The UFC’s 275th pay per view event was held this past Saturday night in Singapore, and all attention went to the top3 fights on the main card. The first of which (Zhang Vs Jedrzejczyk 2) was a rematch of the most competitive women’s straweight championship ever. And debatably just flat out the most competitive women’s fight in all of UFC history…

For those who missed the fights, we’ll recap the matches (and their controversies) In chronological order…

Women’ Straweight match up

Zhang Wei Li  Vs Joanna Jedrzejczyk 2

In March 2020, at UFC 248 then straweight champion Zhang (21-3-0) from China, had successfully defended her belt against Joanna Jedrzejczyk (16-4-0)  (pronounced “Yohanna Yunjercheck) from Poland in what would be the final UFC pay per view before Covid-19 regulations would remove crowd audiences from witnessing fight cards in arenas for at least the next six months which would follow. The crowd at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas had been treated to a fight for the ages in that night’s co-main event. A fight which had went the entire 5 round (25 minute) distance. And saw Joanna land more punches in all five rounds, but lose the judges decision because “power and damage” trump total strike count according to judges rules and Joanna who took a huge hematoma to her forehead during this fight famously ended the fight looking more like “ET the extra terrestrial” and less like a 115lb Polish woman. 

The crowd had cheered for Joanna’s efforts as Zhang delivered a post fight interview (through a translator) that smelled of a canned script that had been written for her by a Chinese government which was deeply embarrassed by the recent world health crisis of Covid-19 at that time. 

Zhang would fight twice in the two years that would follow. Both fights against Rose Namajunas. Thug rose won both of those fights and this meant that Zhang’s status as #1 contender was more ceremonial than realistic. 

Joanna would use the next two years to recover and give birth to her first child. It wasn’t clear at the time if she would be back, but when she announced that she was ready to return, no one was surprised that her first fight returning would be a rematch of her most intense fight ever. Five rounds against Zhang Wei Li. 

Joanna had won the first two rounds against Zhang in 2020, therefore with this rematch being only a 3round bout, immediate decent began among gamblers that perhaps Joanna could turn this rivalry around for a Judges victory this time. 

But Joanna showed at UFC 275 that unfortunately her and her team had made a terrible under estimation of Zhang. 

When Zhang was defeated by Namajunas in April 2021 (with a tko head kick knock out.) She took the experience in a very humbling matter, and disciplined herself to improve her technique across all skills. 

Zhang vs Joanna 1 had been an almost entirely stand up affair for 25 mins. In the rematch last Saturday, Zhang immediately went for wrestling domination in round 1 and Joanna was clearly not off to a good start. 

In round 2 Zhang managed to throw a spinning back punch that caught Joanna in the back of the head. She fell to the mat flat on her face, and the ref stopped the fight before Zhang could throw any more attacks. 

In post fight interviews, Joanna dramatically removed her fighting gloves and laid them in her corner to symbolize her retirement and admitted that she also had planned to retire after this fight win or lose (but had hoped to win of course) she said in coming months she plans to dedicate more attention to coaching, business ventures, to her young son, and also (to of all things…) stock car racing. 

Joanna will be inducted into the UFC hall of fame in the future as the straweight champion with the most successful title defenses. (6)

For Wei li, this victory proves her status as number one contender is anything but ceremonial… She was quick to call out the new champion Carla “Cookie Monster” Esparza, and all evidence suggests that such a fight will be Carla’s first title defense before the end of calendar year 2022. 

It should be a banger, Esparza vs Namajunas at UFC 274 was not well received by fans due to timidness from both fighters. Let’s cross our fingers for a more exciting straweight championship bout next time around. 

But now let’s move to UFC 275’s co-main event. The women’s flyweight championship. 

(C) Valentina Shevchenko (brygystan/peru) vs #4 contender Talia Santos (Brazil) 

Odds makers in Nevada projected that Talia Santos (19-1-0)  would be the most challenging opponent to face Shevchenko (22-3-0) in several years, and she most definitely did not disappoint. In fact, Shevchenko’s victory by judges split decision has been designated as controversial across the board by fight experts, as it requires strict analysis of UFC judging rules to understand if the fight had been scored correctly or not. 

General consensus is that Santos won rounds 1 and 3, and Shevchenko undeniably won round 4. Who had been the victor of rounds 2 and also round 5 though becomes the x-factor that both determines the final score in this fight, and determines one’s opinion on if the split decision awarded had been a credible calculation or not. 

There is room to claim that Talia Santos controlled the pacing of the fight in both of those rounds. (2 and 5) (primarily through take downs and submission attempts) But there is also room to claim that Shevchenko landed more total strikes (and more significant strikes) during those rounds, so therefore it is only appropriate to award those two rounds (+ round 4) to her for a 3 out of 5 majority…

Regardless of personal opinions. (Speaking of which, check out this post fight interview here-

https://twitter.com/mmajunkie/status/1536040205957967878?s=10&t=p4ESrc3UQ558t8stz7nfug  where starting at 01:40, Shevchenko, (using English presumably as her third language) blasts, bullies and shames Santos for “becoming fat” following the official weigh in. Yikes, I guess victory isn’t enough for the Deadly Bullet). The fight is in the books now. Santos represents a great candidate for a rematch within the next two years. While Shevchenko has quickly made notice that she would like her next bout to be against either Miesha Tate or the winner of the bantamweight title rematch- Pena vs Nunes2 to be held at UFC 277 in august. A lot of excitement is on the horizon in the women’s flyweight and bantamweight divisions.

Light heavyweight Championship 

Glover Teixiera (C) vs Jiri Prochazka

A legend took on a healthy up and coming challenger in a match where odds makers predicted a new champion would be crowned. Expectations proved correct, but only in the nick of time for the new champion. Jiri Prochazka (28-3-1) from the Czech Republic. 

In a fight which could only be classified as a “total slug fest” 42yr old Brazilian champion Glover Teixeriera (33-7-0)  and his opponent traded big punches and wrestling with ground and pound for four and a half rounds. While both fighters took plenty of punishing blows, All evidence suggested the 29yr old Jiri was taking the worse of it, and would not be awarded a judges decision after the 5th round ended. However with only 50 seconds remaining in the 5th round, Jiri managed to score a neck crank against Glover who promptly tapped for the very first time in his ten year UFC career. 

The new champion identifies himself as being a Samurai. I’m not making this up, check his wiki to learn more. 

Hope you enjoyed reading this wrap up. I’ll be back with more articles and/or pre-fight commentary during an upcoming cps podcast. Gamble smart my friends.