Biggest Winners And Losers From UFC 300!

UFC 300 absolutely blew the roof off the T-Mobile Arena last night (Sat., April 13, 2024) in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the historic card providing fans with an exciting night of fights. In the main event of the evening, Alex Pereira retained his Light Heavyweight title by disposing of Jamahal Hill in the very first round (highlights). In the co-headlining act, Zhang Weili was able to outlast a very-tough opponent in Yan Xiaonan to retain her women’s Strawweight strap after 25 minutes of action. Also, Max Holloway delivered one of the best knockouts ever by putting Justin Gaethje to sleep with only one second remaining in the fight to win the “BMF” title.

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Biggest Winner: Max Holloway

“Blessed” once again proved why he is one of the most beloved fighters in the history of mixed martial arts (MMA), and why he is truly one of the “baddest motherf**kers” on the planet. He put on perhaps the best performance of his storied combat career — even dating back to the days when he ruled the Featherweight division — blasting Justin Gaethje with laser-accurate strikes all night, including a spinning back kick that shattered “Highlight’s” nose. After that, Holloway pretty much picked his shot and landed whenever he wanted, but the way he ended the fight is stuff of legends. As the clock was winding down on the fight and already up on the scorecards with a guaranteed unanimous decision win coming his way, the Hawaiian striker asked Gaethje to meet him in the middle of the cage to end the fight with an all-out striking exchange. Gaethje, broken down and all, obliged and the two men went toe-to-toe, which allowed Holloway to score a buzzer-beating knockout win after connecting with an absolute bomb of an overhand right that put his foe out for the count with one second remaining (video replay here). You couldn’t script it any better. With the win, Holloway absolutely locked down a title fight against 145-pound champion, Ilia Topuria, next. He also secured himself another pair of post-fight bonus awards, this time for a massive $600,000 payday.

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Runner Up: Alex Pereira

These top two spots could have gone either way, but Pereira once again showed one he is one of the scariest monsters in all of MMA, disposing of former champion, Jamahal Hill, in the very first round. And once again, he made it look easy and barely broke a sweat. It’s truly amazing to see the type of run he’s had in such a short period of time, and now that he has his eyes on Heavyweight, he could re-write the history books forever. For now, “Poatan” can bask in the glory of his latest spine-tingling knockout win , and perhaps get ready to headline UFC 301 in a few weeks.

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Honorable Mention: Kayla Harrison

Harrison left little doubt as to why she was one of the most-anticipated UFC debuts in some time, and she made the most of it when the spotlight hit her back by absolutely crushing Holly Holm. She made it look pretty easy, dictating the pace of the fight, not allowing “The Preacher’s Daughter” from using her striking. Once it got up close and personal Harrison was quick to take her for a ride thanks to her world-class Judo skills. Once she got on top of Holm, Harrison did work by utilizing her elbows to bust up her face, eventually leading to her sinking in a fight-ending rear-naked choke in round two (see it again here). With the win, Harrison proved she can hang with the best on the biggest stage of them all, and will secure herself a spot in the Top 5 in the division come next week.

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Biggest Loser: Jamahal Hill

Rarely does a fighter talk so much smack and not come close to at least backing up some of it, but Hill didn’t even get the chance to walk the walk after talking the talk…a lot. From the jump, Pereira made it clear that he was going to dictate the pace, walking down the former champion and tagging him ever-so patiently. And his game worked perfectly because Pereira was waiting for, and eventually found, the right opportunity to sneak in a left hook that floored “Sweet Dreams” to the canvas, only to deliver a few nasty follow up shots to end his night early. That is hardly the performance Hill — or anyone else, for that matter — expected, but it goes to show just how much of a talent Pereira is. “Sweet Dreams” now faces a tough road ahead to climb back into a title fight, especially after Jiri Prochazka’s spectacular knockout win over Aleksandar Rakic on the undercard.

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Runner (s) Up: Holly Holm and Calvin Kattar

Holm had a huge opportunity to spoil Kayla Harrison’s UFC debut and steal her shine. Instead, she fell flat in the big fight and was ultimately forced to tap to the former PFL champion’s rear-naked choke in round number two. Holm never really got much going, and never let her fists fly as much as she should have liked. Granted, Harrison is no joke, obviously, but the former pro-boxing champion let a huge opportunity slip from her fingers, and now drops to a sub-par 1-2-1 in her last four fights inside the Octagon. Where Holm goes from here is hard to tell, but she will have a hard time climbing her way back to a title fight based on her last few performances.

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Kattar had a huge opportunity to re-gain some momentum after suffering back-to-back losses by attempting to upset Aljamain Sterling’s Featherweight debut. Instead, he threw up a dud. For 15 minutes, “Funkmaster” implemented his game-plan perfectly to stump his foe, never giving him the chance to get anything going, ultimately resulting in a unanimous decision defeat. A win over a former champion such as Sterling would’ve given Kattar a huge boost, instead he suffered his third straight defeat which will send him tumbling further down the 145-pound ladder.

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For complete UFC 300 results, coverage, and highlights click HERE.