Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) returned in action in a big way yesterday (Sat. 15 January 2021) with UFC Fight Island 7, which provided fight fans with an exciting fight afternoon on ‘Fight Island’ in Abu Dhabi United Arab Arabia. Emirates. In the leading performance, Max Holloway put on a great performance against Calvin Kattar and achieved the unanimous decisive victory (see it again here). In the co-main event, Carlos Condit defeated Matt Brown in another entertaining battle.
Biggest winner: Max Holloway
This one is easy because ‘Blessed’ looked better than ever and dominated Kattar for 25 minutes to secure a much-needed victory after dropping two straight. His box was absolutely off the top shelves, and it had to because he tackled one of the best boxers at £ 145. But, “Blessed” was more than up to the task, when he went to each other with “The Boston Finisher” and marked him at will while eating several of his enemies good shots. In the fifth and final round, Holloway entered the full Matrix series, marking Kattar with a straight right and throwing a combination of four slaves while chatting with Jon Anik and Co. It was a sight to behold. With the win, Holloway reminded everyone that he is still at the top of his game and that he will soon be going nowhere. He placed himself at the top of a shortlist to face the winner of the recently announced title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega.
Successor: Li Jingliang
Many probably did not give me a high percentage of the defeat of Santiago Ponzinibbio – neither did I – but the Chinese born star silenced everyone and achieved the biggest victory of his career and put ‘Gente Boa’ to sleep with a spectacular knock out first round. Li has now won four of his last five, and this particular victory would give him a big bump on the Welterweight ladder. All in all, he now has seven knockout blows inside the Octagon.
Honorable mention: Alessio Di Chirico
Di Chirico took up and said he was not too impressed with what Joaquin Buckley did before their middleweight scrap, and not even this spectacular knockout hold did much for the Italian-born fighter. Come fight that night, Di Chirico backed up his speech by absolutely flattening ‘New Mansa’ with a header before concluding his evening with a few follow-up strikes. In addition to ending Buckley’s momentum, he also earned an extra bonus of $ 50,000 in bonus money. The win also lost its three-way battle, so it was big on all fronts.
Biggest loser: Santiago Ponzinibbio
It’s been more than two years since ‘Gente Boa’ entered the Octagon, and it’s been even longer since he last suffered a defeat. The last time he was in the column of the losers was in 2015. Since then, he has achieved an impressive winning streak of seven fights. Despite all the work, he could never get close to the title. And if you pair it with his long break, Ponzinibbio’s momentum slows tremendously. Now the loss will force him to start all over again, and it will be a difficult road to get back in the rankings as the weight class of 170 pounds is absolutely on top of each other.
For more UFC Fight Island 7 results and coverage click here.