UFC® 259: BLACHOWICZ vs. ADESANYA took place Sunday , March 7 at UFC APEX in Las Vegas. The main event featured light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz who defended his belt against middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
The greatest female fighter in combat sports history Amanda Nunes defended her featherweight championship against Megan Anderson. Moreover, newly crowned bantamweight champion Petr Yan took on Aljamain Sterling
Jan Blachowicz defeated Israel Adesanya via unanimous decision
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Jan Blachowicz:
First up, I need to watch the fight. For sure it was a tough fight, it was a close fight, but Izzy kicked a little bit more than I did. I think my boxing was a little bit better than his, my wrestling was much better than his. I won the fight and that’s it, but it was a tough fight. Thank you, Izzy, for this fight. It was a pleasure for me to fight against someone like you, but ‘and still’. I’m happy. I’m happy that I can be the first to beat him, one of the best in the world.
I’m a true champion, I deserve what I got. It was a hard job for me tonight, but I do my best. We did almost everything, what we prepared for him in the gym we did in the fight. I’m happy. I won the fight and what we do works in the fight. I should have wrestled him a little bit more a little bit earlier, I should have put more pressure on him. I should have put more of my boxing skills on him, but he’s a great fighter, he wouldn’t let me go, but anyway I did almost everything that we trained for.
There was a moment when my breath was a little bit heavy. I don’t know what happened because when I did my sparring sessions everything was perfect. Then I started to feel that my breath wasn’t so good, but after 30 seconds, I focused a little bit more, I relaxed and my breath came back to normal and I saw it was ok. That was a moment but I survived. Maybe that was after one of his kicks, I don’t know, I don’t remember, but that was only one moment in the fight.
It was also good that I fought for five rounds, because it was also a test for me. I think that there was good tempo in this fight. All the time something was happening and my counter was good. I’m happy that I fought against Israel for five rounds and won after a good fight.
I just want to represent my country. Represent maybe not only my country, but just true sport and the legendary Polish power. I’m proud that I can show the whole world the legendary Polish power.
I stopped listening to what people say. For me, the most important thing is what my family says, what my coaches say, what my friends say. What people that I never see in my life and what they say? Who cares? Now I would listen to them, what they say after this fight. This is something important for me. Before the fight, I don’t care. After the fight… When I’m the underdog everybody says “he doesn’t have enough to win the fight”. After I won, what do you say now? But anyway they are going to say it was luck or something like this… I don’t care.
Every time when you win a fight is something amazing for the fighter. When I became the champion it was… Wow. Now it’s something different like I don’t believe it, but tomorrow when I wake up, I’ll say “Ok, I defended my belt, I proved that I’m the true champion, so ok, it’s something big again in my life”. That will come to me after a couple of days.
Amanda Nunes defeated Megan Anderson via submission at 2:03 of round 1
Amanda Nunes:
For every opponent, I have a strategy. I cannot go in the cage without strategies A, B and C, because you don’t know if something is going to go wrong. You have to be ready, so for Megan I wanted to finish her, I didn’t want to knock her out. I paced myself. I saw she was done already but I wanted to finish the fight on the floor with my jiu-jitsu.
Actually we train a lot and in training, every time I took my training partner down that move was there. Every time. Over and over. For some reason tonight I had the opportunity to finish her with that move that I used all the time in training. It was cool.
I feel like this is the moment that I wanted for so long. I worked hard for this moment. I’m hungry. I always go to the gym to get better and better. I chose this to be my job, I love to do this. Every time that I think about it, it’s driving me forward and motivating me. Whatever happens next, I’m going to be here to defend. It’s not something that I’m going to go away. I have two belts. I have to come back and defend them and I’ll be very happy to do it.
I like the challenge. In my life, I was always like that, challenging myself every time. If you don’t want a challenge, you’re in the wrong sport. I picked MMA for a reason. I’m here, I’m a champion and I’m defending these belts. I’m going to be here for a long time.
Now I’ll have a beer, go back home, get together with my friends and my teammates. I hope to go back to Brazil to see my family and bring Raegan. They haven’t seen Raegan yet. I’m happy. This is the best moment of my life.
Aljamain Sterling defeated Petr Yan via disqualification at 4:29 of round 4
Aljamain Sterling:
Everything I worked for to this point and to have the fight go like that… I thought the fight was very close, I thought I was down two rounds. That’s not the way I wanted to win. That’s not the way I envisioned this. I just took the belt off. I was trying to continue even being like that, I was in a bad shape and it would just have been ego taking over and just to get further punishment. The ref told me I was down. I don’t know. I understand that there is some heat, some bad blood a little bit, but it’s all rivalry…
I wanted to continue. The fight was fast paced, it was a lot of action, I know the fans were enjoying that. This was potentially going to be one of the fights of the year or one of the greatest bantamweight fights in history for the title. The action was nonstop until that point.
Sorry fans. Sorry that the fight went like this. I hope we get to run it back, do it again and give you the fight you guys deserve.
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