The best and worst from UFC Fight Night 136

#2 Best: Is 205lbs finally becoming interesting again?

Jan Blachowicz pulled off a slick submission over Nikita Krylov

Once considered the UFC’s glamour division, Light-Heavyweight has been struggling for talent for some years now, and the interest there has largely been kept purely on the basis of a small handful of super-talented fighters (Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier, Alexander Gustafsson) and then popular veterans going back as far as the PRIDE days like Mauricio Rua.

Re-signed for this card, Ukraine’s Nikita Krylov was the fighter expected to help to re-energise the division, but in the end that didn’t happen at all as he was submitted in the second round by Jan Blachowicz in remarkable fashion – an arm triangle almost from the side. But rather than mean that 205lbs continues to become a wasteland, we actually saw a pair of performances that suggested the division isn’t done just yet.

Firstly, Blachowicz – the Polish fighter is now 6-4 in the UFC, which doesn’t sound impressive, but he’s on a four-fight win streak, with one of those wins being over Jimi Manuwa, who was responsible for an earlier loss. And more to the point, 2 of his last 4 wins have come by submission – which suggests he’s tidied up his grappling, formerly the weak point of his game and the part that cost him those 4 losses before.

And on the undercard, we saw one of the night’s most violent finishes from prospect Magomed Ankalaev. He debuted in the UFC back in March and was expected to do big things, but ended up losing in an upset to Paul Craig. Last night though, he finished Marcin Prachnio with a savage head kick and a series of punches.

Both finishes signified one thing – maybe 205lbs isn’t in as bad of a state as we’ve all been led to believe.