UFC 249 featured the return of live sports, outside of Russian sports, for the first time in almost two months. The fight ended up being one of the most popular that happened in the history of UFC fights and a lot of that stems from the great card that was presented, but other aspects of what is going on in the world with this being the only live sports event helped to get the fight front and center. Now, the fight is over and here is a recap of what happened in the fight.
Greg Hardy vs Yorgan De Castro
The fight here was in the heavy weight class and it definitely made for a good fight. However, the final decision was a unanimous decision and it was easy to see why. The fight was very lopsided with Hardy landing 55 out of 124 strikes. De Castro seemed to be on the defensive the entire bout while landing only 24 out of 69 strikes and the bulk of those strikes came on the legs.
Cavlin Kattar vs Jeremy Stephens
In this Featherweight battle it would end up with one of the fighters being done in by an elbow with a KO/TKO final. The winner of the bout as predicted was Calvin Kattar who put Stephens down in the second round. What is really interesting is Kattar landed fewer strikes than Stephens, but Kattar did land the lucky blow to know Stephens down and out.
Francis Ngannou vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik
In what was a very disappointing bout Francis Nganou was able to land five blows to the head, including one punch that led to a TKO. The loss was the first for Rozenstruik and it was also in the first round in what ended up being a very quick fight.
Dominick Cruz vs Henry Cejudo
The Bantamweight title fight was billed to be a great fit and while hit did not really disappoint the battle did end in a KO/TKO ending to the fight. Cejudo ended up wining the battle after getting a good knee landed in the fight. However, even before the TKO/KO Cejudo was well on his way to dominating the fight landing 53 out of 83 strikes compared to the 33 out of 81 for Cruz.
Tyler Ferguson vs Justin Gaethje
The lightweight title fight featured Ferguson vs Gaethje in what ended up being a fairly decent fight that lasted quite a while. The fight went to the fifth round before it finally ended on a punch that Gaethje landed to get the KO/TKO. Even without that blow,Gaethje looked like a dominate fighter again while landing 30 out of 30 blows to the legs and hitting 143 out of 197 strikes.
