Like the Bellator tournament that ended the day before, the UFC show was literally full of fights with the participation of Russian fighters.
In an ideal scenario, five domestic athletes could fight at once in Las Vegas, but Abubakar Nurmagomedov was forced to postpone his next entry into the octagon due to health problems.
To compensate for his absence, Nikita Krylov was called in, whose duel with Ryan Spann "moved" from the event scheduled for February 25.
Then a native of the Lugansk region was forced to refuse to perform due to food poisoning, but recovered as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, Said Nurmagomedov was the first of the Russians to enter the cage, who could not be completely satisfied with the choice of his opponent.
At a press conference, he stated that he had long been ripe for battles with top fighters, but for one reason or another, he had not yet received the opportunity to test his strength in duels with the strongest.
After all, Jonathan Martinez could not be attributed to those.
Even though the American took the upper hand in four fights in a row, and in the last of them he knocked out the illustrious veteran Cub Swanson in a spectacular manner, he did not belong to the category of stars.
Moreover, he was not even in the top 15 bantamweight.
Consequently, a victory over him could hardly help the Russian to advance in the category ranking.
At first, it seemed that a few minutes would be enough for Nurmagomedov to complete the battle in his favor.
He immediately began to “shoot” the opponent from a distance and hit the body with his foot several times, and then almost forced him to surrender.
However, the nimble Martinez managed to escape from the choke from behind.
And in the second round, Jonathan seized the initiative.
Either hits on the torso played a role, or damage to the nose affected, but the Russian sat down physically and with great difficulty endured until the end of the five-minute period.
In anticipation of the final segment, the score on the cards of the judges could well have been equal.
Nurmagomedov needed to confidently take the round, but he failed to complete this task.
He started well, laid Martinez on the canvas and again tried to perform a choke, but later he himself fell into a triangle and miraculously got out of a difficult situation.
And in the end, Jonathan was noticeably fresher and not only dominated the clinch, but also scored several hits to the head.
In the end, the judges sided with Martinez.
And although there may well be controversy over this verdict, there were reasons for it.
Jonathan was clearly better in the second half of the fight and surpassed Sayid in the standing position, and his submission attempt was much more dangerous.
And importantly, the American continued to go forward and constantly put pressure on the opponent, while the tired Nurmagomedov no longer thought about attacking.
Unlike Said, Krylov did not start the fight.
In the first minute, he managed to miss a couple of sensitive blows from Spann and even get caught in a choke D'Ars, but got out and subsequently did not make such mistakes.
Nikita literally stuck to Ryan and began to demonstrate his grappling skills.
And he was clearly not ready for this.
For some time, Spann resisted and in every possible way prevented Krylov from fastening the lock around his neck, but at one moment he still lost concentration.
Finally throwing the Russian off his back, the American decided to get into a dominant position, but instead literally flew into a triangle.
And this time, he failed to avoid defeat.
The confrontation ended after 3 minutes 38 seconds.
Krylov won the third victory in a row and made a bid to get into the top 4 light heavyweight.
Noting the success, he first teased the local fans, who actively supported his compatriot throughout the fight, and then began to chant “Russia!
Russia!".
“If I knew that everything would turn out like this, I would have agreed to fight last time.
Actually, no, of course not.
Felt very bad.
I want to apologize to the organization for the first time in my life I disrupted my speech.
I hope this time gave everyone good emotions.
I wish good luck to all our guys in future battles, ”said Krylov.
Volkov solved all the questions even faster.
Alexander Romanov from the very first seconds rushed to the opponent and tried to bring him to the ground, but did not succeed.
An unsuccessful attempt to pass took away a lot of strength from the Moldavian, and a couple of kicks to the body only aggravated the situation.
Romanov was not easy.
The original plan failed, and stamina problems, coupled with the resulting damage, were already making themselves felt.
And having fallen under such pressure, he again blundered - he stagnated at the net, missed the hardest straight line to the head and again rushed to his feet.
But Volkov was ready for this.
He defended well, took his back and knocked out the opponent in a matter of seconds.
“I expected him to use up his strength on the first takedown.
My task was to block it.
Showed everyone that I can still fight.
Thanks to my team, everyone who participated in the preparation.
Let's move on... I had to push him to get tired faster... I'm ready, I'm here.
It is important for me to stay active, to move towards the goal.
Ready for challenges.
I don't want to call anyone.
I am ready to fight with everyone who is higher than me in the ranking, ”Volkov said.
For the Russian, this victory was the second fastest during his performances in the UFC.
With Romanov, he spent only 2 minutes 16 seconds in the octagon, and only four seconds were not enough to repeat his own record.
He installed it in the previous fight, when he knocked out Jairzinho Rozenstruik.
As for the main fight of the evening, it promised to be extremely emotional and dramatic.
And the reason for this was the strained relations between the rivals.
Over the past year, they have repeatedly exchanged insults, and the climax was the incident at the weigh-in ceremony.
Peter Yan could not restrain himself and pushed Merab Dvalishvili, almost provoking a brawl.
The Georgian plan for the battle was very clear.
He was going to constantly put pressure on Jan and at the first opportunity to go to the legs.
This was certainly expected by the Russian himself, who from a stylistic point of view characterized the enemy as a "clinging and holding counterpart dog."
The problem is that Peter could do almost nothing about it.
In total, during the five-round battle, Merab tried to bring Yan to the ground 49 times - a record figure in UFC history.
And although he achieved success only in 11 cases, it was not important.
The main thing is that it helped him level the strengths of the opponent and literally pump energy out of him.
By the end of the second round, Peter was tired of the endless passes to the legs - if not physically, then mentally.
But if Dvalishvili's grappling dominance surprised no one, his standing dominance was a real surprise.
Forced to constantly be afraid of takedowns and retreating back, Yang became an easy target for an opponent who not only did not hesitate to enter into exchanges with him, but regularly emerged victorious from them.
In fact, Merab did the same thing with him that Khabib Nurmagomedov managed to do throughout his career.
He was never a skilled striker, but due to his wrestling skills, he created opportunities for himself to carry out devastating attacks.
His opponents were forced to constantly watch out for how not to be on the canvas, and therefore allowed him to feel at ease in the stance.
This time the same thing happened to Jan.
Accustomed to act as the first number and occupy the center of the cage, the ex-champion felt out of place and could not oppose Dvalishvili.
Elbow strikes, direct jumps, low kicks - absolutely everything went through him that evening.
This was confirmed by a huge hematoma over Peter's right eye and a leg injury, which forced him to change his stance to the left in the second round.
After that, the Merab team no longer hid smiles, and Algemain Sterling rejoiced more than others for a teammate.
But the most striking thing is that all this colossal work had practically no effect on the functional conditions of Merab.
For all 25 minutes, he worked at about the same pace and did not slow it down until the final gong.
And this is especially impressive, because before he had no experience in five-round duels.
Unlike the same Peter, famous for his cardio.
Jan suffered not only the third in a row, but the most crushing defeat in his career, losing to Dvalishvili in all respects.
He responded to 11 takedowns of the Georgian with only one, and delivered almost half as many accented blows (75:147).
And although the statistics do not always accurately illustrate what happened in the octagon, this time it was useless to argue with them.
Merab won the biggest victory of his career and conquered not only the fans, but also the experts.
According to former UFC bi-division champion Daniel Cormier, it was on this day that a new star was lit in the promotion.
And it is possible that the other rolled completely.