It was a night of upsets and epic performances during the UFC on Fox card held last night at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
The card was headlined by a showdown of two of the best middleweight contenders in the world with Lyoto Machida and former Strikeforce Middleweight champion Luke Rockhold.
It also had a stacked main card underneath the main event that kept the fans in the arena and at home, one the edge of their seats all night long.
Paige VanZant had another incredible performance by dominating Felice Herrig and won the fight by unanimous decision. The fight started off shaky for VanZant as Herrig caught her in several deep arm-bar attempts and almost caused VanZant to submit several times.
She battled back and even slammed Herrig several times to dominate the fight. Van Zant even took two of the judges card by a score of 30-26.
With the win, Van Zant moves to 5-1, and at the young age of 21, and in addition to her hot looks and incredible fighting style, she has become one of the most marketable faces of the UFC.
Cub Swanson has clearly become one of the top Featherweight fighters in the world, he is ranked 5th in the world, but even Swanson could not stop the amazing performance put forth by Max Holloway in the cage last night.
Holloway looked incredible and Swanson had no answers as he was forced to fight off submissions all match long until Holloway finally sunk in the guillotine choke at 3:58 of the third round for the victory. With the win Max Holloway moved to 13-3 and won his 6th straight fight.
Swanson, drops to 21-7 and will need to rediscover the form that made him the top contender for the UFC Featherweight title just a short time ago.
Ronaldo Souza continued his path to the UFC Middleweight Title with a blowout victory over the returning Chris Camozzi. It only took a little over two minutes for the former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion to force Camozzi to tap out to an armbar.
The win improves his record to 22 – 3 and earned his 8th straight win, dating back to his days in Strikeforce. It is a safe bet he has earned the next shot at the UFC Middleweight crown after the Belfort vs Weidman bout next month.
In the main event, it was the former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Luke Rockhold pulling off the upset over UFC favorite and perennial title contender Lyoto Machida with a second round rear naked choke submission victory. Rockhold has been on a tear since losing in his UFC debut against Vitor Belfort.
Perhaps a title eliminator bout is in order between him and Ronaldo Souza after the extremely effective performance out of both of them.
Overall, it was a great card in which the amazing performance of Paige VanZant stole the show on a night of several great performances.
Until next time fight fans, No Blood : No Foul!