UFC 321 Live Winners and Losers, Results
The UFC was pining for a face of the franchise.
Tom Aspinall wanted the gig.
The popular British heavyweight auditioned in front of an international audience on Saturday when he risked a championship he was promoted into last summer for the first time against fellow former interim title claimant Ciryl Gane.
Aspinall, 32, had been nearly flawless since graduating to the company from the Cage Warriors promotion five years ago, winning eight of nine bouts and avenging an injury-prompted loss to Curtis Blaydes with a 60-second KO in July.
Gane, a 35-year-old Frenchman, got his third crack at the big time after a brief run with the interim belt and a pair of losses in tries for the full-fledged title against Francis Ngannou (UD 5) and Jon Jones (SUB 1) in 2022 and 2023.
Their heavyweight tilt topped a 13-bout card from the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, billed as UFC 321, that got going with prelims in late morning on the East Coast, followed by the main card in the early afternoon.
The B/R team was in place to take in all the action and delivered a definitive, real-time list of the day's winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the app comments.
Loser: Competitive Conclusion
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Blow-by-blow man Jon Anik delivered the operative line:
"Just when it looked like we might be settling in for an epic heavyweight championship fight," he said, "it's a no-contest."
Thanks to an inadvertent poke from a finger on Gane's left hand into Aspinall's right eye, their fight was abandoned after just 4:35 when Aspinall was deemed unfit to continue.
It was the second title fight to end in a no-contest and the first to do so immediately, following a UFC 214 match between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier in 2017, whose result was changed from a Jones win when the then-205-pound champ failed a drug test.
Aspinall took the full five minutes of recovery time and consulted with cage-side personnel, but said he was unable to see well enough to fight, then chastised the crowd for booing.
"Guys, I just got poked knuckle deep in the eye. Why are you booing?" he said. "What am I supposed to do?"
Gane sank to his knees in disappointment when the decision to halt was made, likely because things had gone better than expected for him. He moved well and had strafed Aspinall with hard jabs, leaving the champion's nose bloodied.
Cormier said he hoped the fight could be rebooked for December.
"I feel sorry. I'm sorry for Aspinall. I'm sorry for myself," Gane said. "We prepared for this fight very well. I don't know what's going to happen. We'll see."
Winner: Crossover Credibility
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Mackenzie Dern has always been about visuals.
But they leveled up a notch on Saturday when the popular strawweight and social media star added a UFC championship belt to her prodigious list of credits.
The 32-year-old had a hideous bruise under her right eye and a trickling cut above it, but neither mattered when she was announced as a unanimous decision winner over Virna Jandiroba in the co-main event.
Dern sagged to her knees in tears, and the emotion was palpable across the arena when her young daughter was brought into the cage and Dern handed the belt to the little girl.
"It feels amazing," she said. "I can't believe this."
Dern was awarded three of five rounds on two scorecards and four of five on the other, thanks largely to active striking exchanges on the feet and her willingness to continue to throw punches and elbows even as Jandiroba converted on nine takedowns.
"I think I did a lot of damage on the ground. I think I did a little bit of everything," she said. "We knew the striking would be good. I wish it would have been a little better."
Loser: Streak Sustainability
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Ever wondered what it was like to wrestle a sausage grinder?
Ask Mario Bautista.
The UFC's ninth-ranked bantamweight had won eight consecutive fights heading into his matchup with recent title challenger Umar Nurmagomedov, but the streaking 32-year-old was in over his head nearly from the opening tap against the relentless Russian.
Bautista was taken down 10 times and controlled for nearly 11 of 15 minutes against his second-ranked rival, never getting any prolonged chances to inflict damage once Nurmagomedov got close and almost immediately returned him to the mat.
A hard right knee to the chin landed squarely and left Nurmagomedov wobbly in the opening half-minute of the second round, but the stricken fighter regained his senses and got in range to score another takedown 45 seconds later.
He was awarded all three rounds by each of the three judges for a unanimous nod.
"Just watch him. There is a plan to every movement, anticipating what comes next," Cormier said. "Incredibly relentless, complete effort. If he misses the first one and he misses the second one, there's a third, a fourth, and a fifth on the way."
Loser: Desultory Disappointment
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The fighter rankings, second and fifth in the heavyweight division, respectively, suggested the main card bout between Alexander Volkov and Jailton Almeida could be a good scrap.
But it wasn't.
The lanky Russian and the Brazilian grappling ace combined for a largely non-violent 15 minutes in which referee Marc Goddard got the loudest cheers for standing the fighters up, and the boos during prolonged ground stretches were clearly audible.
Almeida converted seven of nine takedown attempts and had better than 10 minutes of positional control time, but his inability (or unwillingness) to risk position to deliver strikes while on the ground left him vulnerable to the iffy scorecards that provided Volkov with a split-decision victory.
Judges Tony Weeks and Clemens Werner split the first two rounds but gave the third to Volkov, overruling Mike Bell's similar score in the other direction that matched the B/R tally.
"When you don't give the judges very much to judge," analyst Laura Sanko said, "you can get some surprising scorecards."
Winner: Holding a Grudge
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Azamat Murzakanov craved the opportunity to prove himself, but, according to him at least, not many people outside his training team thought he'd translate it to a win.
Given that apparent reality, it's no surprise that he was salty on Saturday.
The powerful Russian decked No. 7 light heavyweight contender Aleksandar Rakic with a single straight right hand and finished him after one additional ground strike, then barked "Let's go!" in Rakic's face when the two came together afterward.
The edge was still there when he chatted Cormier up soon after.
"You all doubted me. I told you not to doubt me," said the winner, whose active streak (6) is second-longest in the division and whose KO total since 2022 (5) equals champion Alex Pereira and highly regarded contender Carlos Ullberg.
"I planned to finish him. I'm glad I did that. I'm going to be fighting for the title. I want to fight for the No. 1 contender."
It was Rakic's fourth straight loss after a 6-1 start in the UFC.
Winner: Spanning the Globe
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If international flavor is your thing, this is your kind of fight card.
Sixteen countries are represented among the 26 fighters and 13 fights, including 14 across the eight preliminary fights alone.
Traditional MMA breeding grounds like Brazil and Russia predictably led the parade with five and four of the 26 fighters, respectively, with England (3) and the U.S. (2) also getting involved multiple times—and claiming three of the four spots in title fights.
But they didn't have an exclusive on participation, with countries with just one UFC fighter to their respective names—Egypt, Slovakia, and Morocco—getting involved, too.
Egyptian heavyweight Hamdy Abdelwahab picked up his second win in four UFC bouts with a decision over Chris Barnett, while Slovakian lightweight Ludovit Klein survived, apparently breaking his right ankle in the third round, to defeat Mateusz Rebecki.
Moroccan lightweight Nasrat Haqparast didn't have it so good in his 15th octagonal appearance, taking a hard kick to the left side of his head and falling to the floor unconscious for a first-round KO loss to short-notice sub Quillan Salkilld.
"That was one of the craziest head kicks I've seen in a long time," Cormier said.
Winner: Leveling Up
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Consider it a middleweight mid-term for Ikram Aliskerov.
The Russian-based sambo fighter was identified as a fighter to watch at 185 pounds, given that he'd lost just twice in 18 pro bouts—to only current divisional champion Khamzat Chimaev and former divisional king Robert Whittaker.
Korean veteran JunYong Park provided the Saturday measuring stick, and Aliskerov cleared it in a successful if not transcendent fashion, winning each of three rounds on all three scorecards for a decision that gave him four wins in five UFC fights.
He earned the first two rounds with methodically effective aggression and striking, then fought off both Park and growing fatigue in the final five minutes by scoring a mid-round takedown and controlling his foe down the stretch to seal the win.
It was his first decision after he'd won three octagonal fights by first-round finishes.
"Every single one of these prospects have to fight a guy like JunYong Park because he'll test you in every single area of mixed martial arts," Cormier said. "This was everything that Ikram Aliskerov needed."
Winner: Cartoon Call-Out
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Valter Walker is clearly a special heavyweight.
He arrived in Abu Dhabi as the 15th-ranked fighter in the division, with three wins in four UFC fights, all by a niche submission known as the heel hook.
And while his fourth straight victory over octagonal newbie Louie Sutherland was noteworthy for both its quickness—1:24—and method (yes, another heel hook), it'll be the 27-year-old Brazilian's post-fight interview that has legs in the aftermath.
Valker ebulliently claimed he'd snatched two heels each for Brazil (where he's from) and Russia (where he trains), then changed direction to issue a callout to Abdelwahab, who'd beaten Barnett two fights earlier on the card.
And while the verbal chase for the Egyptian wasn't all that special on its own, his derision of his rival's victory while referring to Barnett as a "chocolate Peppa Pig" clearly landed.
"That may be the best post-fight interview I've ever seen," blow-by-blow man Jon Anik said.
Loser: Scorecard Suspicion
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Just when it looked like Jose Miguel Delgado had punched his ticket to additional UFC featherweight relevance, he found himself disappointed instead.
The 27-year-old from Arizona had Nathaniel Wood on the verge of a quick finish in the first round after peppering the Englishman with strikes of all shapes and sizes from what seemed like every conceivable direction.
Wood, a former Cage Warriors champ who'd suited up for 12 previous UFC fights, was wobbled and bloodied for the better part of five minutes, but he managed to stay in the fray long enough to get back to his stool and restart the engines for the final 10 minutes.
"People forget me because I talk very softly and I'm English," Wood said. "But we got that dog in us."
Wood translated resilience into a narrow scorecard victory, sweeping the final two rounds on each of the three official scorecards to get his 10th octagonal triumph. The B/R scorecard disagreed, seeing Delgado up in each of the first two rounds while awarding him a 29-28 margin.
Statistically, the American landed 134 significant strikes to Wood's 99 and had 30 more seconds of positional control time (1:28 to 0:58).
"(Delgado is) good," analyst Daniel Cormier said. "He's really good. He wanted to show layers tonight. That's exactly what he had to do."
Winner: Officials Being Official
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The UFC is entering its decisive referee era.
Officials Goddard and Rich Mitchell earned praise from the cage-side broadcast team in consecutive prelim fights, thanks to immediate and impactful reactions to obvious in-fight fouls.
Mitchell broke up the action, changed the position, and docked Kazakh flyweight Azat Maksum a point for a blatant fence grab in his bout against Mitch Raposo.
His move was immediately followed by Goddard's interrupting the heavyweight fight, chastising Abdelwahab, and taking a point away after he landed an elbow to the back of Barnett's head.
Barnett was given some recovery time and had a visit from a cage-side physician before the fight resumed.
Cormier was thrilled to see the impactful referee work, particularly after a series of previous fight shows in which officials were either slow to react, failed to react at all, or issued multiple warnings for repeated infractions with no meaningful response.
"I love this," he said. "Right or wrong, (Goddard) acted quickly and decisively. That's what you like to see, a referee doing his job."
Winner: Worth the Wait
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It was a long time coming for Raposo.
The 27-year-old flyweight was submitted in a Contender Series try in 2021, then arrived for two official UFC fights in 2024 and earlier in 2025, only to drop both by split decisions.
He was in some danger again after two nip-and-tuck rounds with Maksum, but cranked up the output across the final five minutes and benefited from his foe being docked a point for a fence grab, ultimately breaking through with a unanimous decision win.
The Massachusetts native dropped to his knees and fought off tears as the verdict, including two 29-27 scores and one 30-26, was read in his favor.
B/R agreed with the majority and saw it 2-1 in rounds, or 29-27.
"Plus-350 my a*s," he said, referring to his status as the prelim card's biggest betting underdog. "I had to push him. My problem in my fights is not pushing guys, not forcing my output. I had to believe in myself and my conditioning."
Loser: Scuttling the Plans
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A funny thing happened on the way to strawweight contention.
American-based Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace Jaqueline Amorim arrived with four straight finishes and seemed prepped for another step toward the top 15 against a one-named foe—Mizuki—who'd not been in the cage in 25 months.
And after one round of getting things to the ground and chasing a submission via rear-naked choke, it was all going according to the ascension plan.
But once Mizuki began eluding her foe's takedown attempts and imposing her own sturdy, perpetually aggressive will, the script was flipped.
The 31-year-old shook off a jagged cut alongside her right eye, handled business on her feet, and was able to land additionally damaging blows when things went back to the mat, dropping Amorim with a knee to the body on the way to a unanimous decision win in the prelim card opener.
Two judges gave her all three rounds, and one saw it 2-1, matching the B/R card.
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Tom Aspinall v Ciryl Gane declared no contest (eye poke), 4:35, Round 1
Mackenzie Dern def. Virna Jandiroba by unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 49-46)
Umar Nurmagomedov def. Mario Bautista by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Alexander Volkov def. Jailton Almeida by split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
Azamat Murzakanov def. Aleksandar Rakic by TKO (punch), 3:11, Round 1
Preliminary Card
Quillan Salkilld def. Nasrat Haqparast by KO (head kick), 2:30, Round 1
Ikram Aliskerov def. JunYong Park by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Ludovit Klein def. Mateusz Rębecki by majority decision (29-28, 28-27, 28-28)
Valter Walker def. Louie Sutherland by submission (heel hook), 1:24, Round 1
Nathaniel Wood def. Jose Miguel Delgado by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Hamdy Abdelwahab def. Chris Barnett by unanimous decision (29-26, 29-27, 29-27)
Mitch Raposo def. Azat Maksum by unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-27)
Mizuki def. Jaqueline Amorim by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
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