UFC Vegas 2 – History Made

Looking at the card ahead of #UFCVegas2, most fight fans had some serious reservations which all looked to be coming to fruition as both Minner and Borg withdrew from the event citing illness and a family emergency respectively. Added to that was the issue of professionalism as 3 fighters missed weight, which included fighters in both the co-main and main events at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

The standout fight on the card was the main event match-up between former women’s flyweight title contender Jessica Eye and division debutant Cynthia Calvillo. Moving up from strawweight, Calvillo was not hampered by a potential size disadvantage as she accumulated points through her takedowns on the way to a five-round unanimous points decision win over the No.1 contender.

At the end of it all, it was yet another week without a “FOTN” bonus despite Dana White graciously handing out four $50k “Performance of the Night” bonuses. Marvin Vettori (for his 1^stRnd submission), Mariya Agapova (for her 2^ndRnd submission), Tyson Nam (for his first Rnd KO) and Christian Aguilera (for his 1^stRnd KO) were all recipients of the $50k bonus for their respective finishes. Julia Avila should count herself unlucky at not receiving a bonus following her 1^stRnd KO of Gina Mazany, which begs the question as to what the criteria is for an individual performance bonus, especially considering that Avila’s KO was the fastest of the night at just 22 seconds and also the 4^thfastest finish in the history of the UFC women’s bantamweight division!

Despite both “overweight” fighters in the co-main and main events losing to their respective opponents, the night’s history was made when each of the first three bouts on the card ended inside of one minute – Aguilera (0:59), Nam (0:32) and Avila (0:22) – the first time in UFC history.

What is clear from the UFC action witnessed thus far in Las Vegas is that the smaller cage (25-foot) is certainly making for an exciting night of fights irrespective of how far down the barrel one scrapes. We can only rub our hands in anticipation of the final two events before the promotion heads off to “Fight Island”, namely; Blaydes v Volkov (June 20) and Poirier v Hooker (June 27).