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#1 Worst: Adesanya and Romero stink out the joint
It was always going to be hard for Israel Adesanya and Yoel Romero to follow the phenomenal Strawweight title fight between Weili Zhang and Joanna Jedrzejczyk, but the least everyone was hoping for was something exciting. In the end though, we got a dull fight more akin to a stinker like Anderson Silva vs. Demian Maia or Tyron Woodley vs. Stephen Thompson.
Like the latter fight, it’s hard to blame either man for this one; given the more reactive styles of both men, a staring contest was always possible, and that’s basically what we got. The tone was set during the first round – when Romero strangely stood on the spot and waited for Adesanya to attack – and the action just didn’t pick up from there.
In the end, the fight was largely won by Adesanya’s low kicks – he chewed Romero’s lead leg up and although ‘Soldier of God’ arguably landed the heavier shots, it would’ve been hard to call him the winner given such a low-volume performance.
Will both men move on from this and have better fights in the future? For sure; Adesanya’s next title defense, likely against Paulo Costa, will surely beat this. At the end of the day, it happens sometimes. But that doesn’t make it any better - to be frank, this was awful.
#2 Best: Dariush’s devastating knockout
It was hard to guess what was going to happen in the Lightweight clash between Beneil Dariush and Drakkar Klose; I’d picked Dariush to win the fight in my predictions piece but given his durability issues it was never going to be an easy one for him.
Well, evidently he wasn’t lying when he suggested that a now-healed neck injury was to blame for the weak chin he displayed in his past fights; he took some bombs from Klose here and survived.
And not only did he survive, but he was also able to fire back with some huge shots of his own, and in a wild second round that saw the two men exchange openly without backing down at all, it was the native of Iran who came out on top, stunning Klose with a huge left hand that knocked the wrestler silly.
After a bit of a dull first round – largely dominated by Dariush, who acted as a human backpack – this was one of the craziest rounds we’ve seen in some time and would’ve been far more memorable had Zhang/Jedrzejczyk not followed it. Judging by this, there may be time for Dariush to break into the title picture at 155lbs after all.
