After a positive drug test, Jones was pulled from the card, prompting Miesha Tate’s bantamweight title defense of Amanda Nunes to be the new main event.
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For the former champion, Tate, it’s back to the drawing board after losing her first fight since her 2013 loss to Rousey in their rematch. He arrived on Thursday for a press conference with Nate Diaz for their UFC 202 fight, and then stuck around to watch Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar battle it out for the interim version of his featherweight title.
Nunes punished Tate with punches early on into the headliner, and after defending a takedown, submitted the bloodied champ with a rear-naked-choke. Before Tate beat Holm and became champion, this would have been considered somewhat a match of equals.Tate says she doesn’t want to underestimate Nunes in any way.
Before the fight the talk was about Lesnar’s strong ground game versus Hunt’s punching power (and Lesnar’s reported inability to take a punch), but in the end it turned out to be a convincing but not overwhelming confirmation that Lesnar is back for good. “I waited 10 years”.
“The Lioness” stayed composed once she realized Tate was hurt and applied just enough pressure without wildly going for the finish.
Although tentative in the early going of his return to the UFC, Lesnar shot in and got three takedowns of Hunt over the first five minutes of the fight.
In the co-main event, former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar returned to the octagon after more than a five-year absence and defeated No. 8-ranked heavyweight Mark Hunt, with all three judges giving Lesnar a 29-27 unanimous-decision victory.
Pro wrestler Lesnar – returning to the sport where he won and lost the heavyweight title and was among UFC’s biggest pay-per-view draws – earned his first mixed martial arts victory since July 2010.
He earned a guaranteed purse of US$2.5 million (S$3.36 million), a publicly reported record for a UFC contest.
Brock gets Hunt in a bad spot, landing some huge blows, Hunt manages to escape, but is slammed right back down to the mat. Ever since the former women’s bantamweight champion stepped away for a bit to work on other projects outside the octagon, the top of the women’s division has been a wreck. UFC president Dana White said afterwards on SportsCenter that Saturday’s fight was a one-time deal because of Lesnar’s contract with WWE but added, “That doesn’t mean we couldn’t do something again in the future”.
“One day at a time”, Lesnar said, when quizzed by ring interviewer Joe Rogan about whether he would soon be seen again in the organization.
A jubilant Amanda Nunes celebrated after upsetting Miesha Tate during UFC 200.
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Velasquez knocked out Travis Browne in the first round and is poised to fight the September 10 victor of champion Stipe Miocic’s first title defense over Alistair Overeem.
