At the UFC tournament in Long Island, four Russian fighters were planned to perform at once, but subsequently their number was reduced to one.
First, Askar Askarov, for unnamed reasons, was forced to withdraw from the fight with Alex Peres, and then the same fate befell Hussein Askhabov and Abubakar Nurmagomedov.
True, in their case, everything is very clear.
Both failed to obtain American visas.
Thus, the only representative of Russia on the show was Muslim Salikhov, who continues to try to break into the welterweight elite.
And everything pointed to the fact that defeating Li Jingliang would help him complete this task.
The Chinese occupied the 14th line, and the success in the confrontation almost guaranteed the King of Kung Fu a place in the ranking.
It was Salikhov who approached this fight in the status of a favorite.
And it's not just the Russian's long winning streak of five fights - the Chinese have lost two of their last three battles.
From the point of view of style, Jingliang seemed to be a rather convenient opponent for Salikhov.
Like Muslim, Lee prefers to work in the stand, but in terms of skills he is clearly inferior.
Let him box well, have a powerful punch and bitingly hit low kicks, but at the same time he often fails and cannot boast of such a rich arsenal as his opponent.
But all this was on paper, but in reality Salikhov approached the fight in not the best shape.
It didn't show up right away.
In the first round, he moved well around the octagon, scored an amplitude takedown, controlled Jingliang on the ground without any problems, and, to top it off, threw out a couple of branded turntables.
But all this together led to the fact that the 38-year-old fighter came out noticeably tired for the second segment.
Muslim not only slowed down, but also began to gasp for air, and attempts at roundhouse kicks only continued to drive him into a difficult situation.
Another deep breath followed after Salikhov managed to return to a vertical position after a missed pass to the legs.
Jingliang leveled the score on takedowns, and although he could not do anything significant on the ground, he took some more energy from the opponent.
In an attempt to save the round, Muslim went ahead and made a fatal mistake - he lingered at close range for a fraction of a second and immediately received a sweeping right straight to the jaw.
The Russian miraculously managed to keep his balance, but he didn’t manage to recover.
It was not possible to drag the Chinese into the clinch, to throw him down on the canvas - too, as well as to defend himself from his next attack.
Lee knocked the opponent down, after which he unleashed a flurry of blows on him.
The judge intervened.
For Salikhov, this defeat was the third in his career and the first since November 2017.
Then he prematurely lost to Alex Garcia by choke in his debut fight in the UFC.
And this failure may well put an end to his prospects in the category.
Not one, but several victories separate him from a place in the top 15, and this fiasco makes it clear that the years are taking their toll.
In the main fight of the evening, the first contender for the featherweight title could well be determined.
And if for Brian Ortega this could be the third attempt to win the belt, then for Yair Rodriguez it was the first.
Previously, he was already a couple of steps away from the fight for the trophy twice, but first lost to Frankie Edgar, and then was beaten by Max Holloway.
And one more defeat could well knock him out of the division leaders for a long time and put him in the category of eternal gatekeepers.
In recent years, Rodriguez has gained infamy as one of the most traumatic fighters in the 65.8 kg category.
Since July 2017, he has entered the cage only four times and has been withdrawn from fights twice.
Moreover, in both cases, Zabit Magomedsharipov was supposed to become his opponent, but various injuries did not allow him to fight with the Russian.
Health problems even forced the Mexican to give up sparring, but in the end it only benefited him.
In their duel with Ortega, it was still not without injuries.
But this time it was not Rodriguez who got it, but his rival.
At the end of the first round, he unsuccessfully carried out the cutting and thus helped Yair to reach the elbow lever.
The renowned jiu-jitsu specialist tried to free himself, but in the process injured his shoulder and collapsed to the canvas, unable to continue to fight.
The referee stopped the fight, and the joyful Mexican began to celebrate success - the first since October 2019.
It is not surprising that Rodriguez was left without awards at the end of the tournament, which he received with enviable regularity.
Together with him, Dustin Jacoby, Ricky Simon, Punahale Soriano and Amanda Lemos, as well as Bill Algeo, who replaced Askhabov, were awarded cash bonuses for the "performance of the evening".
And his victory over Herbert Burns turned out to be special in many ways.
Unlike his colleagues, he did not knock him out and failed to force him to surrender.
But the American beat the opponent so much that in the middle of the second round he did not find the strength to rise to his feet and thereby provoked a stop.
Representatives of the lightest division were rewarded for the “fight of the evening”.
At the beginning of the second round, Matt Schnell missed a series of blows and was knocked down, but did not give up, and after a couple of minutes he caught Su Mudaerzhi on a triangle.
The Chinese desperately resisted, but could no longer get out of the grip.