Noche UFC, dubbed that since it fell on Mexican Independence Day, was headlined by a very rare title bout in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s Fight Night series. Newly minted UFC flyweight women's champion Alexa Grasso rematched the woman she had just dethroned in March of this year, Valentina Shevchenko.
It took a superb gameplan and performance by Grasso to finally defeat the legendary champion. Long considered a talented fighter with perhaps the best pure boxing in all of WMMA, Grasso had never quite fulfilled her potential at strawweight, with her last outing there being a majority decision loss to Carla Esparza in front of a home crowd at Mexico City. However, after moving up to 125 pounds and improving her grappling, Grasso had been unstoppable, going a perfect 5-0, capped off with the amazing win against Shevchenko. Against her vaunted muay thai champion foe, Grasso had a slight edge in the striking while doing surprisingly well with her defensive grappling, stuffing many Shevchenko attempts and minimizing the damage when she was on her back. For all that, Grasso might have been still been losing on the cards when, late in Round 4, she took Shevchenko's back and locked in a rear-naked choke to complete the sensational upset and become the new queen of the division.
The rematch was one of the greatest women's fights ever, with constant twists, turns and drama. Shevchenko started out very strong, landing solid blows on the feet before attaining a takedown late in the frame. In the second round, Grasso knocked down and nearly finished her great foe, only to be taken down, with the challenger inflicting ground-and-pound. Round 3 was a big one for Shevchenko, nearly submitting Grasso with a guillotine, and the fourth could have gone either way, with both champions having their moments. Three and a half minutes into the final frame, Shevchenko appeared to have be on her way to retaining her title, easily winning the striking. However, she went for an ill-advised takedown and Grasso took her back, in a replay of the ending of their first fight. She wasn't able to lock in a rear-naked choke this time, but heavy ground-and-pound clearly won her a round she was previously losing. That turned out to be the difference in the fight, as the final scorecards were 48-47 Grasso, 48-47 Shevchenko, and 47-47 thanks to a perplexing 10-8 for Grasso in the last stanza, an anti-climactic draw.
In the co-main, top prospect Jack Della Maddalena battled the always exciting and tough Kevin Holland. Maddalena came into the fight a perfect 5-0 in the UFC, the first four being first-round finishes, but had lost a considerable amount of hype when he barely eked out a split decision against unheralded late replacement Bassil Hafez in his last appearance. Holland had bounced back from stoppage losses to divisional elites Khamzat Chimaev and Stephen Thompson last year with impressive wins over devastating striker Santiago Ponzinibbio by knockout and excellent grappler Michael Chiesa by submission.
The fight was 15 minutes of pure kickboxing, with nary a clinch and only a single takedown attempt. Maddalena conducted a very intelligent battle, expertly blocking most of Holland's punches to the head while connecting with powerful kicks and punches to the body and several excellent combinations upstairs. Holland's titanium chin was as tough as ever, and he had his moments, but Maddalena won a clear decision, 30-27 on my own card. One judge inexplicably had it for Holland, but Maddelena still garnered a split decision victory.
I now present several exciting future fights featuring this card's combatants: