UFC on ESPN 65: Live Winners and Losers, Results

You know a great way to break up a busy travel schedule?

Take a relaxing weekend at home. Particularly when home is Las Vegas.

That was the UFC's recipe as the promotional whirlwind returned from last week's trip to Mexico City and prepped for next week's pay-per-view jaunt to Miami with a 12-bout show from the Apex facility that featured three ranked competitors.

Featherweights Josh Emmett and Lerone Murphy squared off in a main event matching the eighth- and 10th-ranked fighters at 145 pounds hoping to establish position seven days ahead of a vacant title bout that'll headline the UFC 314 show.

It was Emmett's first fight since a first-round stop of Bryce Mitchell in December 2023, while Murphy was riding a seven-fight win streak since a draw in his octagonal debut in 2019 and arrived unbeaten as a pro with a 15-0-1 mark since 2016.

Murphy beat Dan Ige by three-round decision on the UFC 308 show in October.

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.

The uber-powerful Emmett, thanks to four UFC KOs and seven in 19 pro wins, promised all week that he’d deliver fight-altering violence in the main event.

But the result was far more traceable to Murphy’s legs than Emmett’s hands.

The 40-year-old spent far more time chasing the Englishman than he did punching him, and it was the inability to corral him–not to mention Murphy’s precision kicks and elbows from distance–that led to the unbeaten featherweight maintaining his status by unanimous decision.

The scores were 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46, with all judges agreeing on the second and fourth rounds in Murphy’s favor, while two of three gave him both the third and fifth.

Emmett, meanwhile, only swept the three cards in the first, but still was the apparent crowd favorite given the volume of the boos in the aftermath of the official announcement.

“Sixteen and 0,” Murphy said to jeering fans. “Easy work. Easy work.”

It may not have been easy but it was clinical for the still-unbeaten winner, who’s likely to trade his No. 10 ranking at 145 pounds for a single digit. Murphy was never stationary long enough for Emmett to corner him and land multiple heavy shots, and he changed stances frequently enough to keep the veteran off balance outside of four successful takedown tries.

Still, those takedowns yielded less than four minutes of total control time, and Murphy finished with a 117-44 edge in strikes landed and an 84-41 edge in significant strikes.

“He’s a dangerous fighter. Everyone knows he’s got one-punch KO power,” Murphy said. “You’ve got to fight a guy like that in a particular way.”

It’s been a good sports stretch for Philadelphia.

Football’s Eagles won the Super Bowl. Baseball’s Phillies are off to a hot start. And Sean Brady and Pat Sabatini are doing their parts in the UFC’s cage, too.

Two weeks after Brady dispatched an ex-welterweight champion by submission, Sabatini staked a claim for a featherweight ranking with a grinding unanimous decision over Brazilian striking ace and betting favorite Joanderson Brito in Saturday’s co-main event.

The 34-year-old earned his second straight win and seventh in nine octagonal fights thanks to a perpetually aggressive approach, getting Brito to the ground in every round and keeping him there while running up better than 13 minutes of control time in a 15-minute fight.

The easy-to-compute official scorecards read 30-26, 30-26 and 30-27.

“They know what he’s going to do but they can’t stop him,” analyst Dominick Cruz said. “He’s just dominating every position so well.”

Sabatini said Brito’s reputation and nickname were a pre-fight motivator.

“They call him the ‘Shark.’ So I watched a lot of Jaws to get some inspiration and motivation, and we got him,” Sabatini said. “I want to climb. Because at the top of the mountain is the greatest view.”

Want to draw instant attention?

Co-opt a Hall of Famer as a nickname. Or a reigning champion.

Road to UFC tournament winner ChangHo Lee wants to be labeled as the “Korean Khabib” and he performed like one on Saturday’s main card, battering and bloodying bantamweight Cortavious Romious into a TKO rescue from referee Chris Tognoni at 3:48 of Round 2.

A winner in 10 of 11 prior fights, including his official UFC debut last summer, Lee was a contact-seeking buzzsaw for the duration of his scrap with Romious.

He scored a takedown, established better than three minutes of control time and landed 61 strikes in the opening round, then emerged on Romious' after a frenetic grappling exchange in the second before raining down a series of punches and elbows until Tognoni deemed the defenseless man unfit to continue.

Afterward, Lee said he’d also settle for being called the “Korean Merab,” in honor of bantamweight champ Merab Dvalishvili.

“South Korea has a prospect on the rise in the form of ChangHo Lee,” blow-by-blow man Brendan Fitzgerald said. “I think he has a bright future. He’s absolutely vicious.”

There was plenty for Ode' Osbourne to be concerned about.

Flyweight opponent Luis Gurule was aggressive, confident and had just completed a first round that included a takedown, a 21-5 edge in strikes, and better than two minutes of control time.

Still, the Jamaican-born slugger stayed patient, because he knew he’d prepared.

It paid off after Osbourne rose from another takedown early in the second, pivoted as Gurule charged forward again and launched a left hand that sent his unbeaten foe to the mat in semi-consciousness, leaving him open for the hammer strikes that abruptly ended matters at 1:54.

The win was Osbourne’s fifth in 12 UFC fights and ended a three-fight skid since his most recent victory 26 months ago.

“That was a Dewey Cooper special,” Osbourne said, referring to his high-profile striking coach, a former client of Mike Tyson. “We worked that nonstop. I had to stay patient if I got taken down.

“I wasn’t afraid of him taking me down. I wanted to stay patient and stay calm, and that’s how I got the job done.”

It’s not easy to upstage an undefeated fighter.

But just when it looked like Contender Series graduate Torrez Finney would be the prevailing story of the main card’s first bout, Tony Weeks announced his presence with inaccuracy.

Though the barrel-chested middleweight scored eight takedowns and spent better than 13 of the fight’s 15 minutes in a controlling position against Robert Valentin, the veteran boxing referee not only saw Valentin the winner but gave him all three rounds for a 30-27 scorecard.

The fight will be forgotten, but the scorecard is a cinch to make lists of 2025’s worst.

“That is insanity,” Cruz said. “But he’s a boxing judge judging a wrestling match, so I guess it makes sense.”

Fortunately, Weeks’ nonsense was offset by fellow judges Ben Cartlidge and Junichiro Kamijo, who each gave Finney the first two rounds and 29-28 nods that helped him improve to 10-0 as a pro since his debut in 2022.

There’s pressure attached to being a 10-to-1 favorite.

But Dione Barbosa didn’t feel it. Instead, she simply worked her plan.

The judo and jiu-jitsu black belt excelled in a stand-up position to start against Diana Belbita and chased a finish when things went horizontal, ultimately getting it with an arm triangle that drew a tap surrender at 4:13 of Round 1.

Barbosa was the most prohibitive pick on the card at -1000 and she’s likely to stay on the minus side of the betting ledger now that she’s upped her records to 8-3 overall and 2-1 in the UFC.

“I knew if I had an opportunity to finish, I would capitalize,” Barbosa said. “I’ve improved my strikes a lot so I wanted to use that a lot, but getting to the ground is my MMA game. I tried getting my strikes better so I could go for my game.”

Barbosa rattled her willing Canadian foe with hard punches, got her to the floor and isolated Belbita’s left arm to lock in the choke that ended matters for her fourth submission in eight professional wins.

“Beautiful finish by Barbosa,” Cruz said. “Picture perfect.”

It was do-or-die time, or at least close to it, for Rhys McKee.

The Irishman was 0-for-2 in his first UFC stint five years ago and winless in bouts in 2023 and 2024, too, meaning Saturday’s date with newbie Daniel Frunza had a career-defining level of urgency attached. And this time, the 29-year-old fought like it.

Nicknamed “Skeletor,” McKee was positively frightening from the jump against his Romanian foe, dropping Frunza four times, damaging his eyes with swelling and cuts, and ripping open his upper lip to the point where a cage-side physician deemed him unable to continue.

It took all of five minutes. And McKee was reveling in the achievement.

“It feels damn good but I’m here to stay,” he said. “I’m gonna turn this thing around. Mark my words. I heard him say in an interview that I don’t hit that hard, and I knew that was gonna be his demise. I hit hella hard.”

Meanwhile, it didn’t go so well for another 0-for-4 fighter.

Brazilian strawweight Istela Nunes didn’t appear nearly as desperate to get a first win and ultimately found herself on the other end of a unanimous decision to Loma Lookboonmee.

The Thai fighter finished 15 minutes with edges in strikes (111-51), takedowns (3-0) and control time (4:34-3:15), but Nunes still looked shocked at the verdict, turning her hands up and yelling “What?” as Joe Martinez finished the official announcement.

The five-fight skid is tied for second-longest in UFC women's history.

“You’ve already lost four fights,” analyst Michael Bisping said, “and though they’ve been entertaining, where’s the sense of urgency?”

Make no mistake, Uran Satybaldiev was upset.

He reacted to the decision of his prelim bout with Martin Buday–a narrow one-point loss on all three scorecards–by shaking his head, dismissively waving his hand and dejectedly commiserating with his corner team along the fence.

But when the emotional smoke clears, he may find himself a winner.

The Kyrgyzstan fighter took the bout on less than a week’s notice after fighting in the LFA promotion last month, climbed a weight division to meet the UFC’s 15th-ranked heavyweight and made a legit case for winning by scoring the cleaner if not more frequent blows.

Add in the fact that he was outweighed by 42 pounds on Friday and probably more than that in the cage, and there seems little doubt that he’ll be seen again, perhaps at light heavyweight.

It was his first loss after nine pro fights, while Buday won his second straight and improved to 6-1 in the company.

“Hats off to Uran Satybaldiev, he should be proud in defeat,” Fitzgerald said. “Giving up 60 pounds and making a fight out of it, all credit to him.”

Vanessa Demopoulos knows what it’s like to be the bully.

She’s won 11 pro fights, including five in the UFC, and found success by getting opponents to the ground and either beating them up or finishing them.

So while she was familiar with what was happening in Saturday’s card-opening bout against jiu-jitsu ace and former training partner Talita Alencar, she didn’t like it.

The Ohio-born strawweight was taken to the ground in each of the three rounds and never found a way to offset Alencar’s positional dominance, spending better than 12 minutes under the Brazilian’s control on the way to a shutout decision loss.

It was a second straight loss and third in five fights for the “Lil’ Monster,” who’d previously won three straight across 11 months from 2022 into 2023 and became a viral commodity by jumping into the arms of analyst Joe Rogan as he approached for a post-fight interview.

There was no such opportunity against Alencar, who arrived with the fewest pro fights on the card but improved her career mark to 6-1-1 and spiked to 2-1 in the UFC.

Main Card

Lerone Murphy def. Josh Emmett by unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 49-46)

Pat Sabatini def. Joanderson Brito by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-27)

ChangHo Lee def. Cortavious Romious by TKO (elbows), 3:48, Round 2

Brad Tavares def. Gerald Meerschaert by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Ode' Osbourne def. Luis Gurule by TKO (punch), 1:54, Round 2

Torrez Finney def. Robert Valentin by split decision (27-30, 29-28, 29-28)

Preliminary Card

Dione Barbosa def. Diana Belbota by submission (arm triangle), 4:13, Round 1

Rhys McKee def. Daniel Frunza by TKO (doctor stoppage), 5:00, Round 1

Loma Lookboonmee def. Istela Nunes by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Victor Henry def. Pedro Falcão by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Martin Buday def. Uran Satybaldiev by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Talita Alencar def. Vanessa Demopoulos by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-27, 30-27)