UFC 299 had to be one of the best fight cards in recent history with many top tier competitors on the main card as well as the prelim. I will only be covering the main card fights but a few notable fights on the Prelims were number 6 ranked Mateusz Gamrot vs. 11 ranked Rafael Dos Anjos in which Gamrot secured a victory by decision. Another was number 5 ranked Curtis Blaydes vs. number 7 ranked Jailton Almeida. Blaydes shockingly handed Almeida his first UFC loss. Now lets get into the main card.
The first fight of the night was between Petr Yan and Song Yadong. Yadong started hot in the fight predominantly dominating Yan in the opening round and partially into the second round it looked like Yan was already fighting from behind. However Yan began to pick up the pace while Yadong started to slow down and was able to stuff all four of Yadongs takedown attempts in the second. Also in the second Yan began coming through and landing more strikes along with cleaner strikes to end the second round. Yan continued to progress slicing open Yadong in the final round and finished on top to earn him a unanimous decision victory snapping his three fight losing streak.
The second fight we had was between Gilbert Burns and Jack Della Maddalena. In the first round of the fight Maddalena looked great keeping Burns on his heels with deadly accurate strikes. Burns then turned it up in the second round hitting a couple huge strikes that stunned Maddalena and followed them up with a nice takedown while looking for one of his deadly submissions. The third round started fairly even until Burns was able to secure another takedown that looked as if it would clinch him the win. Burns however known for his elite grappling was surprisingly not able to secure the back of Maddalena and in the scuffle that ensued Maddalena connected a huge knee to the chin of Burns and then pouncing on him to finish the fight off with ground strike securing the TKO with just over a minute left in the final round.
In the next fight was bound to be a show between two elite strikers known for their unique styles in Kevin Holland vs. Michael “Venom” Page. This fight was a huge moment for UFC as it was Page’s debut fight in the UFC. Page is no rookie to MMA however racking up an impressive 16-2 record in Bellator. The UFC has been trying to get their hands on him for a while because of his unique style and showmanship and they finally have. It was a perfect debut for him as well. Holland although an extremely tough fighter could not handle Page’s unique striking and stance getting caught more than once with a spinning elbow and many other hard strikes giving Page the victory by Unanimous decision.
The co-main event was between Dustin Poirier and Benoit Saint Denis. Denis is a strong up and coming contender and has been running through everyone the UFC has put in his way. The fight started with Denis coming out hard with lots of pressure and strikes along with takedowns and in doing so did lots of damage to Poirier who came into the fight as the underdog. But the diamond has never lost two fights in a row and showed why as around the two minute thirty second mark he brought Denis in close knocking him out with a vicious right hook to end the Frenchman’s spectacular run.
The big fight of the night was for the Bantamweight Championship between Sean O’Malley and Marlon Vera. O’Malley came into this fight looking to avenge his only ever loss to Vera in which his leg got compromised and he couldn’t stand on it. In my opinion he did more than avenge that loss. The champion O’Malley put on a striking master class looking absolutely incredible the entire night. His top tier combinations and footwork were on full display and Vera simply could not keep up despite having an iron chin O’Malley landed a disgusting amount of significant strikes (230) and breezed his way to a unanimous decision victory without losing a round.
