UFC 208 was the second UFC pay-per-view event in the state of New York and many fans were disappointed by the lineup of fights that were announced.
On Saturday night, the fears of those fans were realized.
From the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, this show was one that featured 10 fights overall and only one of them ended in a finish.
In the main event, the UFC was to crown their inaugural women’s featherweight champion when former bantamweight champion Holly Holm (10-3) met Germaine de Randamie (7-3). This was a decent fight between two of the best pure strikers in women’s combat sports.
De Randamie came out strong, landing hard punches in rounds one and two and was able to avoid Holm’s left hand and daunted head kicks. After round two, though, de Randamie nailed Holm with a hard right hand after the bell that badly hurt the former champ. No point was taken on the foul but perhaps should have been.
Nonetheless, Holm came out in round three and had a strong round. She landed a beautiful question mark kick to de Randamie’s head and scored a knockdown. But once again, Holm was hit by punches after the bell. And no point was taken from de Randamie by referee Todd Anderson.
The final two rounds lacked a ton of action and invited booing from the crowd at Barclays. The fight went to the scorecards, all of which scored the fight for De Randamie by a 48-47 score. The ideal fight for the new 145-pound weight division would be to match her up with Cris “Cyborg” Justino, but de Randamie stated after the fight that she needed surgery on some torn ligaments in her hand, putting off any potential fight.
In the co-main event, MMA legend Anderson “The Spider” Silva (34-8) took to the Octagon at age 41 against middleweight contender Derek Brunson (16-5). Silva was seeking his first win since 2012 and he got it, albeit in controversial fashion.
This was a very uneventful fight but Brunson was more active and seemed to score more with his punches. Silva looked well past his prime and hesitant to pull the trigger on his strikes. Silva was somehow given the win via unanimous decision and one of the cards, scored 30-27 for Silva, is an early candidate for being the worst scorecard of 2017.
The lone finish on this night came from the brilliant Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza (24-4), who submitted Tim Boetsch (20-11) in the first round by way of kimura. Souza, ranked third in the UFC middleweight rankings, cut through Boetsch like butter on the ground en route to his 17th submission win in MMA. Souza could be on the doorstep of a UFC title shot after another dominant win.
Lightweights Dustin Poirier and Jim Miller opened the pay-per-view portion of the card with the best fight of the night. This was an all-action affair, as both fighters landed big shots and moved forward. Poirier was the sharper puncher and punished Miller with his punches. But Miller landed countless brutal leg kicks that demolished the lead leg of “The Diamond”. Poirier won by majority decision in a very entertaining fight.
UFC 208 was, overall, a disappointing card. But the UFC has several exciting events on the horizon and the next pay-per-view, UFC 209, should be able to make up for this one.
But hey, at least a new champion was crowned on this night.
