Leon Edwards And the Real Winners and Losers from UFC 296

No holiday hyperbole was needed.

Because as MMA cards go, it was a big one. Period.

Dana White and Co. produced their final pay-per-show of the calendar year, UFC 296, on Saturday night in Las Vegas, where two titles were on the line and some of the promotion's biggest names were performing.

And when it comes to big names, few prompt more reaction than Colby Covington.

The 35-year-old walked his polarizing persona down the aisle for a third welterweight championship try, this time against incumbent 170-pound boss Leon Edwards, who twice beat the man (Kamaru Usman) who twice beat Covington in his previous title chances.

Also defending a title on the show was bantamweight champ Alexandre Pantoja, who faced former foe Brandon Royval in a rematch of a non-title encounter that Pantoja won by second-round submission in 2021.

The main card went live from T-Mobile Arena at 10 p.m., atop a preliminary show that began at 6:30 and includes seven bouts. The B/R combat team was in place to take it all in and deliver a real-time list of the event's definitive winners and losers.

Take a look at what we come up with and drop a thought in the comments.

The "greatest welterweight of all time" is winless in title fights.

Still.

Colby Covington's self-proclaimed historical status remained practically unfulfilled once again on Saturday night in Las Vegas, where he lost another decision—his second alongside a TKO in three championship opportunities—to Leon Edwards, the man who's legitimately owned the belt for 16 months.

The official scores were 49-46 across the board, all in the actual champion's favor.

But not surprisingly given his allegiances, Covington implied he'd been robbed based on his expression when the decision was announced, then suggested a nearly two-year layoff impacted his performances, but still said he deserved the nod when chatting afterward with Joe Rogan.

"It was the easiest fight of my life," Covington said. "I thought I won it."

That claim drew loud boos from a crowd that had adored him at the outset, prompting Covington to steer fully into his villainous skid, saying "You're all a bunch of broke b--ches anyway. F--k you."

Meanwhile, Edwards basked contentedly in the glow of his 12th consecutive win and second title defense, extending a run that stretches back to 2015 and includes nine decisions, two KOs and a submission since a loss to Kamaru Usman in their first of three fights.

He landed 57 significant strikes to Covington's 44, and, while each had two takedowns, Edwards defended eight of his challenger's attempts and landed two in three tries of his own.

"I knew I was the better athlete," Edwards said.

"I wanted to make it a match of technique and range and that's what I did. I wanted to grapple with him just to shut him down. To come out here. To prove my case."

Moments later, Belal Muhammad, ranked a spot ahead of Covington at No. 2, staked his claim to be next in line for a shot.

"It was a joke to the division," he said. "That's what happens when you get a bum off the couch after two years. (Covington) didn't back up his talk."

For Alexandre Pantoja, eight was enough.

The flyweight champion was understandably exhausted after spending most of four rounds competing with Brandon Royval on the feet and dominating the challenger on the ground.

So, after a between-rounds exhortation from trainer Marc Montoya, Royval was desperate enough and aggressive enough to push the pace in the hopes of dramatically snatching victory from defeat.

And for about half the round as Pantoja reeled unsteadily, it seemed he might get it done.

But that's when the champ dug in, drove Royval to the fence and scored his career-best eighth takedown, ultimately keeping his opponent on the ground the rest of the way to lock up a near-shutout unanimous decision in Saturday's co-main event.

Royval leaned against the fence and slumped to the floor at the final horn, knowing he'd missed his chance. Meanwhile, Pantoja used his remaining strength to raise his arms.

"I feel a little dizzy. He just didn't stop," he said. "I know he tried to come and take this belt but I'm going to stay here and defend."

It was the champ's 11th win in 15 UFC fights, fifth in a row, second in two fights against Royval, and first as a defending champion. The challenger saw a three-fight win streak end and fell to 5-3 in the UFC.

The official scores were 50-45, 50-45 and 49-46.

"This fight was maybe too boring for some people, but I need to keep this belt for my family and Brazil," Pantoja said. "We need some idols right now."

Stephen Thompson promised all week he wouldn't be finished.

He was in tough against fifth-ranked welterweight contender Shavkat Rakhmonov, who'd stopped each of his 17 previous opponents, but he insisted the Kazakh star wouldn't be the first to submit him.

But "Wonderboy" didn't know quite what he was up against.

Thompson had intermittent moments of success from distance with his trademark punches and kicks, but he was never consistently able to keep Rakhmonov off him and ultimately succumbed to a second-round rear-naked choke in their scheduled three-round main card duel.

The official time was 4:56.

It was his first loss inside the distance since a KO by Anthony Pettis in 2019 and the first time he's tapped out to an opponent across 25 fights in a career stretching back to 2010.

Quite the way for Rakhmonov to celebrate Kazakh independence day.

"Stephen Thompson is a very tough opponent and I'm very happy to have finished him," he said before issuing a subtle challenge to the subsequent title bout between Edwards and Covington. "I believe the winner of the title fight, I'm ready to fight next."

The moment was there for Tony Ferguson.

The 15-year veteran and perpetual fan favorite had an exhausted Paddy Pimblett in front of him and a corner team that was loudly trying to wrench any last ounce of his past prowess.

That was before the third round.

But the reality after a potentially decisive five minutes was clear.

"El Cucuy's" time has run out.

Just two months from his 40th birthday and four years past his last win, Ferguson saw a career-blemishing skid stretch to seven fights when he dropped a unanimous decision to the bratty Englishman in a three-round main card encounter.

Pimblett won the first two rounds with sharper striking and superior groundwork, but looked spent as he walked slowly back to his corner after 10 minutes. Ferguson's training team begged him to "be Tony Ferguson" in the third, but he was quickly taken down again and was never willing, or able, to get back up and land a potentially paradigm-shifting shot against Pimblett.

It was a fifth straight UFC win for Pimblett, who'd not fought since last December thanks to ankle surgery and subsequent rehab. The win streak is the second-longest active run in the lightweight division, while Ferguson has gone from a 12-fight win streak that ran from 2013 to 2019 to a prolonged skid that's included two KOs, two submissions and three decisions.

Ferguson initially walked away without acknowledging Pimblett when the decision was announced, but returned for an embrace just before the winner began chatting with Joe Rogan.

"He's an absolute legend and it's a f--king honor to share the cage with him," Pimblett said. "I'm still a bit disappointed I didn't get the finish over Tony, but he's still one of the toughest mother f—kers in the cage."

It was thrilling. And terrifying.

At the same time.

The right hand from Josh Emmett that landed on Bryce Mitchell's chin and dumped him immediately to the floor would have been titillating enough for a raucous main card crowd, but the stricken man's involuntary leg twitches as he lay unconscious took the shot's impact to a whole new level.

"That's one of the hardest one-punch knockouts I've seen, ever," analyst Daniel Cormier said. "You see people react like that after getting hit with head kicks, not punches."

It shaped up as a compelling battle of ranked featherweights.

It ended with Emmett kneeling out of respect until Mitchell regained his feet, unsteadily, minutes later.

The official time was 1:57 of the first round.

"I am the most powerful featherweight in the world," Emmett said. "It only takes one shot."

It was the first victory of the year for the No. 6 man at 145 pounds, who'd been submitted by Yair Rodriguez in February and beaten on the scorecards by Ilia Topuria in June. In the aftermath of his eighth career KO and fourth in the UFC, he insisted the skid was behind him.

"I have so much power with all my strength coaches, but 2023 has been a tough year for me," he said. "I'm back baby. I'm f--king back."

Cody Garbrandt didn't need an encore.

So, when the ex-bantamweight champ landed the right hand that sent opponent Brian Kelleher tumbling face-first to the floor, he didn't leap in with superfluous ground strikes.

Instead, he simply turned and bowed, having accomplished his violent mission.

"I've got a lot of respect for this guy, coming back from a significant injury. I know how hard that is," he said. "Hats off to Brian, he's a true competitor."

Of course, all the respect in the world didn't offset the punishment.

Kelleher was coming forward and had just delivered a front kick from the right side when Garbrandt snapped back with a punch that landed squarely on the left side of his foe's exposed jaw.

Replays showed the hair on the back of Kelleher's head bouncing as the shot made impact and spun him to the mat, where he immediately covered his face as Garbrandt turned away and referee Marc Goddard leapt in, just in case the fighter dubbed "No Love" changed his mind.

The official time was 3:42 of the first and Garbrandt immediately thanked his training staff while promising he'd stay busy in the new year, issuing a challenge of ex-flyweight king Deiveson Figueiredo.

"This should have happened a long time ago," he said. "Let's get ready for April or May."

A nickname won't ever be more appropriate.

Because Ariane Lipski was the punching, kicking, choking and bone-bending epitome of her "Queen of Violence" label in the first bout on Saturday's preliminary card.

The 29-year-old Brazilian was matched with No. 12 flyweight contender Casey O'Neill and spent nearly every second of their six-plus minutes together punishing her foe, ultimately getting the finish with a cringe-inducing armbar that prompted a surrender tap at 1:18 of Round 2.

Lipski began the decisive sequence with a hard right hand, battered O'Neill on the floor with a series of hammer fists, chased a finish via rear-naked choke when her stricken opponent turned to avoid punishment, and seized her right arm during a subsequent escape-prompted scramble.

It was her best UFC performance in 11 tries, lifting her record in the promotion to 6-5.

O'Neill has lost two straight after beginning her UFC stay with four straight wins and her overall career with nine, including two other promotions.

"I feel like my grappling is getting better so I can keep working on my striking," Lipski said. "My opponents don't have one thing that they can focus on."

Tagir Ulanbekov wasn't looking for a heel turn.

But after he heard boos during pre-fight announcements, throughout his fight with Cody Durden, and again as his hand was raised by referee Chris Tognoni, the stage was set for a swerve.

So instead of simply celebrating a second-round submission victory with teammates and prepping to chat with Rogan, the Dagestani flyweight strode across the mat and put an index finger to his lips, suggesting what the "USA" chanting fans could do with their derision.

It was subtle. It was defiant.

And in that winning moment, it was perfect.

"Today's the day that the champion and the challenger are here, and I have a message for them," he said. "Take care of my belt, I'm coming for it."

Faced in the meantime with streaking No. 15 contender Cody Durden, the Russian's menace was a methodical, submission-hunting approach that saw him get close to a finish with a rear-naked choke in the final seconds of Round 1 before he secured it with less than a minute left in the second.

Durden had arrived with four straight UFC wins, but it was Ulanbekov whose record ticked up to 4-1 since he debuted in 2020. And according to him, the method was exactly as scripted by training teammate and former lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov.

"Khabib sent me a voice message to look for the finish that way," he said. "I did my job. I did my plan."

Sometimes, it's a methodical grind across 15 or 25 minutes.

And other times, it's a one-shot proposition.

After the difficult few weeks he'd had, Andre Fili was much more in the mood for the latter.

The California-based featherweight buried a family friend during his training camp for Saturday's fight with Lucas Almeida and had to euthanize a beloved pet dog the day before boarding a flight for Las Vegas, so he was certainly anxious to punch someone in the mouth.

He did so just past the midway point of the first round, landing a whip-crack of a counter right hand that dumped an instantly stiffened Almeida to the floor and enabled a series of follow-up hammers that ended things at 3:32.

"You don't know how good this feels," Fili said. "It's been a tough, tough week, A tough couple months. And I can't express how much I love you all for being here tonight. I've had the best and worst moments of my life in this cage, and we're back to high highs."

Fili had gone 2-4 with a no-contest in his last seven fights since his most recent stoppage, against Sheymon Moraes on a Fight Night show, in 2019, but he insisted power was still in his DNA.

"I'm Samoan," he said. "I can crack."

When you think of MMA hotbeds, Bahrain rarely comes up.

It may not be that way for long.

Thirty-three-year-old heavyweight Shamil Gaziev took a while to reach the promotional big leagues, but he put himself and his country on the map with a punishing card-opening defeat of Martin Buday.

The 6'4", 259-pounder is a native of the fighter-loaded Dagestani region of Russia, but he bills himself as a Bahrainan and had his homeland on his mind while unleashing a variety of strikes that bloodied his foe's eye and led to a second-round stop by referee Mark Smith.

"This is the day I was dreaming of from Day 1 when I started MMA," he said. "I'm the first Bahrainian fighter in UFC and I'm very happy and proud to be here."

Gaziev had won 10 fights in other promotions before a win on Dana White's Contender Series in September. Buday, meanwhile, had a Contender Series win of his own in 2021 and had won four straight fights in the Octagon before encountering Gaziev.

"He beat it out of him," Cormier said. "He beat him until he lost that desire to fight."

Main Card

Leon Edwards def. Colby Covington by unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46)

Alexandre Pantoja def. Brandon Royval by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 49-46)

Shavkat Rakhmonov def. Stephen Thompson by submission (rear-naked choke), 4:56, Round 2

Paddy Pimblett def. Tony Ferguson by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Josh Emmett def. Bryce Mitchell by KO (punch), 1:57, Round 1

Preliminary Card

Alonzo Menifield def. Dustin Jacoby by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Irene Aldana def. Karol Rosa by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Cody Garbrandt def. Brian Kelleher by KO (punch), 3:42, Round 1

Ariane Lipski def. Casey O'Neill by submission (armbar), 1:18, Round 2

Early Preliminary Card

Tagir Ulanbekov def. Cody Durden by submission (rear-naked choke), 4:25, Round 2

Andre Fili def. Lucas Almeida by TKO (strikes), 3:32, Round 1

Shamil Gaziev def. Martin Buday by TKO (strikes), 0:56, Round 2