UFC 297 took place in Toronto, Canada, and in the main event, the UFC middleweight championship belt changed hands for the third time in less than a year.
After five rounds of a competitive fight between Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis, most of which was spent in the standup, the judges scored the fight 47-48 and 48-47 to give the victory to the South African, who worked the first round and managed to inflict a serious dissection on the champion in the fourth round, which flooded his face for the rest of the match.
At the same time, the American got up quickly enough after a few successful transfers of his opponent, but was unable to impose his pace and did not use his trademark pressure, so his boxing was not as effective as usual.
In the post-fight interview, Dricus Du Plessis suggested a return to the octagon for former division champion Israel Adesanya, who lost his title last year against Sean Strickland.
In the co-main event, American Raquel Pennington claimed the vacant UFC flyweight title, winning a five-round unanimous decision over Brazilian Mayra Bueno Silva, who she outlanded three times in the number of punches thrown and twice in the number of accented strikes, taking the fight by scores of 49-45 and 49-46 twice.
In a post-fight interview, the newly crowned UFC champion said she was ready to step up to defend her belt against former titleholder, Julianna Peña.
In the third main event of the tournament, UFC welterweight division’s in-house gaytaker, Neil Magny, suffered an early defeat to Canadian prospect Mike Malott, who he finished by technical knockout with fifteen seconds left in the fight.
Opening the main card of the numbered event was Russian welterweight Movsar Yevloev, who defeated Brit Arnold Allen three times by unanimous decision over three rounds with a score of 29-28, making a serious bid to get into the top five of the division.
In a post-fight interview, the Russian said he wants to see the winner of the title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Elijah Topuria headline UFC 298 in Anaheim on Feb. 17 as his next opponent.
Other results include early wins for Gillian Robertson, Sam Patterson, Jasmine Yasudavicius and Jimmy Flick.
All results from UFC 297.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/33705-rezultaty-ufc-297-dyu-plessi-i-pennington-stali-novymi-chempionami-evloev-pobedil-allena.html?rand=19907
