UFC 297: 7 biggest takeaways from UFC’s first pay-per-view of the year

Dricus du Plessis is the brand new UFC middleweight king. The South African wrecking ball made historical past for his nation on Saturday at UFC 297, edging out Sean Strickland to win a cut up determination and develop into the first-ever South African UFC champion in Toronto’s Scotiabank Area. Du Plessis’ victory headlined the primary UFC pay-per-view of 2024, which additionally noticed the crowning of a second new champ, the rise of a brand new featherweight contender, plus extra.

With a lot to debate, let’s dive proper into our seven greatest takeaways from UFC 297.

1. Heading into 2024, Sean Strickland vs. Dricus du Plessis was my most anticipated struggle on the speedy MMA calendar for 2 foremost causes.

One was due to the sheer stylistic delight it appeared to predict — two males who’re devoted followers of the cult of ahead strain, however via drastically totally different means. The champ’s bull-like stubbornness and endurance versus the challenger’s rhinoceros-like energy and physicality — whose ahead march would overwhelm the opposite first?

The second purpose was a easy query that I simply couldn’t get out of my head: Who was for actual? If that sounds unusual, simply hear me out. Think about how we considered Strickland and du Plessis earlier than their last wins of 2023. Strickland was a 10-year UFC veteran finest identified for getting brutally colded by Alex Pereira. He’d been round endlessly and was who he was. Then he wandered into a chance to struggle Israel Adesanya and all the things modified. Identical with du Plessis — he was regarded by many to basically be a sloppy meme fighter. Then he fastened his nostril and trucked over Robert Whittaker and all the things modified.

So which variations of the 2 headliners had been going to point out up in Toronto? That was all the time the nice thriller of UFC 297 for me. Would we see the Strickland and du Plessis who so clearly leveled up in 2023, or was all of it an optical phantasm — a mix of fluke performances and fluke circumstances that led to 2 wildly convincing upsets? Had been Strickland and du Plessis actually nearly as good as their final fights made them appear, or would one (or each) of them flip again right into a pumpkin on the first probability they bought?

In that respect, the primary pay-per-view headliner of 2024 delivered all the things I hoped for, as a result of Strickland and du Plessis are that good. Sean Strickland is a correct elite middleweight. Dricus du Plessis can adapt and keep his bowling ball methods over the lengthy haul. That a lot is evident on this Sunday morning — nothing about final yr was a fluke. And simply as importantly, their five-round stylistic chess match up lived to all of its pre-fight promise. In a grueling affair that examined the mettle of each males, I scored the bout three rounds to 2 for the brand new champ, with Strickland claiming Rounds 1 and 5, and du Plessis capturing the sandwich-meat rounds. However Rounds 2 and three had been tight sufficient {that a} 48-47 Strickland rating is fully justified. I actually received’t begrudge anybody who noticed it that method.

Regardless, it was a tense and gratifying foremost occasion for a division that’s quietly develop into probably the greatest within the sport. That’s 4 middleweight title bouts in a row now which have all resulted within the belt altering palms, and it’s fully potential that pattern continues on to No. 5. The highest of 185 kilos out of the blue feels extra aggressive than it has in years. It’s an excellent enjoyable dynamic for the load class and never one I used to be certain existed till Saturday evening.

Whether or not it’s du Plessis in a grudge match in opposition to Adesanya or Khamzat Chimaev, there’s additionally a really actual probability the following middleweight title bout headlines UFC 300. Each challengers already seem to want it, and I personally love that. If 2023 was one for the historical past books at 185 kilos, 2024 is already shaping as much as be one hell of a follow-up act.

2. Look, I’m not right here to crap on somebody of their crowning second. That’s not my type. Raquel Pennington is an 11-year UFC veteran who is among the longest tenured girls within the group. She’s been right here since 2013 and paid her dues on the world’s stage — 17 octagon appearances, 12 wins, scalps from the likes of Miesha Tate, Jessica Andrade, Irene Aldana, Roxanne Modafferi, Ketlen Vieira, and now Mayra Bueno Silva. Positive, Pennington fumbled her first shot at gold in 2018, however she outlasted Amanda Nunes to grab upon her window and develop into the oldest feminine champion in UFC historical past at age 35. She’s as deserving of a titleholder as exists inside what’s left of the ladies’s bantamweight ranks.

However good lord, is anybody exterior of the Pennington family enthusiastic about this?

Ladies’s 135 has been the worst division within the UFC by a large margin for the reason that mirage of ladies’s 145 vanished upon Nunes’ retirement. However this? How we’re sitting to start out the brand new yr? That is bleak, man. Other than Julianna Peña, there isn’t a single feminine bantamweight alive who might conceivably drum up curiosity for any of those permutations on the high. Silva was imagined to be that individual. The inheritor obvious. The contemporary blood. The newcomer who’d inject just a little life in a dying division. And now it’s again to the drafting board.

Pop quiz: What number of feminine bantamweights below the age of 30 do you suppose exist within the UFC’s top-15 rankings? The reply: One. Precisely one. No. 9 ranked Karol Rosa. That’s it.

Pennington’s title alternative was justified and he or she actually earned her flowers, however nobody would ever confuse her with Justin Gaethje. So the place is that this division heading? The place is the following technology? The place are the contenders to restock the thrill coffers?

I actually do hate to be the doom-and-gloom man, however Saturday felt just like the nadir of a weight class that has been struggling for some time now. And I’m undecided the longer term is any brighter.

3. The knees Arnold Allen pummeled Movsar Evloev’s cranium with within the third spherical could not have technically been authorized, however the truth that nobody in MMA can seemingly come to a consensus on these sequences is purpose sufficient for why the hand-on-the-ground rule is so dumb and troublesome to officiate. (And the fact is definitely dumber than you’d suppose: Not less than one of many knees was unlawful as a result of Canada hasn’t adopted the identical rule tweaks as different commissions over time. The unified guidelines of MMA stay something however unified.)

Altogether it’s some powerful medication for Allen to swallow, as a result of there was all the time an excellent probability the winner of Evloev vs. Allen was going to get the following featherweight title shot if Alexander Volkanovski dispatches Ilia Topuria at UFC 298. Now Evloev is in pole place to chop the road into that title combine, whereas Allen is down 0-2 over his previous two bouts. That’s the sport of inches. It simply sucks the story as soon as once more facilities across the grounded knee rule reasonably than an in any other case sensational show of high-level martial arts from two of the highest younger abilities set to hold featherweight ahead into its subsequent period. Among the scrambles we noticed from Evloev and Allen had been the very best motion on the entire rattling card.

In contrast to some divisions (ahem), featherweight’s under-30 class stays loaded with premium expertise — which is why it all the time drives me bananas when individuals proclaim that Volkanovski cleaned out the division — and Evloev and Allen are each younger sufficient to know they’re going to satisfy once more. (Hopefully for 5 rounds subsequent time.) That being mentioned, as a lot as this dumb and inconsistent rule leaves a barely bitter style in my mouth, you received’t hear a peep of grievance out of me if we find yourself getting Volkanovski vs. Evloev in the summertime.

4. Nights like UFC 297 are precisely why Neil Magny is among the GOAT gatekeepers this sport has ever seen. (The GOATkeeper, if you will.) The person is tailored to let younger whippersnappers know whether or not they’re prepared for the 170-pound elite or not. Simply check out his previous few opponents. Shavkat Rakhmonov and Ian Machado Garry? Very clearly prepared. Philip Rowe and Daniel Rodriguez? Sadly, not fairly there but. And none of that is meant as a slight! The time period “gatekeeper” could have a grimy connotation in fight sports activities, but it surely’s a deeply vital job and a pathway for a multi-decade profession for those who’re good at it.

For 14 minutes on Saturday, Mike Malott appeared to cross that check. He went to the Garry and Rakhmonov effectively and picked Magny aside with a gradual weight loss program of kicks and high management. However the GOATkeeper isn’t going to simply reward his stepping stone to you. You want to take it by power. And so we got here to search out out that the most recent nice Canadian hope is probably not fairly as prepared for a welterweight rating as many believed — a minimum of not but. Magny’s gutsy come-from-behind win within the last seconds immediately joins Demian Maia’s fend-off of Gunnar Nelson within the welterweight pantheon of nice Not-Right now-Younger-Fella performances.

The outdated warhorse nonetheless has loads of struggle left in him. You like to see it.

And talking of that…

5. I’m all the time blown away by woodwork figures like Neil Magny who quietly work their method onto the document books via sheer power of will. (For those who’re confused about what I imply, right here’s Magny’s present assortment of UFC information: Most wins in welterweight historical past, most bouts in welterweight historical past, longest struggle time in welterweight historical past, most vital strikes landed in welterweight historical past, and essentially the most determination wins in UFC historical past. Not unhealthy for a fringe contender who by no means as soon as sniffed an actual shot on the UFC welterweight belt.)

On that observe, Gillian Robertson is quietly turning into one thing to behold. Together with her second-round knockout of Polyana Viana at UFC 297, Robertson continues to amass a Magny-esque trophy case to her personal identify: Essentially the most finishes in girls’s flyweight historical past (7), essentially the most submissions in UFC girls’s flyweight historical past (6), tied for many bouts in girls’s flyweight division historical past (13), and essentially the most submissions in total UFC girls’s historical past (7). However most spectacular of all is that this one: Robertson has now moved right into a tie with Jessica Andrade for the second-most finishes in UFC girls’s historical past (9). She’s only one behind the ladies’s GOAT, Amanda Nunes (10), for first-place on that record. And he or she’s nonetheless solely 28 years outdated.

At this tempo, Robertson might maintain sole possession of that finishes document by yr’s finish and begin driving it into the stratosphere like the feminine Charles Oliveira. She could not obtain the identical acclaim as a number of the extra ballyhooed contenders at 125 kilos, however the pleasure of Niagara Falls is forging her personal highway within the large present, and it’s a rattling spectacular one.

6. Pour one out for the 14 seconds of pure bliss Charles Jourdain felt after his undercard bout in opposition to Sean Woodson earlier than a chuckling Daniel Cormier spoiled all the things.

I do know the struggle sport is notorious for its highs and lows, however c’mon blood gods. This was simply merciless.

7. The UFC might survive one other 200 years and we could by no means see a run fairly as majestic because the six-year legacy slapped collectively by Priscila Cachoeira.

Severely, simply take into account this. There’s the eye gouges. The disrobing of opponents. The omnipresent cheating. The positive drug tests. The controversial wins. Multiple weight misses. And then you definitely have a look at how this all started and the way it’s more likely to finish. Cachoeira made her UFC debut in 2018 on the receiving finish of a historic beatdown in opposition to Valentina Shevchenko. The strike differential in that struggle: 230-3 in favor of Shevchenko. Not nice. However then Cachoeira by some means went out and blew her personal mark out of the water at UFC 297. Other than botching the size so badly that her struggle needed to be contested at a very totally different weight class, Cachoeira shambled her method into the document books once more with a 326-26 masterpiece of putting futility in opposition to Jasmine Jasudavicius. If Cachoeira’s UFC run ends tomorrow (and the way on Earth might it not?), she’ll depart the promotion because the proud proprietor of the most important (-300) and third-largest (-227) strike differential in girls’s UFC historical past.

That’s particular.

I genuinely wrestle to fathom how a lot absurdity could possibly be confined to a single résumé. We’re speaking a few fighter with a lifetime spot locked up on the All-Nonsense First Group. But when Saturday evening was additionally the final time we see her, there couldn’t have been a extra good bookend to one of many UFC’s weirdest and most unrepeatable careers.

Right here’s to you, Priscila. Six months in the past I proclaimed you to be this generation’s Rousimar Palhares. However you had been greater than that. You had been a residing assure that even essentially the most ho-hum of undercards might by no means be boring. That’s a present few on this sport possess.

Picture by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC through Getty Pictures