UFC 301 Recap: Anthony Smith, Michael Pereira, and Caio Borrahalou Win in Spectacular Fashion
UFC 301 was the first main event following the legendary UFC 300 card. Big names like Alexandre Pantoja, Jose Aldo, and Steve Erceg headlined the main event. UFC 301 gave us plenty of potential fight-of-the-night candidates, the main card had two submission wins, two decision wins, and one knockout win. Let’s check out who got their big moment in Rio.
The card started with a Middleweight bout between #13-ranked Paul Craig and #14-ranked Caio Borrahalou. Heading into the fight, Borrahalou had an impressive streak of 14 consecutive wins, making him a massive favorite (-520) DraftKings. Borrahalou showed why he was a heavy favorite by knocking out Craig in the second round. The knockout came after Borrahalou connected with a vicious left hook. Borrahalou is now expected to jump up the rankings significantly. The next fight was a Middleweight bout between Michael Pereira and Ihor Potieria. Pereira began the fight as a -535 favorite on DraftKings thanks to his dominant seven-fight win streak. Pereira won this fight in less than 66 seconds via a standing guillotine choke The submission was so tight that Potieria passed out after he tapped. The third fight of the main event was a Lightweight bout between #10 ranked Anthony Smith and #15 Vitor Petrino. Although Smith was the higher-ranked fighter, Petrino was the favorite at -440 odds according to DraftKings. Although Petrino was the favorite, Smith ended up pulling an upset in round one submitting Petrino via guillotine choke. The next fight was a special one because the goat of the Featherweight division Jose Aldo was fighting in his home country of Brazil. Aldo faced off against the #12 ranked Bantamweight Jonathan Martinez. Throughout the first two rounds, there wasn’t much excitement but in the third-round things picked up. Aldo landed tons of shots and secured a takedown as well. Aldo won the fight by unanimous decision, and it was a great moment for all MMA fans.
The main event was a title fight between Flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja and the number one contender Steve Erceg. Pantoja was only a -170 favorite despite being the champion. I am not an official scorekeeper, but I felt like both fighters were tied 19-19 after two rounds. In the third round, Erceg landed a destructive elbow that made Pantoja gush blood from his forehead. This shot was shown on the replay center multiple times, and each time it looked worse. The fourth round could've gone either way, and there wasn’t a clear winner heading into the fifth. The social media thought was that the fifth-round winner would win the fight. Pantoja won the fifth round by controlling the ground game. Pantoja proved again that he was un-finishable and ended up winning the fight by unanimous decision, but Erceg proved that he could hang with the best of them.
Now with the main card being summed up, I have to say that in my opinion, the Anthony Smith fight was the fight of the night. My reasoning for this is that Smith was seen as a massive underdog and there were many concerns about his age and style heading into the fight. Smith was able to shock MMA fans across the world with his submission win over #15-ranked Lightweight Petrino in less than two minutes.
