The Real Winners and Losers From UFC Fight Night 235

It was a calm before the storm Saturday in Las Vegas.

As anyone not living under a rock already knows, Taylor Swift and the NFL's traveling circus are making their way to the Nevada desert to set up for next weekend's Super Bowl.

But the UFC staked its claim to some pre-game attention, too, with a 13-bout Fight Night card at the promotion's Apex facility home.

It's hardly a star-studded show by any measure, though it did feature three bouts that paired up ranked contenders in their weight classes, including a main event that matched No. 8 middleweight Roman Dolidze and his No. 11 counterpart Nassourdine Imavov.

Dolidze had won four straight and six of seven in the UFC before he dropped a decision to Marvin Vettori in March, while Imavov arrived off a decision loss to Sean Strickland in January and a June bout with Chris Curtis that ended in a no contest when Curtis sustained a bad cut.

Imavov hadn't won since beating Joaquin Buckley on a Fight Night show 17 months ago.

The B/R combat team was in place to take it all in and deliver a real-time list of the show's definitive winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought or two of your own in the comments.

In some spots, Nassourdine Imavov seemed a world beater.

In others, he seemed ordinary.

By the time his five-round main event with Roman Dolidze was over, there were more of the former than the latter, which meant the 11th-ranked Frenchman had done enough to earn the chaotically scored majority decision over his rugged Georgian rival.

Two judges had it 49-44 and 48-46 in his favor, while a third saw it even at 47-47.

The B/R card agreed with the majority with a 48-47 margin for Imavov.

It was grinding and methodical in spots and fiery in others across 25 minutes, during which Imavov nearly scored a stoppage with a first-round striking barrage but also seemed to have compromised some energy once referee Herb Dean chose not to intervene.

He was clearly faster and more dynamic with his hands and feet, but Dolidze was able to slow things down by getting close and initiating tie-ups along the fence.

"I knew my striking was my best advantage in this fight," Imavov said. "My coaches asked me to give a lot of jabs, and I didn't do it. My hand was hurting, so I'm sorry to them."

An illegal kick to the face while Dolidze's hand was down prompted a prolonged delay in the fourth round, during which Imavov verbally engaged with Dolidze's training partner Chris Curtis—whom he'd fought to a no-contest in June—before Dolidze indicated he was ready to continue.

Dean deducted a point from Imavov for the infraction and Dolidze spent the fifth desperately and ultimately vainly pursuing submissions by rolling and diving at his opponent's legs.

Imavov called for a bout with former champion Sean Strickland after the decision was announced and continued to challenge Curtis to a rematch as well.

"He talked too much," Imavov said, "When he was in the cage with me he didn't do anything. If you want to fight inside the cage, OK. Outside the cage shut up."

Renato Moicano arrived for the co-main ready to celebrate.

He'd unveiled a "Money Moicano" persona after a defeat of Brad Riddell in November and talked all week about how and who he'd be calling out after a defeat of Drew Dober.

As it turned out, he didn't let a bloody cut and a swollen eye get in the way.

The suddenly mic-friendly Brazilian didn't disappoint once he'd secured a narrow but fair unanimous decision—29-28 on all three scorecards—covering a list of topics interspersed with obscenities that were only barely passable for a premium streaming service.

Moicano used elite-level mat skills to smother Dober in the first round, but found himself in peril in the second when Dober landed powerful blows and got Moicano to the floor with a well-timed judo throw that allowed him to further damage the eye split by a head butt.

Dober was in charge to begin the third, too, but he tried the same tactic again and didn't pull it off, instead winding up with Moicano in a dominant top position for the last three, fight-clinching minutes.

That was all the 13th-ranked lightweight needed to open the verbal floodgates.

Moicano said his 62-year-old father became a father himself again on Friday, which prompted the winner to say he'd return to Brazil to get his wife pregnant on Sunday. He followed by suggesting he'd be pursuing U.S. citizenship and wanted to become a police officer to "kill bad guys and make them understand there is right and there is f--king wrong."

"Otherwise," he said, "the greatest country in the world will become a third-world country."

Some things are just worth the wait.

Welterweight Randy Brown was supposed to meet Muslim Salikhov on a December show before he had to pull out with pneumonia. But he stayed in contact with his Russian rival as he recovered, and the two men made sure they were able to get the bout rebooked for Saturday's show.

The patience paid off. For Brown, at least.

The self-proclaimed "King of Kung Fu" has respectable boxing skills, too, and he put them on display midway through the first round, throwing a beautiful jab-jab-cross combination that sent Salikhov to the floor and prompted a stoppage—after one more thudding hammer fist—from referee Kerry Hatley.

The official time was 3:17 and it gave Brown his 12th win in the UFC since debuting with the promotion in 2016. The KO was his third in the Octagon to go with three submissions.

"I feel like people weren't getting to see what I am truly capable of," he said. "I couldn't wait to get in here and put hands on someone."

The loss was Salikhov's second in a row and fourth in 10 UFC appearances.

"Put me in for (UFC) 300. Against anybody," Brown said. "Y'all have seen me grow up in this Octagon. Get me somebody so I can move up the rankings. Stop playing."

It's official, Natalia Silva is the Energizer Bunny.

If, that is, the Energizer Bunny were strafing you with rapid-fire kicks and punches and skittering away every time you had yourself anywhere close to a position to retaliate.

The frenetic Brazilian celebrated her 27th birthday in career-defining style, winning two of three rounds on all official scorecards to handle seventh-ranked flyweight Viviane Araujo in their main card duel.

Silva arrived as the No. 9 fighter in the weight class and seems destined to enter or at least get to the precipice of the division's top five next week.

The win was her 11th straight overall and fifth in the UFC, tying for the second-best active streak at 125.

She greeted the victory with a show of emotion that saw her fall to her knees and tear up as she addressed the crowd in Portuguese while thanking her family, friends and supporters. She also led an impromptu "Happy Birthday" chorus that was continued at the broadcast table by analysts John Gooden and Laura Sanko.

Silva was the biggest betting favorite on the card at –340 and never appeared as if she'd not warrant the support. Araujo pursued her for nearly every moment of their 15 minutes together, but she was ineffective when she did get close and had a cage tie-up broken by referee Mark Smith because she'd not done anything to advance her controlling position.

"(Silva is) fast. She's got great kicks. She moves the whole time," analyst Daniel Cormier said. "She's a problem at 125."

Some fighters are all persona. Others are all performance.

The true superstars, it seems, are the guys who can successfully blend both.

Whether he gets to the top of the UFC mountain remains to be seen, but Charles Radtke made a definite impression on both ends in Saturday's main card opener.

A 33-year-old based in Wisconsin, Radtke was patient and menacing while pursuing opponent Gilbert Urbina and ultimately got to him with as pretty a left hook as you'll ever see, dumping him and starting the sequence that'd yield a TKO win at 4:47 of the first round.

And once referee Mark Smith intervened, Radtke's "Chuck Buffalo" side emerged.

He turned toward the camera and extended a middle finger, dashed to the side of the cage to berate the ESPN announce team for underestimating him, and had to censor himself after beginning a chat with Daniel Cormier with several non-TV-friendly words.

"I slept him. He couldn't even stand up after the fight," Radtke said. "The one thing I wanted to prove in this fight is that I can't just talk. Maybe now you all will see me for who I am."

A challenge toward champion Leon Edwards came soon after, and Radtke finished with a subtle jab at the multiple-time title challenger whom Edwards beat in December.

"170 looks like s--t right now, but I'm in the division to make it great again," he said. "And Colby Covington, you still suck."

Lots of fighters change weight classes.

But few change their approaches the way Molly McCann did.

Fighting for the first time as a strawweight after tapping out in her final two appearances at 125 pounds, the slimmed-down English "Meatball" was more subdued outside the cage and less frenetic inside it while coolly pursuing second-time foe Diana Belbita.

The women met on a Fight Night show in 2018, when McCann won a wide unanimous decision thanks to five takedowns and nearly four minutes of control time.

It didn't take that much in the rematch, in which the resilient 33-year-old ended matters with a particularly devastating armbar with just one second left in the opening round.

It was her first submission win across 14 career victories, and, ironically, came via an attack on the same limb that had yielded her two recent submission losses.

Belbita's left arm was bent far beyond its normal angle to draw the tap and analyst Laura Sanko said the elbow "definitely popped." Belbita remained prone on the canvas and appeared in severe pain for several moments after her surrender to referee Kerry Hatley.

McCann began her post-fight remarks with an apology to the UFC brass and fans for those defeats, before suggesting "today, I forgive myself."

"Say less, do more," she said. "The plan is to be a real champion. You don't change the goal. You change the plan."

Some people try to speak things into reality.

For Themba Gorimbo, words handle the task just as well.

The Zimbabwe-born and South Africa-based welterweight carried a de facto script to the cage with him for a preliminary card bout with slugger Pete Rodriguez, on which he'd promised it'd be him, not Rodriguez, who'd end things inside of five minutes.

Rodriguez, by the way, was 5-1 upon arrival, with five first-round KOs.

But Gorimbo's positive mojo, endorsed publicly by superstar Dwayne Johnson a few months back, was the deciding factor, and he followed through on his words just 20 or so seconds in by landing a looping right hand that instantly dropped Rodriguez to his back.

He immediately pounced and delivered another 10 shots to a stricken foe before referee Herb Dean leapt in to end things after just 32 seconds. It was just the second KO finish for Gorimbo, who'd ended six fights by submission and won four by decision.

He's 2-1 in three UFC fights and already calling for bigger opportunities.

"I want to fight the biggest guys in 2024," he said. "I'm here to win and be a champion, no matter who holds the belt, in 2024."

Don't worry. It's been cleared with LL Cool J.

You can go ahead and call that a comeback.

The scheduled three-rounder at flyweight between Julija Stoliarenko and Luana Carolina looked destined for a late finish when Stoliarenko chased finishes by armbar and triangle choke entering the fight's final minute.

The finish came. But not the one that appeared imminent.

A seemingly exhausted Stoliarenko gave up on her submission attempts, rolled to her feet, and immediately regretted it when Carolina quickly landed a powerful right hand followed soon after by a head kick.

The dazed Lithuanian tried to stop the sudden onslaught by ill-advisedly chasing a takedown, but Carolina easily tossed her to the mat, took a top position by isolating her foe's left arm and began a torrent of her own left-hand strikes that eventually prompted the invention of referee Eric McMahon with just eight seconds to go.

It was her fifth UFC win in eight tries since a victory on Dana White's Contender Series in 2018, and, to her, a validation for a particularly trying training camp. Nevertheless, she forfeited 20 percent of her purse for missing weight by two pounds.

"This was a hardcore camp and we showed the work we put in," Carolina said. "My arms were so tired from my camp. My teacher did that a lot to me (armbars) because we knew it was her strength."

It's good to be the "it" guy.

Marquel Mederos was the subject of gushing commentary from the mic team of Laura Sanko and John Gooden as he approached the cage for his official UFC debut, so much so that you'd have thought 15 minutes of sheer amazement for fans would follow.

They didn't.

It's not that the lightweight scrap with Landon Quiñones was a bad fight, but the 27-year-old from Colorado was hardly transcendent. In fact, the guess as Bruce Buffer began reading the scorecards was that Mederos would be on the short end of a narrow decision.

Well, the decision was indeed narrow. But Mederos' end wasn't short.

Instead, it was Quiñones who found himself losing a unanimous nod in which all three judges saw it 29-28 (two rounds to one) in his opponent's favor. It was the exact opposite of the B/R card, which gave Quiñones a 29-28 nod after seeing him as the better man in the first and third rounds thanks to sharper and more impactful shots.

The judges saw the first two rounds in the same way but instead gave Mederos the final round. Quiñones held a slight 78-74 edge in significant strikes over 15 minutes and scored the fight's lone takedown in three attempts while defending all five of Mederos' tries.

Still, Quiñones slipped to 0-2 in the promotion after dropping a unanimous nod to veteran Nasrat Haqparast on two weeks' notice in September.

Main Card

Nassourdine Imavov def. Roman Dolidze by majority decision (49-44, 47-47, 48-46)

Renato Moicano def. Drew Dober by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Randy Brown def. Muslim Salikhov by TKO (strikes), 3:17, Round 1

Natalia Silva def. Viviane Araujo by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Aliaskhab Khizriev v Makhmud Muradov declared no-decision (eye poke), 0:11, Round 1

Charles Radtke def. Gilbert Urbina by TKO (strikes), 4:47, Round 1

Preliminary Card

Molly McCann def. Diana Belbita by submission (armbar), 4:59, Round 1

Charles Johnson def. Azat Maksum by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Themba Gorimbo def. Pete Rodriguez by TKO (strikes), 0:32, Round 1

JeongYeong Lee def. Blake Bilder by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Luana Carolina def. Julija Stoliarenko by TKO (strikes), 4:52, Round 3

Marquel Mederos def. Landon Quiñones by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Jamal Pogues def. Thomas Petersen by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)