Sanabul Fight News: UFC Vegas 56

With some exciting finishes and some fun storylines on Saturday nights card, there wasn’t much to complain about for a Fight Night leading up to UFC 275 next weekend. With a Heavyweight clash as the main event, and a good mix of womens and lighter men’s fights, the card was very well rounded and super fun to watch!

Erin Blanchfield, Renat Fakhretdinov, and Jeff Molina all got the card started off in impressive fashion with their own respective wins. Blanchfield took an impressive submission win over JJ Aldrich in what was looking like JJ’s fight on the feet. Erin got a hold of JJ’s neck in a standing guillotine and it was tight enough to make her tap, to solidify Erin’s record to 9-1. 

Fakhretdinov was a highly touted prospect coming into this fight, out of All Stars MMA with training partners like Khamzhat Chimaev, Gustaffson, and more, Renat had a lot riding on him to perform well. Andreas Michailidas was Renat’s opponent on Saturday night, and sadly was quite dominated on the ground for three rounds. Renat showed some very impressive offensive wrestling, as well as some powerful striking and grappling on the mat.

 Jeff Molina ended up moving his record up to 11-2 in a Flyweight matchup against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, the fight was very fun to watch with a large variety of grappling, technical striking, and brawling. 

Tony Gravely, Benoit Saint-Denis and Damon Jackon all followed on the prelims with dominant performances as well. Tony Gravely was expected to show off his wrestling skills against fellow grappler Johnny Munoz, but ended up knocking Johnny out in the first round with a tight uppercut that put Munoz down immediately. 

Benoit Saint-Denis and Niklas Stoltze both moved down a weight class to the welterweight division in a fight that was expected to be quite a war. Benoit ended up getting three takedowns in the first two rounds and submitting Stoltze in the second, to move his record up to 9-1 on his Professional record. 

Damon Jackson was one of the biggest favorites on the card on Saturday night, against (8-1) Dan Argueta. The fight was a little odd, with Dan throwing over 140 strikes, and landed only 27 significant strikes on the scorecard, Damon ended up getting his hand raised at the end of three rounds with a total of 32 significant strikes and two takedowns. 

Askar Mozharov, also known as “Artur Shadkov”, “Artur Sadkov”, and “Arthur Shadakov”, or “The Ukrainian McGregor” opened up the main card against UFC Light Heavyweight Alonzo Menifield. Askar has an interesting story, late in his professional career, he had a little more losses than he would have liked, so he changed his name multiple times in an attempt to erase those losses and pretend like it was someone else who had fought in those bouts that he had lost. Now “19-13” in his professional MMA career, it was made obvious that you can’t cheat your way to the UFC by “can crushing” and changing your name, and Menifield absolutely dominated his way to a vicious TKO win. 

Ode Osbourne and Karine Silva both earned first round finishes against their opponents on Saturday night, and proved their spots in their respective divisions moving forward. With Zarrukh Adashev being 4-3 in Professional MMA after a high-level career in kickboxing, Ode was a relatively big favorite on the betting cards Saturday night. Ode ended up landing a clean right hook that led to a TKO from ground and pound, earning him a first round finish against a very good striker. Karine Silva continues to solidify her 100% finish rate in professional MMA with a first-round submission win over Polina Botelho, moving her record up to 15-4 in the WFlyweight division, looking like a dangerous new face in the division. 

Lucas Almeida pulled off an upset against UFC and TUF veteran Mike Trizano in the third round with an incredible knockout win. A win over a vet like Mike Trizano in your UFC debut is nothing to brush off, especially such an incredible knockout late in the third round after a pretty dominant performance as well. 

Movsar Evloev and Dan Ige had a dominant and one-sided performance from Evloev, as one of the biggest favorites on the card. Dan Ige is a legend in the UFC, with wins over Edson Barboza and Gavin Tucker, Ige is a fun striker to watch but has been slacking in his last few fights. Evloev moves up his record to 16-0 with this victory over Ige and proves his dominance as a featherweight in the UFC. 

Alexander Volkov and Jairzinho Rozenstruik was a clash of titans that was expected to end in a huge knockout, and ended up paying off. Volkov has been a dominant striker in the heavyweight division for many years, but many were expecting Rozenstruik to pull off his 7th knockout win in the UFC on Saturday night. Volkov did not let that happen, he kept his distance and set up a massive TKO win that some were complaining about as an “early stoppage”. I thought the stoppage was fine, we have seen multiple wins that have looked like that with the ref ending the fight not because the fighter was unconscious, but because they were not defending themselves or looking to be in a healthy position. 

In other news this weekend, Devin Haney ended up winning a decision victory over George Kambosos. Moving his record up to 28-0, Devin ended up winning 118-110 on one of the judges' scorecards, asserting himself as one of the best boxers at this moment in time.