Las Vegas – Since the first round of the first round of Ilia Topuria to the classic instant victory of Joshua Van against Brandon Royval in a legendary eliminator of the fly weight title, even the most confident fantastic bookers could not have expected that the UFC 317 provides as it did.
The timing was impeccable. As part of International Combat Week – where the UFC was desperate for a renowned moment – the company has executed a card which could very well be considered the epicenter for the next five to 10 years of scenarios in sport.
Dana White often says that he is in the field of “oh shit” moments. It is difficult to remember an event with more of them on this side of the decade.
Let’s start with Topuria. The 28-year-old Georgian-Spanish prodigy has established himself as the next big one of all times of the UFC, eliminating the legendary Charles Oliveira in the first round.
Topuria has spent the last few weeks to insist that he would finish the fight in the first two or three minutes. He ended it at 2:27 after starting with a Ruthian called Shot, winning a combo that immediately sent Oliveira to the web.
Topuria then engaged in an update after the fight after the fights with the potential Challenger Paddy Pimbett, which ended with Topuria which pushes Pimbett, which prompted the security to intervene. Everything seemed very WWE – in the most complementary sense.
“(Pimbelett) The fight I want,” said Topuria. “With Charles, I had a difficult situation because I really like the guy. He is a really great human being. You can’t hate him. But in the end, it’s competition. I have to do my job and that’s it. With Paddy, I’m really going to take a kick.”
Then, you move to the 23 -year -old van, which accepted the fight on Saturday with Royval within a short time after beating Bruno Gustavo Da Silva three weeks earlier at the UFC 316 on June 7. The three -round slugfest immediately entered the annals as one of the big fly weight battles – and one of the great fights in general – in the history of the UFC.
Van and Royval got up and hit for 15 minutes, no withdrawal attempts. On a 779 combined strikes launched by the two fighters, 774 of which counted as significant strike attempts. Van dropped Royval in the last seconds, a bit like the way Max Holloway dropped Justin Gaethje to UFC 300. However, Royval arrived at the final bell.
“Upon entering the start of the third round, they had already entered the top 10 of all time for important strikes,” said White. “I think they ended up three times and crushed the record in their weight division. They also broke another record. I will pay Royval his victory money. He took this fight with the guy No. 12 in the short term and put an absolute war.”
After Alexandre Pantoja obtained his fourth consecutive title defense with a dominant submission victory in the third round on Kai Kara-France, Pantoja and Van also engaged in playing. This was planned, however, and Pantoja showed healthy respect for his future adversary.
The main card opened with an entertaining fight between the rising stars Payton Talbott and Felipe Lima. Talbott’s performance marked a turning point following a disappointing defeat against Raoni Barcelos at UFC 311 in January. He is again considered on a championship trajectory and the victory on Saturday – and the improvements he had to make to get there – solidified him as a fighter who could possibly reach the status of the main event.
The preliminaries ended with Gregory “Robocop” Rodrigues Flatline Jack Hermansson with a devastating Knockout who saw Hermansson take several minutes to come. In addition to the overwhelming finish of Rodrigues, two other fights on the preliminaries ended with the KO of the first minute, and another ended with submission to one minute in the second round.
Saturday’s card proved that the UFC did not need a superstar established as Conor McGregor or Jon Jones to deliver a classic fighting evening. Instead, he was rewarded with a moment of topuria superstar and Van and Talbott star performance. It may seem hyperbolic, but the UFC 317 felt like a legitimate pole at a largely without interest era from which the UFC was desperately trying to get out.
