As UFC 241 fades away and gets placed into the back of our hippocampus, we decided to recap the event and give it a proper eulogy.
It’s not often that I watch a card all the way from prelims through to the main-event. But after seeing the matchups on 241, I was rather optimistic and thought the card promised some exciting clashes. Leading up to fight-week, I made the radical decision to stay up through the late night hours of 6am, to watch the fine art of face punching on the sports biggest stage.
Preliminary Card
The preliminary card kicked off with Casey Kenney being “Ready to bang” and it set the tone for the night ahead, as he pulled off an impressive upset. Following that clash we witnessed Klose VS Giagos; where we saw some of the most unique grappling and wrestling I as a fan have ever witnessed. Near submissions, constant reversals and a strange position of trapping both the left arm and leg on the bottom.
Despite being just a few fights in, I was pretty high on the event already, and we weren’t even close to the pinnacle of the night. In the next fight we saw Cory Sandhagen go to war with Raphael Assuncao. Heading into the bout, many viewed Sandhagen as a favourite, even “future intergender champion” Henry Cejudo heavily backed Sandhagen to pick up the win as he watched on from the sidelines of the ESPN desk.
The final preliminary bout of the night saw Khama Worthy go to war with Devonte Smith. Smith managed to end the fight early into the first round with a brain melting KO punch. I think we saw another late stoppage here from Herb Dean as the downed Worthy ate five punches when flatlined on the ground.
Overall it was the holy grail of Prelim cards, a Prelim card to put all others to shame in terms of pure action and entertainment. It didn’t really have much star-power on it, but boy did the fights deliver ungodly action.
Main Card
By this point in the night, myself fuelled by both the sweet taste of coffee and MMA bloodlust induced excitement was greeted to the main card curtain jerker: Heinisch VS Brunson. Brunson managed to skirt his way to a decision victory, afterwards we got to witness Sodiq Yusuff finish off Gabriel Benetiz in the first round. Many believed that the stoppage was a tad early, but anyway what’s done is done and we must move forward as complaining now won’t change anything.
Following this was ‘The Soldier Of God’ versus a man literally called “THE ERASER”. I personally believe that this fight was literal combat perfection. It had everything you could possibly have wanted, there was early knockdowns, a late comeback, it was a war of attrition. Romero was being hit with bombs to the face and responded with laughs and smiles. It was the definition of a dog fight!
Next up was the much anticipated return of Diaz. I personally can’t say i’ve ever been so excited for a fight before. In one fight, Diaz managed to wipe out the whole idea of “Ring Rust” by throughly dominating Pettis from the first bell to the final clapper.
Then the time for the main event was upon us. Miocic VS Cormier was finally here. The atmosphere was purely electric at that point. Everybody knew that this wasn’t going to be just your average fight. It was going to be a battle, a war. And let me tell you this was what the fight was sure to be. Althroughout the fight Cormier was the strong leader, sniping away and hurting Stipe at multiple points. It looked like he was on his way to a dominating victory until Stipe ‘The filthy cheat’, discovered the deadly left hand. In the fourth Stipe stuck to the left and the mixture of body shots and Cormier gassing out meant Stipe was able to overcome the adversity and finish the champion.
And, that was UFC 241. One of the greatest MMA nights possibly ever!
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