Category Archives: Mmafighting.com

Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul just got a little bit bigger.

On Monday, Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions announced the upcoming fight card between Paul and Tyson will also feature a WBC welterweight title fight between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos.

Barrios won the WBC interim welterweight title a year ago with a unanimous decision victory over Yordenis Ugas. He then defended the interim belt back in May with a decision win over Fabian Maidana. Barrios was elevated to undisputed WBC welterweight champion in June, after demoting Terence Crawford following his move up to super welterweight.

Sporting a 28-6-2 professional record, Ramos is most notable for losing a split decision to Ugas for the WBA welterweight title back in 2020.

Most Valuable Promotions also announced a bout between Indian boxer and influencer Neeraj Goyat and Brazilian YouTuber and boxer Whindersson Nunes.

Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul takes place on Nov. 15 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX and will be streamed globally via Netflix.

Below is the full Tyson vs. Paul fight card as it currently stands.

Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul — 8 two-minute rounds, heavyweight

Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano — 10 rounds, undisputed lightweight title

Mario Barrios vs. Abel Ramos — 12 rounds, WBC welterweight title

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Darren Till — 6 rounds, cruiserweight

Ashton Sylve vs. Floyd Schofield — 10 rounds, lightweight

Neeraj Goyat vs. Whindersson Nunes — 4 rounds, middleweight

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Merab Dvalishvil’s championship triumph rang across the continents.

“The Machine” dominated Sean O’Malley in Saturday’s UFC 306 main event at Sphere in Las Vegas to earn a unanimous decision win and become the new UFC bantamweight champion. Back in his native Georgia, thousands of Dvalishvili fans gathered in a Tbilisi square to watch their countryman go to battle.

He didn’t disappoint, thrilling the gathered masses and delivering the European country its second UFC titleholder, alongside current featherweight champion Ilia Topuria.

Watch footage of the festivities below, courtesy of Setanta Sports.

According to Setanta Sports’ Giorgi Kokiashvili, there were over 10,000 people gathered to watch Dvalishvili achieve his championship dream. Dvalishvili made his UFC debut in 2017 and after a pair of losses, he hasn’t looked back since. The new bantamweight king made it 11 straight wins with his victory over O’Malley, adding “Suga” to a hit list that includes former UFC champions Henry Cejudo, Petr Yan, and Jose Aldo.

Up next for Dvalishvili is presumably undefeated contender Umar Nurmagomedov. Whenever that fight is booked, expect Dvalishvili’s supporters to once again show up en masse.

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The UFC continues negotiations with the plaintiffs involved in a pair of antitrust lawsuits filed against the company but after a judge denied the initial settlement agreement, it’s impossible to tell how this ends.

In a surprising move, Judge Richard Boulware from Nevada shut down a settlement agreement in July after the UFC agreed to pay out $ 335 million to settle a pair of lawsuits with the first one filed all the way back in 2014.

The judge previously stated in court that he objected to the settlement because the agreed upon payout seemed low and that the fighters represented in the second lawsuit — covering athletes from 2017 to the present — could object to arbitration and class-action waiver clauses in existing contracts.

On Wednesday, TKO Group Holdings president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro addressed the judge’s decision to deny the settlement against the wishes of both the plaintiffs and the defendants.

“Anyone that is a student of our business that has closely followed this story knows what’s going on is just ridiculous,” Shapiro said while appearing at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference. “We ultimately cut a deal to settle these cases, both suits, where the plaintiffs — the fighters if you will — near unanimity that this was good for them. By the way, we spent a lot more than anybody thought we were going to spend, [what] our board wanted us to spend, or we even thought was frankly appropriate, when it came to the two cases before us. But nonetheless to take it off the table we reached a deal and we’re on our way and then the judge doesn’t even grant preliminary approval.

“Keep in mind, if you grand preliminary approval then that gives a window for anybody to come forward, fighters who don’t agree or there isn’t unanimity [saying] ‘wait a second, this isn’t fair,’ to step up and be heard. He shut this down before they even had a chance to be heard. That’s somewhat unprecedented I’d have to say, in the sense that it’s a hell of a payout and the [Kajan] Johnson case, which is the second case [covering fighters from 2017 to present], just taken to the testimony in court with the judge, very clearly say ‘we don’t think on our own we have a case, we can’t find a lawyer to take our case, it’s very difficult here, this is why we want this deal.’ So you had both plaintiffs totally aligned with the UFC and our lawyers that this settlement was fair and we’re going to move on and we’re looking for your approval. He saw it another way. Asked us to get back together and talk about another way to skin the cat.”

The judge eventually set a new trial date on Feb. 3, 2025 for the first antitrust lawsuit filed by fighters such as Cung Le, Nate Quarry and others while instructing both parties that he wouldn’t push the start of the trial unless he approves a new preliminary settlement agreement.

Of course, the UFC continues to dialogue with the plaintiffs in hopes of reaching a new agreement so the case never goes to trial but Shapiro made it clear that the company already reached a ceiling as far as a potential payoff for the settlement.

If the case ends up going to trial and a judgment goes against the UFC, Shapiro promised that the company would exhaust all legal means to fight the ruling to the bitter end.

“We are having those conversations because that’s the direction,” Shapiro said. “I would tell you this is a difficult one because we’re not going to just be writing a bigger check. This is frankly at the top of where we wanted to ever be or ever thought we would be. We feel very strongly in the merits of both cases. We are going to pursue this and chase this and defend ourselves in a very intense way, let’s put it that way.

“If there is an adverse outcome, we will go all the way. I want to make that clear. We will appeal and we will appeal and we will appeal and we will appeal, just like the NFL said they were going to do with their Sunday Ticket/DirecTV situation.”

Back in June a jury awarded $ 4.7 billion in damages to subscribers after ruling that the NFL violated antitrust laws in distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon football games on a premium subscription service. Before a potential appeal process could even get going, a Federal judge overturned the ruling and granted judgment to the NFL while ruling that testimony from a pair of witnesses in the trial should have been excluded.

Shapiro obviously sounds confident that the UFC will eventually close this chapter but that doesn’t absolve the ruling that shut down the initial settlement agreement to resolve both cases.

“This is kind of absurd what’s happened” Shapiro said. “Nobody is on board with it. The plaintiffs want the money and the sport and the competition will be better for it. All this is doing is lining the pockets of more lawyers.”

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Merab Dvalishvili is the new UFC bantamweight champion after defeating Sean O’Malley in the main event of UFC 306, while Valentina Shevchenko is once again the flyweight champ following her dominant win over Alexa Grasso in the co-main event. Where do the new and now former champions go from Saturday’s event at Sphere?

On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss what’s next for Dvalishvili, O’Malley, Shevchenko, and Grasso following their championship bouts in Las Vegas. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Diego Lopes after his decision win over Brian Ortega in the featured bout, Esteban Ribovics following his incredible battle with Daniel Zellhuber, along with fellow main card winner Ronaldo Rodriguez, and more.

Watch the UFC 306 edition of On To the Next One in the video above. Audio-only versions of the podcast can be found below, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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Michael Chandler claims he almost fought at UFC 306.

Chandler, who has long been tied to a fight with Conor McGregor, now faces Charles Oliveira in a five-round, co-main event rematch at UFC 309 on Nov. 16 at Madison Square Garden. During a media scrum at this past Saturday’s pay-per-view event at Sphere in Las Vegas, Chandler revealed that after his scheduled bout with McGregor at UFC 303 fell through, the UFC wanted to book a “BMF” title fight with Holloway instead.

“I almost was going to fight [at UFC 306],” Chandler said. “It was offered to fight Max. I respect Max because Max is a champion, Max is going to beat Ilia Topuria, I believe.”

Chandler says he’s still going to keep his options open for the long-awaited fight with McGregor, but also called his bout with Oliveira a “No. 1 contender” fight, and if McGregor isn’t ready after that, “Iron” will gladly fight lightweight champion Islam Makhachev.

As far as the Holloway fight goes, Chandler accepted it, but he says — with complete understanding of the situation — that the upcoming challenger for Topuria’s featherweight title at UFC 308 turned it down.

“I think it was realistic for me because I was already in camp, in shape, and ready to go,” Chandler explained. “I bring that up, not to… you know, guys throw these things out there to act like tough guys — I don’t do this to act like a tough guy. If I was Max, I wouldn’t have taken the fight either. I was pumped up that, maybe, it was a possible opportunity — Chandler vs. Holloway, BMF belt, at the Sphere [at UFC 306] — but if I was him, I wouldn’t have taken it either.

“He was on vacation, or doing something, he was enjoying some well-deserved time off and wasn’t ready to get in a camp and fight someone like me.”

While Chandler didn’t get to face a man he has tremendous respect for in Holloway at UFC 306, the three-time Bellator lightweight champion believes the fan-friendly tilt could certainly happen next year.

“That’s a fight, I think, is going to happen in 2025 and I’m excited about it,” Chandler said. “It’s Oliveira, it’s Islam, it’s Conor, it’s Max, we’ve got some huge fights coming up. They’re all going to be exciting, you guys are going to be there, you’re all going to be covering, you’re all going to be on the edge of your seats.”

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Jon Jones is edging closer to retirement.

The UFC’s reigning heavyweight champion has said on multiple occasions that his next fight—which is now officially booked against Stipe Miocic for the main event of UFC 309 on Nov. 16—could be his last. Jones repeated that stance in his most recent public appearance this past Saturday at UFC 306 at Sphere in Las Vegas, telling Clocked N’ Loaded that he is indeed planning to hang up the gloves after fighting Miocic.

“It’s going to be the last time,” Jones said. “More than likely.”

Jones, 37, captured a vacant heavyweight title with a dominant win over Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 in March 2023 and hasn’t fought since. He and Miocic were originally scheduled to fight at the UFC’s annual Madison Square Garden show in New York the following November, but an injury to Jones pushed the bout back a year.

In Jones’ absence, British star Tom Aspinall became interim heavyweight champion after scoring a first-round knockout of Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 295 (the Aspinall-Pavlovich bout was added to the card after Jones-Miocic was postponed). Aspinall has already defended his share of the heavyweight crown, defeating Curtis Blaydes in just 60 seconds at UFC 304 this past July.

For months, Jones and Aspinall have gone back and forth in interviews and on social media discussing the possible fight, with Jones insisting that the only thing set in stone is that he is fighting Miocic, who holds the record for the most consecutive successful UFC heavyweight title defenses at three. UFC DEO Dana White has also balked at the suggestion that Jones should prioritize a unification bout with Aspinall over the recently announced UFC 309 headliner.

Jones set the record for the youngest fighter to win a UFC title when he defeated Shogun Rua to become light heavyweight champion at just 23 years old. He went on to defend the light heavyweight title 11 times, including eight straight defenses from 2011 to 2015.

In 29 pro bouts, Jones only has one loss via disqualification and never dropped the title in the cage, though he lost it twice: His first run ended when he was stripped of the belt due to his involvement in an April 2015 hit and run that violated the promotion’s athlete conduct policy, and his second was voluntarily vacated amid a contract dispute with White and the UFC in May 2020 and a subsequent move up to heavyweight.

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UFC 306 is in the books and there are two new champions atop the UFC. In the co-main event, Valentina Shevchenko reclaimed the flyweight title and ended her rivalry with Alexa Grasso, winning a dominant decision. Then in the main event, Merab Dvalishvili avenged his friend Aljamain Sterling, putting on a vintage performance and outworking Sean O’Malley to claim the bantamweight title.

But the real star of the show on Saturday night was Sphere in Las Vegas, as the UFC pulled out all the stops to provide a once-in-a-lifetime experience for viewers in the promotion’s “love letter to Mexico.” So with an event with so much to talk about, let’s gather the MMA Fighting brain trust to discuss everything that happened.

1. What is your review of UFC 306? Did the Sphere live up to the hype?

Heck: As we put a bow on the festivities, the takeaways are more spectacle than in-cage action. Not trying to take anything away from new champs Merab Dvalishvili and Valentina Shevchenko, because they did the damn thing and won their fights, but neither are ones we’ll voluntarily go back and watch again. What we will re-watch — and show our friends and family members who aren’t UFC fans — is the exSphereience of it all. The movies, the graphics, the main card open, the production values the UFC worked so hard on. The event was a bit of a slog as a whole, especially down the stretch, but I’d love to see them try again.

Martin: Yes and no. On a positive note, it was great to see the UFC try something totally different and new. Outside of the fights themselves and the crowds from certain cities or countries bringing a lot of energy, every major UFC pay-per-view pretty much always looks the same. So seeing all the pomp and circumstance used to build up this card was pretty cool. That said, Sphere is ultimately a visual experience that works best if you’re in the arena. Think of it like watching videos of your favorite band on YouTube — it’s still cool but it just doesn’t compare to actually being there in person. Add to that, the card wasn’t ultra stacked and five main card fights all going to decision with the show not ending until nearly 2 a.m. ET wasn’t ideal.

Lee: No, because how could it?

Uncle Dana promised everyone the greatest sporting event in the history of sports, and I can’t imagine anyone sincerely believing that it came close to that mark even if you had the best seat in the house. What you got were mostly cool and well-intentioned short films dedicated to celebrating Mexican heritage, some sick-looking backdrops for the main card fights, big audio that would shake you down to your butt, and chair tech that would literally shake your butt with every strike (or so I’m told).

For those of us watching remotely, there was no way to fully appreciate it, despite the broadcast team doing their very best to show the Sphere off. Our first glimpse of the famed wall was the UFC using it to simulate scaffolding for the preliminary portion of the show. That’s not great.

I trust everyone involved did their best to make UFC 306’s production one for the ages, but there’s only so much you can do for the millions of us tuning in at home from the comfort of our decidedly non-butt-shaking chairs.

Meshew: UFC 306 was solid if underwhelming, but I was pleasantly surprised with the production.

For years we’ve asked the UFC to break away from its monochromatic way of doing things, from bland uniforms to the same old production 42 times a year. And while Sphere maybe didn’t reach the lofty goals Dana White set for it, there was some undeniably cool stuff going on, even for the at-home viewers. The vignettes between fights, the octagon girls, the drone shots and backgrounds, all were new and interesting and while everything wasn’t to my taste, I commend them for trying not just something new, but to try and communicate a broader story. It was fun, and I hope they do more of this in the future.

2. What was the best part of the evening?

Heck: While I put over the production, the best thing on the card was Esteban Ribovics vs. Daniel Zellhuber. Holy hell, Batman! Those two guys understood the damn assignment, and delivered this generation’s Cub Swanson vs. Doo Ho Choi. Incredible will, skill, heart, and granite chins were shown by both, as Ribovics and Zellhuber displayed the overall spirit of what this card was designed to represent. This ruled, and if there’s one fight to go out of your way to watch if you missed UFC 306, it’s this one. Lightweight is the best.

Lee: Years from now, when I’m looking back at this pay-per-view, somehow despite all the Sphere’s bells and whistles, and a pair of title fight results that could have long-lasting repercussions for the UFC, what I’ll remember most is two unranked lightweights giving each other the business for three rounds, with five minutes in particular standing out.

Saturday’s undercard was lambasted by some fans for lacking star power, but it’s fights like these that create stars. More than any movie that was played on the screen, Ribovics and Zellhuber gave us pure cinema (or CineMMA, if you will).

Meshew: I hate to double dip, but I’m going to go with the whole Sphere thing. Ribovics vs. Zellhuber is very possibly the Fight of the Year at this point, so I don’t begrudge anyone for picking that, but when I look back at UFC 306, the first thing that will come to mind is Sphere and the UFC taking such a big swing. Because under normal circumstances, that card might have been dreadful. Ten fights felt like ten hours, and it went super late, but I still somehow never felt that bogged down, mostly because the newness of Sphere and all the surrounding parts kept me engaged and interested, trying to take it all in. Again, not all of it worked, but it was all interesting and really was the star of the show.

Martin: It wasn’t the most exciting fight in history but watching Merab Dvalishvili finally ascend to the top of the bantamweight division was pretty special. Nothing got handed to this guy and I’d argue that he was forced to work that much harder to get in that position thanks to his wrestling heavy style and refusal to even entertain a potential fight against Aljamain Sterling when he was champion — a declaration that Dana White openly criticized. Dvalishvili ultimately had to win 10 consecutive fights including wins over three former champions — Jose Aldo, Petr Yan and Henry Cejudo — to finally get his title shot with the likely understanding that he would never get another one if he lost. So Dvalishvili made the most of his moment and now he can celebrate as the new UFC champion.

3. What was your least favorite part of the evening?

Meshew: Unfortunately, it was the final two fights of the evening.

Merab Dvalishvili and Valentina Shevchenko picked up dominant, meaningful, professional wins on Saturday night. They won titles and got two paychecks and that is 100 percent the most important thing. I have tremendous respect for what they accomplished at UFC 306, and I’m even happy they both won as I’m fans of both. But those fights were tough hangs.

Up until the co-main event, the fights had almost all been electric and the vibes were sky high. Then Shevchenko hossed Grasso around for 25 minutes and broke her will and the energy just got drained out of the card. And then Merab did the same in the main event and so this grand spectacle just sort of ended, instead of having a grand finale. Paradoxically, the two most important things that happened were also the worst parts of the show.

But also, special shoutout to the irony of a show celebrating Mexican Independence being sponsored by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Satire is truly dead.

Lee: Some unfortunate soul on the UFC broadcast team mistaking Bud Crawford for Kendrick Lamar was ROUGH.

Look, I’m aware that Kendrick directly referenced Bud on Euphoria earlier this year and, sure, great bar, but there’s no excuse for whatever happened here. We need to do better as a society.

Heck: AK might be right here. The graphics department had a tough go of things. Not only with what he mentioned about the Kendrick Lamar flub up, but there were so many inaccuracies with fight cards — mostly from UFC 309 putting Natalia Silva vs. Viviane Araujo on there (it’s Karine Silva), and also just casually throwing Anthony Smith vs. Dominick Reyes on that card when it’s happening at UFC 310. Not everything can be perfect all the time, but I feel like this should be as close to automatic as it gets.

Martin: Generally speaking, Herb Dean is a great referee but he was getting way too involved in the main event on Saturday. To his credit, he did educate just about everybody in the sport that there’s a rule about excessive coaching when he admonished Sean O’Malley’s head coach Tim Welch for talking too much. But then Dean just kept shouting for action and demanding Dvalishvili to do more just seconds after he landed a takedown. Wrestling isn’t for everybody but it’s part of MMA — and it almost seemed like Dean was desperate to get the fight back on the feet as soon as possible. He never actually stood them up but his constant shouting with instructions was a distraction and just felt totally unnecessary.

4. Who was the unsung hero of the evening?

Lee: The biggest of shout-outs have to go to the evening’s octagon girls and whoever was involved in designing their outfits. Simply put: Fabulous!

Here’s a few of the gorgeous costumes that the ladies strutted their stuff in Saturday night.

Being a ring card girl in today’s modern combat sports landscape is typically a thankless job, but everyone should respect the incredible work that went into these outfits meant to celebrate the rich history of the Mexican people. This wasn’t just eye candy for the sake of it, the women and their outfits genuinely enhanced the viewing experience.

So to Ariadna, Ayled, Daniela, Dany, Hannah, Karla, Mariel, Valeria, and the brilliant costumers, we salute you.

Meshew: AK is correct, the winner of Saturday night was whoever did the costume design. I’ve never understood the purpose of octagon girls since the advent of giant screens that tell us things, and so mostly I view them as relics of a bygone era. But on Saturday they stole the show.

Special shoutout to the Dia de Muertos costumes, which were the best, and boo to the “Future of Mexico” ones which were by far the worst.

Heck: Since she’ll likely be forgotten in the fallout, Ketlen Souza did the freaking thing on Saturday, didn’t she? Not only did she deliver an incredible finish of massive favorite Yazmin Jauregui, but selfishly, she also helped deliver a big ol’ goose egg to Shaheen Al-Shatti for his fantasy team, since he selected Jauregui. Well done, Ketlen!

Martin: Craig Borsari — the UFC’s chief content officer and head of production — never heard his name mentioned as much as he did in the days and weeks leading up to UFC 306. He’s actually been with UFC for nearly 20 years and any time Dana White has a crazy idea — like you know, putting on a sporting event at Sphere — it’s Borsari who has to make those fantasies become a reality. Borsari is obviously good at his job, but he had his work cut out for him at UFC 306 and it’s safe to say he pulled it off.

5. What is your biggest question coming out of the event?

Heck: Will the UFC continue to take big swings, and maybe more importantly, continue to try and have more fun with these events? Between this, and UFC 300, there was more effort put in than we’ve seen in a long time. Look, the UFC has lapped the competition probably 487 times by now. They are so far ahead of everybody else that it’s pretty laughable. But when the UFC goes outside of their business-as-usual bubble, it gives us a little bit of hope. Ice cream is delicious by itself, but throw some hot fudge, whipped cream, some chocolate sprinkles and a cherry on top, it’s just better. The more proverbial sundaes, the better.

Martin: Where does Sean O’Malley go from here?

There’s no doubt he’ll remain one of the biggest stars on the entire UFC roster but a fairly lopsided loss puts him at a crossroads as far as what comes next. If O’Malley really wants to get back to title contention, he’ll rest up, recover and then start calling for a fight against another top-ranked bantamweight — a showdown against Cory Sandhagen makes a lot of sense. But if O’Malley cares more about fame and fortune, he might demand an immediate rematch or just sit out for an extended period of time to wait for a marquee matchup that also comes with a hefty payday. Remember after Conor McGregor got thumped by Khabib Nurmagomedov, he wasn’t seen again for 15 months — O’Malley should avoid that kind of scenario at all costs.

Lee: Is Valentina Shevchenko poised for another lengthy title run?

Heading into UFC 306, I picked Alexa Grasso to be victorious in the trilogy bout, and my intentions were somewhat selfish as I wanted to see Shevchenko return to 135 pounds and test the waters there. Now that Shevchenko proved once again that she’s the true queen of the flyweights, it’s entirely possible she adds a few more title belt rubies to her collection.

Women’s 125 is full of intriguing challengers, including presumed next-one-up Manon Fiorot, red-hot Brazilian striker Natalia Silva, a resurgent Maycee Barber, plus Erin Blanchfield and former strawweight champion Rose Namajunas, who fight each other this November. The two-time champ has options, all of whom she’d likely be favored against.

Getting to the top is hard, staying there for a long time is damn near impossible, and doing it all again? Legendary.

Meshew: I’m with Mike on this one: will the success of this event inspire the UFC to try cooler things moving forward?

At the post-fight press conference, Dana White said he is always willing to try and jump on cool ideas but that’s not really true. Occasionally if there is something massive and new, he has the business sense to try to associate with that, but there’s a difference between being an early adopter of a new trend, and setting one yourself.

At this point, the UFC is too big to fail. They own MMA and there’s no real way they can lose that. That should afford them the freedom to try new things and have fun, and instead they are largely content to maintain the status quo. Will this event being incredibly popular get White and company to maybe try more themed events moving forward or just take smaller swings on different production flourishes. We’ll see, but I certainly hope so.

6. Where does UFC 306 rank among the 2024 pay-per-views?

Lee: There have been some absolute bangers in 2024 (UFC 299, UFC 300, UFC 305), but also your fair share of forgettable cards, and I see UFC 306 as slotting in just above the latter pile.

As far as I’m concerned, the Sphere gimmickry alone served to separate Saturday’s event from the pack, even if the action at the top of the card didn’t deliver. Fair or not, UFC pay-per-views are often judged by how the finish, and not how they start, and few will ever re-watch the lopsided title fights we ended up with. But the first two fights of the main card were great, there was plenty of fun to be had on the preliminaries, and at the very least we escaped the card without any major controversies. That’s a win in my books.

That said, there’s a loaded UFC 307 lineup just around the corner, and the next three months show plenty of promise (Topuria vs. Holloway! Jon Jones is back?!?), so don’t be surprised if UFC 306 is pushed closer to the lower half of the rankings come Christmas.

Meshew: It’s the third-best card of the year.

UFC 300 is the greatest MMA card of all-time. It looked like it might be that on paper and then the thing went out and delivered on it. It was a once in a generation event that may not be topped in my lifetime, AND it even had some cool extra promotional touches: 100 out of 10.

UFC 299 was elite MMA. An extremely good card on paper that lived up to the hype, but didn’t have the same otherworldly oomph of UFC 300. But in most years, 299 is the best card of the year.

UFC 306 is behind those two, but ahead of everything else. Sure, the two top fights were underwhelming, but they were high-level MMA with extreme stakes and storylines attached, so they weren’t bad (just the worst part of an otherwise excellent night) and the rest of the card was great. So when you add in the spectacle of Sphere and everything along with it, this is an event that we will talk about and remember for a long time to come.

Heck: Tough question, because it’s almost impossible to ignore the spectacle side of things because we’ll remember that for years to come. So I’m going to try to take that out of the equation and pretend this card happened at T-Mobile Arena. UFC 306 was a bottom-half ranked pay-per-view, at best.

UFC 297 was the worst, no question about it. UFC 302 was a sloggy slog slog, but the main event between Islam Makhachev and Dustin Poirier delivered one of the best fights of the year, and gave us a lot to talk about. UFC 301 had very little to hang your hat on in terms of star power, but in a vacuum, it was a fun card to watch, plus it ended with a very competitive and entertaining main event. UFC 306 is mixed in with those, and while it may not have been the worst of the year, but it was far away from being the best. Add the spectacle part back in, it becomes a bottom-of-the-tier-list event, well below the UFC 300, UFC 299, UFC 298 cards.

Martin: When it comes to the fights, UFC 306 delivered some incredible action early and then lopsided results in the main and co-main events — with both delivering less than spectacular action across 10 total rounds in the octagon. Like it or not, that’s almost always the biggest memory we take away from any card because as much as Esteban Ribovics and Daniel Zellhuber deserve their flowers, the crowd in the arena and the folks watching at home were all hoping for similar out of O’Malley vs. Dvalishvili or Grasso vs. Shevchenko 3. The visuals in Sphere were spectacular but that was undoubtedly a much cooler experience for those in the arena versus the audience (including me) at home. So overall, UFC 306 was very middle of the road but nowhere close to the top show of the year, which remains UFC 300 and that’s going to be awfully hard to top.

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Merab Dvalishvili had to let his quirky sense of humor shine even though he was in the middle of the most important fight of his career.

At the end of the second round of his UFC 306 main event clash with bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley, Dvalishvili confused everyone by playfully kissing O’Malley’s back as the two grappled against the fence.

Watch the bizarre exchange below.

Dvalishvili then released O’Malley and casually walked off, despite their still being time left on the clock. O’Malley made him pay, chasing him down and cracking him with a punch before the bell sounded. Adding insult to injury, referee Herb Dean then admonished Dvalishvili for his bizarre behavior.

In the end, it made no difference to Dvalishvili’s fortunes, as he went on to win a dominant decision to claim the bantamweight title. Later in the evening, Dvalishvili was asked about that memorable moment.

“So I grab his neck and he has 10 seconds left,” Dvalishvili said at the UFC 306 post-fight press conference. “I know he can wait and he’s not going to sleep or tap from this and I wanted to make just a little fun of him and make him—I don’t hate the guy, just make fun of him, but at same time, give him a little kiss to show that I’m dominant. I control this fight, I break you. That’s why I was kissing him.

“But I had too much fun there and I guess I [lost track of time], but when I let go, he followed me and he punched the back of my head and I protect myself again. I said, ‘Referee, again, I’m sorry, referee. I’m sorry.”

That wasn’t the only time that Dean had to talk to Dvalishvili.

At the very beginning of the fight, the action came to a pause as Dean had to address both Dvalishvili and O’Malley’s coach Tim Welch for excessive conversation. Dvalishvili claims that Welch was simply talking too much and he was inclined to respond.

“I was in and I’m fighting, I’m a professional fighter, I’m focused,” Dvalishvili said. “It never happened to me. I never pay attention to the other corner, but Tim’s voice, it was very familiar because he was doing the same thing [when Aljamain Sterling fought O’Malley at UFC 292] … He was doing the same thing, he was doing very disrespectful, ‘Merab, you’ve got to go,’ he was talking shit at me.

“I tell him, ‘Stop it,’ and nobody was telling him to stop. He just kept doing this. If you do the same thing in basketball or soccer, they will disqualify you, but I guess here not. But I told the referee, ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m a professional, that’s my job, but I said, ‘I’m sorry’ and after I guess he stopped it. … After, I don’t care.”

UFC CEO Dana White was also asked about the main event chicanery and he essentially dismissed it as Dvalishvili being Dvalishvili.

“What happened was Merab and O’Malley’s corner were screaming at each other the whole beginning of the fight,” White said. “They were yelling at each other back and forth and then Herb Dean stepped in and told them to knock it off.

“Then the kissing on the back and the standing up and walking away before the bell, that I have no idea. Merab does some shit. It was weird but not shocking.”

Up next for Dvalishvili appears to be undefeated contender Umar Nurmagomedov. The Dagestani fighter was in attendance at Sphere in Las Vegas, but no official plans have been made for the two to fight yet and Dvalishvili would actually like to see Nurmagomedov face one more test before being granted a title shot.

“Umar, he’s OK,” Dvalishvili said. “But I’m telling you guys, from the top 15, he only won one fight, and that was Cory Sandhagen, and we all saw what Aljamain Sterling did against Cory Sandhagen. Made him sleep in the first round.”

Asked who Nurmagomedov should fight to become the No. 1 contender, Dvalishvili answered, “Maybe against Petr Yan.”

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Diego Lopes experienced the best and the worst of fight night at UFC 306.

The featherweight contender’s own bout couldn’t have gone better as he won a convincing unanimous decision over the highly ranked Brian Ortega on Saturday’s main card. Unfortunately for Lopes, he had to deal with a major disappointment as one fight later he was in Alexa Grasso’s corner serving as a coach for her flyweight championship loss to Valentina Shevchenko.

Grasso lost a listless decision to Shevchenko, with her poor performance bringing an anticlimactic end to her trilogy with “Bullet.” At the evening’s post-fight press conference, Lopes couldn’t pinpoint exactly what went wrong for his teammate.

“I think Alexa froze and wasn’t in the fight tonight,” Lopes said via a Spanish translator. “Valentina didn’t do much either. What did she do? She just took her to the ground and tried to control her there. Didn’t do any damage, she didn’t do anything either.”

It was obvious by Lopes’ demeanor that he muted his own celebration at the post-fight press conference in the wake of Grasso’s championship defeat. However, it wasn’t just seeing the flyweight title change hands that soured Lopes’ mood.

Touted as a celebration of Mexican Independence Day weekend, UFC 306 saw a number of Mexican-born fighters fall flat, including Daniel Zellhuber, Irene Aldana, and the heavily favored Yazmin Jauregui. Lopes would have loved to have seen his fellow countrymen share in his success.

“I’m a little bit upset about all the Mexicans who lost the fight tonight,” Lopes said. “Obviously, I’m happy with my win, but I wanted more Mexicans to win. But this is the toughest sport in the world. You can’t always get what you want, so yeah, I’m a bit upset about that.”

Lopes has no regrets about having to rush to prepare for Grasso’s title fight after his own bout concluded and he looks forward to going over Grasso’s performance when the post-UFC 306 madness has settled down.

“I really want to support everyone from my team, so I made sure I wanted to be there for Alexa,” Lopes said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get the win tonight and I wasn’t able to speak with her because I was brought up here for all my media commitments, but I’m looking forward to speaking with her after this.”

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Jake Paul wasn’t going to be denied at UFC 306.

The influencer and boxer, who claims he was banned by the UFC over two years ago, put on a special disguise and says he snuck into the historic event at Sphere in Las Vegas on Saturday night. As he pointed out in the video below, it’s been awhile since pulled off the kind of hijinks that helped make him famous when he was younger.

UFC CEO Dana White and UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira both walked by Paul, who seemed to have great seats at the memorable event.

After catching the UFC event, Paul headed to Arlington, Texas, on Sunday afternoon and squared off against Mike Tyson with some help from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Paul and Tyson compete in a boxing match at AT&T Stadium on Nov. 15.

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