This Week in MMA: Dominant Deiveson Figueiredo becomes flyweight champion

Planet Sport writerStaff Writer22 July 2020
UFC venue

UFC venue

This week in MMA: A new flyweight champion is crowned and two more events on Fight Island deliver some outstanding fights...

The big talking point in MMA this week was the flyweight title fight at UFC Fight Island 3 on Saturday night, with Deiveson Figueiredo beating Joseph Benavidez for a second time to claim the UFC flyweight title.
The title had previously been vacated after dual weight champion Henry Cejudo decided to solely focus his efforts on holding his bantamweight title at the end of last year.
Figueiredo overcame Benavidez in February in what was supposed to be a title fight, but after the Brazilian missed weight it meant only the latter had a chance to capture the gold.
The first fight ended in a KO win for Figueiredo - a result that was disputed by Benavidez, who claimed a clash of heads dazed him before the KO. The build up to the fight saw a lot of mind games being utilised by Figueiredo, who even went as far to tweet UFC presenter, Megan Olivi (who is Benavidez’s wife) a kissing heart emoji, only hours before the two were set to step in the cage.
This time there was no controversy, as Figueiredo landed a big right hook to drop Benavidez within the first minute of the fight, and as the American looked to get up, Figueiredo took his back and continually tried to lock in a submission.
Benavidez fought tooth and nail to stop the repeated rear naked choke attempts from being completed, expertly fighting the grip of his opponent and stripping his arms away from his neck before getting back to his feet.
This small victory was short lived though as Figueiredo would knock Benavidez down twice more before securing a rear naked choke and a submission quickly after the third knockdown. To add insult to injury, Figueiredo tormented his opponent by uploading a photo of himself and Olivi with the caption: “Best wife ever”. 
A first title challenger for the newly crowned champion could be difficult to find with the division being one of the most shallow in the UFC, and with the current Covid-19 pandemic making international travel a real issue for the UFC’s matchmakers and fighters alike.

“The Joker” gets the last laugh

The co-main event also finished in quick fashion with Jack Hermansson beating Kelvin Gastelum with a heel hook submission in 78 seconds.

After closing the distance on Gastelum with a quick slip, “The Joker” was able to secure a takedown which led to his opponents downfall.
After getting to top position Gastelum rushed back to his feet and allowed Hermansson to grab a hold of his leg and clamp on a heel hook, which the Mexican-American fighter was unable to escape from.
In his post fight interview, Hermansson revealed he believes that his next fight will be against the winner of this weekend’s main event between Darren Till and Robert Whittaker, with the winner in contention to challenge for middleweight honours.
There were also several other fantastic fights on the Saturday nights card, with a striking masterclass between Rafael Fiziev and Marc Diakiese while there was a submission win for Ariane Lipski, who secured a kneebar on Luana Carolina that made fans stomach’s churn.

Controversy at UFC Fight Night 172

Another event took place on Wednesday night, with the card having a large European flavour.

The main event saw Calvin Kattar secure a decision victory over Dan Ige. The former was able to outland Ige throughout the fight, with a significant strike accuracy of 40% during the five rounds. Ige, of Hawaii, failed in each of his nine takedown attempts. 

The prelims of Wednesday nights card saw the two biggest talking points of the evening. Modestas Bukauskas secured a KO win over Andreas Michailidis at the end of round one in a style eerily similar to his last fight in Cage Warriors.

Towards the end of round one, Michailidis pushed the ex-light heavyweight champion towards the cage in a bid to secure a takedown but got knocked out from a flurry of devastating elbows.

As the buzzer went, the Greek fighter was left on his knees as he tried to shake off the blows, but as he leaned against the gate of the cage, it was opened by his cornermen and it saw him fall backwards which forced the referee to halt the fight after he felt the fighter could not continue.
This was criticised on two points: the first being that some viewers thought the initial elbows were illegal - which proved untrue when the replays showed as they were not thrown to the back of the head or top of head in a “12 to 6” motion - and another being that had Michailidis not fallen over, he would of been deemed able to continue. Bukauskas extended his winning streak to seven.

The other big talking point of the night was the debut of Khamzat Chimaev, a Swedish wrestler who made a huge impact on his debut.
Chimaev was pitted against middleweight John Phillips, and despite not having the same experience as the Welshman, he emerged the victor.  The young Swede put on a wrestling clinic, similar to the style of Khabib Nurmagomedov, ragdolling Phillips to the ground before landing some huge shots to try and set up a submission.
While the buzzer saved Phillips in the first round, nothing could save him in the second as Chimaev forced a submission. He now faces a 10-day turnaround with another fight lined up against BAMMA veteran Rhys McKee.