The Real Winners and Losers from UFC on ESPN 33

Lyle FitzsimmonsMar 27, 2022

If you felt like it had been a while, you were right.

The UFC took its Fight Night on the road to a U.S. venue for the first time in nearly two years, marching into the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio for a 12-bout card that ran from 4 p.m. to just after 10 p.m.

The most recent Fight Night in the U.S. outside of the UFC's Apex facility in Las Vegas was at Jacksonville, Florida in May 2020. The promotion's last event in Ohio had been UFC 203 in September 2016.

Single-digit heavyweight contenders Curtis Blaydes (No. 4) and Chris Daukaus (No. 9) met in Saturday's crossroads main event that came 13 months after Blaydes had been stopped in two rounds by Derrick Lewis and just three months after Daukaus was vaporized in one by the same opponent.

Jon Anik, Michael Bisping and Daniel Cormier worked the announce table for the ESPN broadcast while Din Thomas chimed in intermittently with technical analysis and Megan Olivi worked the rest of the room for feature stories and breaking news.

Nary a mention was made, however, of the news made away from the venue in which promotional stalwart Nate Diaz took to social media to ask for a release. Diaz hasn't fought since a loss to Leon Edwards at UFC 263 last June and hasn't won a fight since beating Anthony Pettis at UFC 241 in August 2019.

"I would like to request to be released from the @ufc," Diaz tweeted, tagging Dana White. "I apologize for asking online but u don't give me a fight asap I got sh*t to do."

The B/R combat sports team was in position to take in all the action and come up with its definitive list of winners and losers from the show, the company's last before UFC 273 in Jacksonville on April 9.

As always, we invite you to click through to take a look at what we came up with and leave a take or two of your own in the comments section.

Winner: Calling Your Shot

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Just when Chris Daukaus thought he knew the answer, Curtis Blaydes changed the question.

The wrestling-centric heavyweight contender decided to let his fists do the talking in Saturday night's main event and it worked in bone-crunching style, resulting in a one-punch KO of Daukaus just 17 seconds into the second round of their scheduled five-round clash.

"I wanted to put out a statement," said Blaydes, now 11-3 with a no-contest in the UFC since 2016 and ranked fourth in division behind champion Francis Ngannou. "Everyone in here was expecting a (takedown) shot. I saw the opportunity (to punch) and it worked."

It was the first time in Blaydes' career with the promotion in which he has not attempted at least one takedown. Instead, he stood right in front of Daukaus and exchanged power shots and kicks throughout the first round in spite of the Philadelphian's run of 10 consecutive victories (four in the UFC) by knockout.

In fact, Daukaus was pressing forward when the final sequence began. He flicked a range-finding left jab and was winding up with a follow-up right when Blaydes stepped in with a shorter, sharper right of his own that cracked audubly into his foe's left eye socket and immediately dropped him to his knees.

Blaydes jumped in with a follow-up volley of punches and elbows as Daukaus covered up, eventually drawing a stop from referee Herb Dean. Blaydes landed seven of 10 shots in the second round and 30 of 63 overall, compared to one in the second round for Daukaus and 13 of 38 in total.

Bisping labeled it a "perfect result" for Blaydes, who proceeded to call out No. 1-ranked Ciryl Gane for an interim title bout and No. 2 contender and Ohio favorite Stipe Miocic, who was seated cageside.

"I wanna be just like you, Stipe," he said. "And that means I might have to beat you."

Winner: Capturing the Crowd

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Neither Bryan Barberena nor Matt Brown are world-ranked welterweight contenders and chances are good that neither will possess a UFC title belt at any point in their careers.

But the crowd in Columbus certainly appreciated their efforts.

The burly 32-year-old Californian and the popular 41-year-old Ohioan beat each other into a wobbly-legged, bloody stupor across 15 minutes of sustained and titillating violence that drew audible raves in the arena and breathless endorsements from the broadcast team as an instant classic.

"This is one of the best fights of 2022 or any calendar year for that matter," Anik said.

"It's a fight they’ll be talking about for years to come."

The two men combined to throw 340 strikes and land 192 of them in three rounds of action, alongside five takedowns and nearly six minutes of control time. Brown emerged from the fray with a deep cut under his left eye while Barberena bled steadily from a vertical gash at the top of his nose.

Appropriately, it went to a split decision and Barberena won it with two 29-28 scores to Brown's one.

The fans booed the verdict before cheering Barberena in his post-fight interview.

"This is absolutely everything I friggin' dreamed of, everything I wanted," he said.

"I knew it was gonna be one of those in-the-mud kind of wars. I was trying tooth and nail to get him out of there, but he was tough as nails."

Loser: Spoiling a Celebration

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Askar Askarov was in no mood to party.

The visiting Russian was on the receiving end of loud boos from the crowd upon his introduction and was opposing a fan favorite who was entering the cage while celebrating his 29th birthday.

So the world's second-ranked flyweight and significant betting favorite blocked it out and went to work.

Askarov scored his first takedown barely two minutes into the first round, established a body triangle seconds later and spent the remainder of the session chasing a choke submission as Kai Kara-France evaded.

Kara-France ultimately stayed on his feet for nearly eight of 10 minutes across the final two rounds and statistically out-landed his grappling-focused foe, but the overall numbers—significant strike percentage (45 to 39), takedowns (2 to 0) and control time (5:14 to 0:00)—all favored Askarov as the verdict was read.

Not surprisingly, it was a unanimous decision with a trio of 29-28 counts.

But shockingly, and in spite of the numbers, it was in Kara-France's favor.

Askarov greeted Bruce Buffer's announcement by falling to his knees and fighting off tears. He was later visible with his face buried into the fence as Kara-France took the post-fight chat with Cormier.

"I know I'm the best in the world, so I've just got to back myself," said Kara-France, who climbed to the top of the fence at the fight's end but didn't directly claim that he thought he'd won.

"This is mixed martial arts and you’ve got to entertain."

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Winner: Keeping Legendary Company

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Any time you're mentioned alongside Georges St-Pierre, you're doing OK.

And though it wasn't an easy road, Neal Magny achieved that status on Saturday night.

A 34-year-old New Yorker billed as "The Haitian Sensation" thanks to international parental roots, Magny was on the verge of equaling the Canadian-born St-Pierre's record of 19 victories in the UFC's welterweight division amid a two-division championship run that stretched from 2006 to 2017.

But he had to go through difficult times with main card foe Max Griffin, recovering from a first-round knockdown before taking over with grappling and submission-chasing and ultimately winning a split decision with two cards of 29-28 that countered a third 29-28 count in Griffin's favor.

It was Magny's 19th welterweight win in a 26-fight run that began at UFC 157 in February 2013.

"I've been in this sport for a very long time chasing a lot of goals," he said, "so to be up there with one of the all-time greats it feels amazing."

Magny was out-struck in both the first and second rounds, but he changed the optics of the fight with four takedown attempts in the middle session and brought it home with a 59-14 overall striking advantage in the third round to a takedown and more than four minutes of control time.

Now 26-8 in a career that began in 2010, Magny wasted no time with a post-fight callout of reigning welterweight boogeyman and 11th-ranked contender Khamzat Chimaev, who'll fight second-ranked Gilbert Burns at UFC 274 in Jacksonville on April 9.

"Nineteen wins in this sport and in the welterweight division, which is one of the toughest," Bisping said, "what an incredible achievement."

Winner: Staking a KO Claim

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OK, maybe the KO of the Year isn't locked up after all.

Seven days after Molly McCann's spinning elbow left opponent Luana Carolina in semi-conscious heap at the O2 Arena in London, Chris Gutierrez took a run of his own at calendar-ending honors.

The 30-year-old bantamweight had gone back and forth through just more than seven competitive minutes against Batgerel Danaa, with the rugged Mongolian pressing forward as the Boston native-turned-New Jersey resident countered with strikes from both his fists and his feet.

And then it was over.

Danaa was in his customary aggressive stance when Gutierrez pivoted quickly to deliver a spinning right back fist that connected flush on foe's chin and instantly dumped him to the floor, where Gutierrez pounced with a follow-up flurry of punches and elbows that prompted a rescue from Herb Dean at 2:34.

The decisive blow landed courtesy of Gutierrez's right forearm, just above his wrist and below his elbow.

It was a sixth win in eight UFC fights—against a loss and a draw—for Gutierrez, who spent five years in other promotions before debuting in the Octagon in 2018. Danaa, meanwhile, lost for the first time since his own UFC curtain-raiser 2019, ending a streak of three straight wins by finish.

"Good night. Down you go. Chris Gutierrez, that was amazing," Bisping said. "That is a thing of beauty."

Winner: Beating the Boo-Birds

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Aliaskhab Khizriev was not welcomed warmly.

Both he and Saturday foe Denis Tiuliulin fight out of Russia, a fact that drew a loud negative reaction from the Nationwide Arena crowd when the middleweights were introduced by Bruce Buffer.

But within seven minutes, he'd earned at least a grudging respect from the mid-Ohio set.

Already unbeaten in 13 fights as a pro, the 31-year-old extended his streak while making his UFC debut with a gritty second-round submission of his late substitute preliminary card opponent.

"It was a great debut," he said. "I feel amazing."

With good reason.

And he may have made himself a new frenemy, too.

Once referee Gary Copeland unlocked the rear-naked choke that had put Tiuliulin to sleep in the center of the cage, Khizriev scaled the nearby fence and immediately pointed down to Bisping at the announce table—giving the impression that the ex-185-pound champ was on his suddenly burgeoning hit list.

Bisping, incidentally, is a month shy of 43 years old and hasn't fought since 2017.

"Welcome to the UFC," he said. "But just leave me alone."

Upon further review, Khizriev may have just been using Bisping as a vehicle to broadcast his intention to continue his roll all the way to a championship opportunity. He suggested afterward that he'd drop down to 170 pounds to compete as a full-time welterweight.

"Hey Dana, I want to tell you something," Khizriev said, pinching his stomach. "I’d like to go down and smash everybody."

Both Bisping and Cormier suggested shedding the excess weight would be a good career move.

"He would dominate down there," Cormier said. "At 170, he would be a problem."