UFC Fight Night 255: Live Winners and Losers, Results

Could a few hours to the southeast change the UK mojo?

That was the hope of former welterweight champion Leon Edwards, who returned to action Saturday for the first time since he lost his belt last summer in Manchester.

He was back in London as the division's No. 1 contender this time and faced fifth-ranked Sean Brady atop a UFC Fight Night show at the O2 Arena.

Edwards was taken down nine times and controlled for better than 12 minutes in the title loss to Belal Muhammad, and he faced another grappling-centric foe in Brady, who had seven takedowns and 10-plus minutes of control time on the way to beating Gilbert Burns in his most recent bout in September.

The B/R combat team was in place for the main event and the 12 bouts that preceded it put together a definitive, real-time list of the winners and losers at the show.

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

Whaddya know? Turns out last summer’s result was no fluke, after all.

Though Edwards told everyone who’d listen that his loss to Muhammad in July was the result of a bad night and not an inability to deal with high-end wrestlers, the apparent reality is that his days at the top of the 170-pound ranks may be done for awhile.

Because the perpetually aggressive Brady got Edwards to the floor in every round of Saturday's main event and never let him up, ultimately grinding him into a surrender by guillotine choke at 1:39 of Round 4.

Analyst Michael Bisping said it was “about as dominant as you can get.”

And he may have been understating it.

Brady converted five of seven takedown attempts overall, ran up more than 11 minutes of control time in a 16-minute fight, and out-landed Edwards by nearly 200 strikes, including a 57-23 edge in blows of the significant variety.

He’ll likely be rewarded with at least a three-spot jump in the rankings, given that Edwards had arrived as No. 1 and a former champion Edwards had beaten twice, Kamaru Usman, is No. 3.

No. 2 contender Shavkat Rakhmonov was set for a shot at Muhammad in March but beat Ian Machado Garry instead when the champion was injured.

Fourth-ranked Jack Della Maddalena had been matched with Edwards in London but opened the door for Brady when he was offered a chance to meet Muhammad on a pay-per-view show in May.

None of it seemed to matter to Brady, though, who thanked Dana White and the UFC brass for the opportunity and suggested he’ll be able replicate the result with Edwards against any other top welterweight, too.

“I heard all week that I’m too small for 170, but I weighed 190 in the back tonight. I’m not too small, I’m just short,” he said. “I know that I can do that against everyone in this division.”

Sometimes you get fireworks. Sometimes you get fizzled.

The latter circumstance was an apt description of the co-main event, where former light heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz and sixth-ranked contender Carlos Ulberg stood in front of one another and exchanged a hard kick or two, but little else in a tedious three-round dance.

There wasn’t much to discern one from another but the judges recognized Ulberg, a 34-year-old from New Zealand, for his speed and consistent work from a safe distance more so than the 42-year-old Pole’s methodical aggression as he tried to land a truly decisive shot.

All three scorecards were 29-28 in Ulberg’s favor and the B/R card agreed, though we went a step further and gave the winner all three rounds for a 30-27 margin.

“Jan is a veteran so you’ve got to be careful with a guy like that,” Ulberg said.
“(The strategy was) stick and move. He’s got a good grappling game. All I wanted to do was stay on my feet and bang him. Bang and move.”

The win was Ulberg’s eighth in a row since a loss in his UFC debut and the defeat of the division’s third-ranked contender should put him in position for a gigantic bout next time around.

“Obviously, it’s the longest win streak in the light heavyweight division,” he said. “So the only thing left for me is a title shot. That’s the only thing that matters.”

Forget the “Trailblazer.”

Kevin Holland would be more accurately labeled as the UFC’s "Cockroach."

The 32-year-old kung fu aficionado has spent his octagonal career darting back and forth between weight divisions and has had four distinct occasions where he’s lost two consecutive fights–in 2021, in 2022, and bridging both 2023 into 2024 and 2024 into 2025.

But just when you think he’s been exterminated from relevance, he returns.

It happened again on Saturday’s main card when the Texan returned to welterweight and returned to the win column with a unanimous decision over Gunnar Nelson.

Holland was taken down by the mat-seeking Nelson in each round but was able to frustrate his foe with his lanky 6’3” frame and 81-inch reach, which made it difficult for Nelson to get through his guard and realistically chase submissions.

And when the fighters were standing up, it was no contest.

Holland dropped Nelson with a right hand and nearly got a stoppage at the end of the first, then was the more productive fighter off his back in the second. Nelson was able to get Holland down again and tried for a triangle finish in the third but couldn’t get the bigger man to fold.

The win was Holland’s 14th in the UFC and first in 10 months after first-round finishes by Roman Dolidze and Reinier de Ridder. He’s not won two straight since KO’ing Santiago Ponzinibbio and submitting Michael Chiesa in 2023.

“Everybody says I can’t grapple but I can grapple pretty good as long as the guy’s not 30 or 40 pounds higher than me,” Holland said. “Welterweight is good for me as far as being a better athlete. But if there’s a guy at ’85 who wants to strike and not hug, sign me up.”

It was Alexia Thainara’s first turn on combat’s biggest stage.

But you’d have never known she was a newbie.

The powerfully built Brazilian danced her way from the locker room, strutted through the inspection station and was far from a wallflower during Bruce Buffer’s introductions for her fight against British fan favorite Molly McCann.

And then, she backed it all up.

Plucked from anonymity with 10 days notice, Thainara was the boss from the opening tap and ultimately pursued McCann, took her down, shook off an armbar attempt and took her back before locking in the rear-naked choke that ended things at 4:32.

It was the 11th win in 12 pro fights for Thainara and it looks to be the finale for McCann, who laid down her gloves and called it quits after the official announcement.

“Tonight, with that performance against an opponent on a week’s notice, it’s not good enough,” McCann said. “Thank you and good night, UFC.”

Meanwhile, Thainara, who’d appeared on the Contender Series and won belts in three smaller promotions, was looking to make her octagonal stay permanent.

“This is Alexia delivery,” she said. “They called me. I came. And I delivered.”

Many fighters claim the “nobody thought I could do it” ground after a win.

But lightweight Chris Duncan had it coming.

The burly Scotsman went off as a better than 2-to-1 underdog against hometown hero Jordan Vucenic but Duncan used his superior strength and tenacity to get his foe to the mat and choke him out at 3:42 of the second.

The finishing sequence came when Duncan launched a kick from his right side that Vucenic caught. But as the local man charged forward with Duncan’s leg secured, Duncan landed a right hand that forced him to lurch forward, close enough for his neck to become a target.

Duncan quickly wrapped his left arm around the exposed windpipe, then jumped backward to lock in the hold and draw the surrender and wave-off from referee Jason Herzog.

From there, a bonus was on the winner’s mind.

“Dana White, you changed my life last time,” he said. “Please change it again. I am the only Scottish guy that’s exciting. I am the man.”

Nathaniel Wood is billed as “The Prospect.”

But now that he’s racked up nine wins in 12 octagonal appearances, including a competitive unanimous decision over French import Morgan Charrière in the main-card opener, it may be time to change the persona for a 31-year-old who’s been a pro since 2013.

And it certainly seems like Wood is down with it, given how agreeable he was to any possible scenario when it comes to the next fight in a UFC run that started in 2018.

“It’s down to Dana and the matchmakers who I fight next, I’m ready for anyone,” he said. “Top 15, top 10. You want to put me in for a title shot? I’ll take it.”

The latter scenario is unlikely for a largely unheralded fighter, but Wood has experienced title-level scrutiny in the Cage Warriors promotion, where he reigned for three fights in 2017 and 2018. He was matched Saturday with another former champ from that outfit in Charrière, whom he dropped with a hard right hand in the first round and consistently outworked over three.

“I have a new nickname coming for the next time out,” Wood said. “But until then, just keep ticking away.”

It didn’t matter who sent the messages.

The corner teams exhorted. The broadcasters rationalized. The fans groaned.

But regardless of their delivery methods, all were in agreement:

The prelim feature between Chris Padilla and Jai Herbert was a dud.

Though it was celebrated in advance with “if you didn’t know, now you know” status, neither the American nor his British counterpart seemed ready to commit to a consistent offensive plan and instead feinted, paused, and intermittently exchanged across 15 tedious minutes.

In the end, it was Padilla exiting the cage with a split decision win thanks to matching 29-28 tallies on two scorecards that offset a third 29-28 nod in the other direction.

Padilla landed 88 strikes to Herbert’s 59 and tried to press the fight throughout, as evidenced by a 6-1 advantage in takedown tries, though none ended up successful.

The B/R card agreed with the majority, giving Padilla what it took to win his third straight in the UFC and get to 10 over .500 (16-6) in his pro career. Herbert fell to 3-5-1.

Lone'er Kavanagh is not a large human being.

In fact, the British-based stands just 5’4” while carrying a fit, trim 126 pounds on his flyweight frame.

But don’t mistake a lack of size for a lack of violence.

The 25-year-old was a whirling dervish of aggression and punishment against Brazilian foe Felipe Dos Santos, shaking off a bloody cut on his own hairline to grind out a perpetually competitive unanimous decision in the penultimate prelim bout.

Three inches shorter but seemingly far more energetic than his opponent, Kavanagh was particularly effective in a frenetic second round and only slightly less so in the third.

He consistently got Dos Santos either pinned along the fence or to the ground entirely, and once horizontal he dished out endless streams of elbows, hammer fists and whatever else he could devise.

Put it all together and it kept him unbeaten at 9-0 overall and 2-0 in the UFC since a win on the Contender Series. Dos Santos dipped to 1-3 in the UFC.

"Felipe is a tough fighter," Kavanagh said, "but I had to dig deep and I found it."

Just when it looked like another British Invasion was imminent, Poland intervened.

Unbeaten UK heavyweight Mick Parkin was planning to stake a claim to a spot in the top 10 when he encountered eighth-ranked contender Marcin Tybura and found himself on the wrong end of a narrow but fair unanimous decision.

Tybura swept the scorecards with matching 29-28 margins, taking the first round with a superior work rate before surviving a second in which Parkin got him to the floor and was able to unload a series of unfettered ground strikes after isolating his foe’s right arm.

Tybura survived, however, and began turning the tide against an exhausted foe, regaining his aggressive mindset in the third round and ultimately won in spite of deficits in strikes landed (102-64) and control time (3:43-1:01).

Parkin, who’d arrived with a No. 13 ranking, lost for the first time in 11 pro bouts and had his UFC win streak ended after four fights and a Contender Series appearance.

Tybura is 14-8 in the promotion and has won two straight.

You can call fighters a lot of things.

Timid is not one they’ll generally like.

But that’s how the broadcast team was characterizing the optics provided by Russian middleweight Andrey Pulyaev, who was consistently passive and generally unimpressive across three rounds in his official UFC debut against Christian Leroy Duncan.

The judges agreed and gave Duncan all three rounds, including a two-pointer on one scorecard, leaving the final numbers at 30-27, 30-27 and 30-26.

The B/R card agreed with 10-9 margins in all three rounds.

Pulyaev, who stands 6’4” at 185 pounds, had the frame of a winner after a decision triumph on the Contender Series last summer but it didn’t translate against Duncan, who threw 187 strikes to his opponent’s 78 and landed 116 to Pulyaev’s 36.

“Let’s be honest,” Bisping said. “It’s not the most exciting fight.”

Just when it looked like Shauna Bannon was going to get finished, she got one instead.

The spunky Irish export was on the receiving end of a brutal second-round head kick from Indian opponent Puja Tomar and tumbled to the canvas as Tomar vaulted in for the kill.

She landed several strikes and had Bannon in obvious danger, but referee Lukasz Bosacki was especially patient as Bannon stayed active on the ground and the resilient strawweight eventually worked into a position where she was able to seize Tomar’s left arm into an armbar.

Moments later it was Bannon doing the celebrating, climbing to the top of the cage and suggesting out loud that her reversal of fortune warranted a $50,000 reward.

It was her second win in three UFC appearances while Tomar lost for the first time after a win in her debut last June.

“How about a bonus?” Bannon said. “Whatever it took to get the win I was gonna do. I got dropped and I got a finish.”

First, the revenge was denied. Then, the emotion was real.

Irish bantamweight Caolán Loughran defeated British rival Nathan Fletcher as an amateur several years ago. Still, he entered Saturday’s pro rematch as an underdog after losing two of his first three bouts in the UFC.

But the intense grappler was clearly motivated by seeing an old opponent and he managed to escape with a split decision after registering six takedowns in 12 tries and running up nearly six minutes of control time in their 15-minute reunion.

The third round was a decisive one on two scorecards, after Fletcher had gained the momentum in the second with a series of hard head strikes and knees. So, when Loughran returned to the corner before the round, his training team–particularly his older brother–was ready to pull out the stops to re-rev his engines.

“I got back to the corner and he said, ‘Merab him. Merab him. Be relentless,'” Loughran said. “My career was in the balance, really, and he told me, ‘Either you want this or you don’t.’”

His finish earned him 29-28 verdicts from two judges to offset another 29-28 the other direction. The B/R card sided with the dissenter and gave Fletcher the second and third rounds.

“I was up there in the nosebleeds for the fights a few years ago,” Loughran said. “So if there’s any lad in the crowd from Ireland who wants this dream, go for it.”

Nothing like getting started with a big upset.

Brazilian lightweight Kauê Fernandes entered the prelim card opener against Guram Kutateladze as a significant underdog. But had you not seen the pre-fight odds, you’d have never known.

The newly-minted 30-year-old, who celebrated a birthday on Monday, was the boss from the outset against the rugged Georgian, chewing up his calves with leg kicks and adding an occasional blast to the head and body on the way to a punishing three-round decision.

Kutateladze, who entered as a -425 favorite, was left bloodied in an inglorious end to his training run with ex-featherweight champ Ilia Topuria. Meanwhile, Fernandes won for the second time in three UFC appearances and boosted his overall mark to 10-2 since 2014.

“I trained so hard, all my life for this performance,” the winner said. “I believe I will be champion of the world someday.”

Main Card

Sean Brady def. Leon Edwards by submission (guillotine choke), 1:39, Round 4

Carlos Ulberg def. Jan Blachowicz by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Kevin Holland def. Gunnar Nelson by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Alexia Thainara def. Molly McCann by submission (rear-naked choke), 4:32, Round 1

Chris Duncan def. Jordan Vucenic by submission (guillotine choke), 3:42, Round 2

Nathaniel Wood def. Morgan Charrière by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Preliminary Card

Chris Padilla def. Jai Herbert by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

Lone'er Kavanagh def. Felipe dos Santos by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Marcin Tybura def. Mick Parkin by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Christian Leroy Duncan def. Andrey Pulyaev by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26)

Shauna Bannon def. Puja Tomar by submission (armbar), 3:22, Round 2

Caolán Loughran def. Nathan Fletcher by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

Kauê Fernandes def. Guram Kutateladze by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)