbeaten UFC record to 4-0.
But then he got kicked in the leg. And everything crumbled.
A single hard strike from Walker to Mingyang's left calf changed everything, two more kicks to the same target sent him tumbling to the floor, and Walker let his hands go from there, ultimately forcing referee Marc Goddard to intervene at 2:37 of the second round.
"Johnny Walker wanted to prove that there are levels to this game," analyst Laura Sanko said, "and that is what he just did."
Indeed, it was particularly sweet for the oft-maligned 33-year-old, who's often highlighted for his KO losses and had been a training partner for his opponent prior to Mingyang's first-round finish of Smith on a Fight Night show in April.
Walker appeared little more than a sparring partner in the first round Saturday but began to hold his position more as the second round began and reaped the benefits when the kick landed to trigger the decisive sequence and provide his first win since May 2023.
"Training is training. Fight is fight. You can't take nothing for granted," he said. "This makes me very happy. I got some punches in the face today. And then I got to him. I kept coming."
Loser: Worth the Weight
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Brian Ortega looked like a corpse amid a painful late-week weight cut that led to his bout with Aljamain Sterling being moved from featherweight to a 153-pound catchweight.
Then, the popular Californian fought like one—or at least the competitive equivalent of it—for much of what became a desultory five-round co-main event.
Either unmoved or unable to react to booing from the crowd and pleading from his corner team, Ortega hovered near a single-digit significant strike land rate through three rounds, was taken to the floor in the final minute of the fourth and wound up unable to manufacture a miracle in the fifth on the way to a unanimous scorecard loss.
It was his second defeat in 11 months and third in four fights since his most recent title try, which ended in a decision loss to Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 266 in Las Vegas.
It'll presumably let Sterling supplant Ortega in the rankings at featherweight, too, where Ortega arrived at No. 5 to his opponent's No. 7.
"I think their gameplan was to gas me out late because I've had a tendency to fade in the past," said Sterling, a former champion at bantamweight. "Volkanovski is the f--king man but I would love an opportunity to fight for the belt again."
Loser: Punishing Persona
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It wasn't too long ago, amid a run of six straight first-round finishes, that Sergei Pavlovich looked like an imminent heavyweight champion.
Then he ran into Tom Aspinall at UFC 295, found himself finished in 69 seconds and hasn't looked quite as menacing since.
The 33-year-old Russian's unanimous decision over sixth-ranked Waldo Cortes-Acosta on Saturday was his second straight scorecard victory after stumbles against Aspinall and Alexander Volkov, but not the sort that will make anyone think those past foes—now the division's champion and No. 2 contender, respectively—are in any danger.
All three judges scored the Cortes-Acosta fight as a shutout for Pavlovich, who boxed effectively from a distance and strafed his foe with both hard left jabs and powerful overhand rights. He landed 63 overall strikes to Cortes-Acosta's 45 and was at his busiest in the homestretch, landing 30 or 62 significant shots in the final round.
It ended a run of five straight wins for Cortes-Acosta stretching back to the summer of 2023.
"If you look at the fight," Pavlovich said, "you know that I studied him."
Loser: Flyweight Flop
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Well, they can't all be barnburners.
The main-card encounter between Sumudaerji and Kevin Borjas matched a pair of aspiring flyweights coming off victories, but it didn't translate to much beyond tedium across 15 largely non-violent minutes.
The combatants combined for just 89 significant strikes and zero takedowns on 10 tries, with a particularly passive Borjas landing just 16 significant blows while dropping a unanimous decision in which all three judges saw it a shutout.
That can't be a good sign for the 27-year-old Peruvian, who was a champion in the Inka FC promotion in 2022 but has now followed a Contender Series win in 2023 with a single victory amid two unanimous scorecard losses and a second-round finish.
Sumudaerji, meanwhile, has won two straight since dropping three straight fights—including two by submission—from 2022 to 2024.
Loser: Soldiering On
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Kiefer Crosbie made a competitive decision, not a career one.
The 35-year-old Irishman was on the wrong end of an illegal knee from Taiyilake Nueraji that left his consciousness compromised and his face bloodied, and he may have gotten a DQ win had he answered no when Goddard asked if he wanted to continue.
But he chose to soldier on and was even worse off for doing so, soon finding himself on the mat and unable to defend the flurry of elbows that prompted the official to end matters and award Nueraji a TKO victory at 3:33 of the first.
The two-point penalty Goddard issued for the foul was a non-factor as Crosbie fell to 0-3 in the company and was finished for the fifth time in six career losses.
"It's tough to figure out how to react to that after such a heavy foul and a blatant one," blow-by-blow man Brendan Fitzgerald said.
Nueraji didn't seem conflicted while celebrating his 12th career win, all by finish and all but two in the first round.
"It is my obligation to give you a big show," he said. "I was determined to finish this in the first round."
Winner: Total Package
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Gauge Young had a lot going for him, heading into the prelim feature.
He was a (slight) betting favorite. He embraced the heel role by playing Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" on his walk from the locker room. And he had longtime acquaintance Sanko waxing poetic about his talent and work ethic from cage-side.
It wound up being enough to sway the judges (if not the crowd) into awarding him a unanimous decision over local hero Maheshate by scores of 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.
"It was much needed after my first two performances," said Young, who'd begun his UFC run with losses on the Contender Series and on a Fight Night card. "I needed a win. I needed to show that I belong here."
Maheshate seemed sharper while landing 21 total strikes in the opening round, though Young staked a claim by dropping his foe late in the session. The American ramped up the aggression in rounds two and three, out-landing Maheshate by an 81-48 margin in terms of significant strikes while mixing in two takedowns and 2:38 in positional control time.
"At this level you can't be super one-dimensional," Young said. "You have to blend a bit of everything."
Winner: Standing Ground
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Thirty-something Charles Johnson had what 20-something Lone'er Kavanagh wanted: a UFC flyweight ranking.
And after nearly two full rounds of their crossroads prelim meeting, it seemed as if the younger, faster and sharper Brit was going to get it.
But the old guy wasn't quite ready to cede the stage, as he proved by landing the looping right hand that left Kavanagh in a heap and reinvigorated the American's own career.
It's Johnson's fifth win in six fights since he'd begun his UFC run with four losses in his first six across 2022 and 2023. And it came as he walked through a Kavanagh left hook and drilled the youngster as he backed away with his hands down.
Kavanagh crumbled to the floor and was defenseless against the subsequent flurry of shots that yielded the official end at 4:35 of the second.
"Charles Johnson stole this moment for himself," Fitzgerald said. "Lone'er Kavanagh is no longer unbeaten and the 'Prospect Killer' is a factor at flyweight."
Loser: Must-Win Mojo
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It was a must-win for Austin Hubbard and the 33-year-old—in the fifth fight of his second UFC stint—fought as if he knew it.
Consistently outgunned in a stand-up position, the Colorado-based lightweight sought to get his bout with Chinese rival Rongzhu to the mat, where he sought to pursue a third career victory by submission.
But even though he got takedowns at the end of the first round and early in the second, he didn't do enough with them and ultimately dropped a third straight decision that dropped him to 1-4 since his latest run began on The Ultimate Fighter in 2023.
Hubbard was 3-4 in his initial stay from 2019 to 2021, then won two fights in smaller promotions in 2022 before making his way back. He's now 4-8 in the big leagues and 17-10 overall in a career that began in 2015.
Rongzhu, meanwhile, has won two straight in his own second UFC stint and improved to 3-3 across six octagonal fights and 27-6 since debuting in 2016.
"I owe my win streak to my teammates and my coach," he said.
Winner: Redemptive Return
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Kyle Daukaus wasn't happy with his first octagonal go-round, having gone 2-4 with a no-contest across seven fights from 2020 to 2022.
So, upon getting the call to return against streaky Brazilian middleweight Michel Pereira, the Philadelphia-based jiu-jitsu ace knew he'd have to round out his game—particularly the striking.
Consider it done. In speedy fashion.
The 32-year-old penned a successful chapter for his comeback story, dumping Pereira with a right hook and following up with a volley of ground strikes that forced Goddard's hand after just 43 seconds.
"Getting back to the UFC was something I dreamed about," Daukaus said. "It's a nice statement to make."
He was released from the roster following a loss to Eryk Anders in December 2022 but responded with four straight wins—three by finish—in the Cage Fury Fighting Championships promotion and earned the callback.
"We knew that (Pereira) came in heavy on his punches, so our game plan was to engage in the striking as soon as he stepped in," Daukaus said. "That was a helluva hook."
Winner: Welcome Back
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Chinese featherweight Yizha is only 28 years old and it's not like he'd been away all that long—having gone 11 months since last appearing on a Fight Night show in Las Vegas.
Nevertheless, he was determined to reintroduce himself to the division and he did so in abruptly violent style, battering American visitor Westin Wilson into semi-conscious oblivion after just 37 seconds.
Six inches shorter than his southpaw opponent, Yizha lashed Wilson with long, overhand strikes along the fence and ultimately dropped him to his knees for a final fight-ending volley.
It was his 26th win as a pro but his first official triumph in the UFC after losing two fights around a successful run in the Asian-based Road to UFC tournament. It was also just a seventh KO among 20 career finishes for the submission ace, who's ended eight fights with chokes and three more with armbars.
"During camp," Yizha said, "I was trying to execute against people taller than me. Now I want a bonus."
Loser: Joyful Noise
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Imagine a big crowd pop at a high-end wrestling show and combine it with the prolonged chanting and sing-song revelry from soccer or college football.
That's what it sounded like when Xiao Long, the first Chinese fighter on Saturday's bout sheet, did anything remotely aggressive in the cage—whether it was an actual strike or simply a menacing step forward or a mean expression.
But mere volume wasn't enough.
Korean export SuYoung You turned those cheers into boos after 15 minutes, wriggling away with a narrow unanimous decision that left the crowd disappointed and his opponent shocked.
Long greeted the announcement of three 29-28 scorecards with upturned hands and a disgusted expression, particularly after a third round he'd earned with a flurry of punishing stand-up elbows down the stretch.
Analyst Michael Bisping, however, was on board with the numbers.
"Xiao had a tremendous finish. He had a great, great third round," he said. "But I had You winning the first two."
Winner: Finding Familiar
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Find your weight. Find your game.
Uran Satybaldiev was a fish out of water in a decision loss to ranked heavyweight Martin Buday four months ago in Las Vegas, so it made sense that he'd feel better after shedding the extra pounds to pick on someone his own size in the show opener in China.
The Kyrgyzstan product proved superior in every way to light heavyweight foe Diyar Nurgozhay, dropping him with a hard right hand and chasing a win by kimura before locking in the Ezekiel choke that ended matters at 2:45 of the first round.
It was just the fifth finish by that method in UFC history and got Satybaldiev back on the winning track he'd cruised to eight in a row before the ill-fated date with Buday in April.
"Last time was a fluke. It wasn't my weight class, so I didn't have time to properly prepare," he said. "Now I feel good about doing what I need to do."
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Johnny Walker def. Zhang Mingyang by TKO (punches), 2:37, Round 2
Aljamain Sterling def. Brian Ortega by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 50-45)
Sergei Pavlovich def. Waldo Cortes-Acosta by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
Sumudaerji def. Kevin Borjas by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Taiyilake Nueraji def. Kiefer Crosbie by TKO (elbows), 3:33, Round 1
Preliminary Card
Gauge Young def. Maheshate by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
Charles Johnson def. Lone'er Kavanagh by KO (punch), 4:35, Round 2
Rongzhu def. Austin Hubbard by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
Kyle Daukaus def. Michel Pereira by KO (elbows), 0:43, Round 1
Yizha def. Westin Wilson by KO (punches), 0:37, Round 1
SuYoung You def. Xiao Long by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Uran Satybaldiev def. Diyar Nurgozhay by submission (Ezekiel choke), 2:45, Round 1
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