The former Ultimate Fighter winner Gastelum took the first, instantly showing this wouldn’t be a walk in the park for Adesanya, who responded by taking the next two frames and grabbing the momentum for himself as the bout moved to the championship rounds. Unexpectedly, Gastelum rallied back, taking the fight to Adesanya, hurting him, and drawing level, leaving the outcome — and the interim title — to be decided by the final five minutes.
Standing in his corner before the start of the fifth round, his lips swollen and bloody, Adesanya mouthed the words, “You can’t beat me; I’m prepared to die” as he stepped back into the fray. Gastelum waded out gamely as well, but “The Last Stylebender” was just too much, earning a 10-8 score from all three judges after dropping Gastelum multiple times to claim the victory and the title.
The 2019 Fight of the Year remains one of the most entertaining, compelling, and tense battles I’ve seen in my lifetime… and I’ve watched a lot of fights.
Valentina Shevchenko def. Jessica Andrade (UFC 261)
This may be a surprise entrant to some but, to me, this is the greatest representation of how incredibly dominant and complete a fighter Shevchenko is inside the Octagon.
Much like how Cejudo was supposed to be a formidable challenge for Johnson in their first encounter, people legitimately expected Andrade to give the flyweight titleholder a run for her money. After all, she was a former strawweight champion with hellacious power and dangerous strength, and she melted top contender Katlyn Chookagian with a pair of vicious body shots in her divisional debut six months earlier.
It took about 90 seconds, maybe two minutes, max, for Shevchenko to show she wasn’t going to be troubled by Andrade. She was quicker, more technical on the feet and physically dominant in the clinch, easily twisting the Brazilian to the canvas multiple times in the opening stanza and doing whatever she pleased once the fight hit the mat.
The challenger escaped the first round, but wouldn’t escape the second, with the champion putting her back on the deck almost immediately. Andrade worked back to her feet, but not for long, with Shevchenko eventually working her way to the mounted crucifix position and ending the bout with a torrent of unanswered, unstoppable elbows.
The 34-year-old “Bullet” is the longest reigning current champion on the roster, a perfect 8-0 since moving to the flyweight division, and equaled Ronda Rousey’s record for the most consecutive successful title defenses by a female fighter with her win over Lauren Murphy five months after this.
She is a singular force, and this was her most impressive performance to date.
Kamaru Usman def. Jorge Masvidal (UFC 261)
Some people didn’t understand Usman’s desire to run it back with Masvidal less than a year after sweeping the scorecards against the veteran contender on short notice the previous summer, but it always made sense to me.
Masvidal had the short-notice card to play, and even thought the late opponent shift cuts both ways, we always see it as a greater obstacle for the person coming in with a truncated or non-existent training camp. Masvidal is great at spinning tales, and the way he told it, Usman was only able to hold him against the fence for 25 minutes the first time around, and that was when he had no training camp, so imagine how different it would be if “Gamebred” was in shape, ready to go?
When you believe you’re the better man, little questions and twisted tales like that feel like a rock in your shoe, and rather than keep marching forward in discomfort, Usman decided to deal with the rock.
And boy did he.
Playing into his “Street Jesus” moniker, Masvidal had taken to saying he “baptized” people when he knocked them out, and promised to do the same to Usman, but he was the one plunged into the icy cold waters of comeuppance at UFC 261.
After a competitive first round, each man looked for openings to start the second, with Masvidal landing a few leg kicks and a right hand that prompted him to smile and posture at Usman for a brief moment. The champion pawed out with two jabs that were parried away soon after, and when he reached out with a third, Masvidal left himself open to the megaton right hand coming behind it.
The spray of sweat coming off Masvidal’s head as he twisted to the canvas in a heap likely hit the fans in the first row; that’s how clean, how precise, how impactful Usman’s shot landed. There were no questions this time.