“Fights? But it’s still bright out!” thought a nation of fight fans as the prelims of UFC Manila got underway on Saturday.
12 fights later and we were delighted with an event that had knockouts, submissions, a heartfelt retirements and a heart-filled superfight.
Here are our recipients of the first weekly Monday morning awards, or MMAs if you will. (see what we did there?)
Knockout of the night – Ning Guangyou
There weren’t as many clean walk-off knockouts as we’d like at this event, with all three TKO victories coming by way of ground-and-pound but China’s Ning Guangyou provided the prettiest finish with this overhand left, body shot and succession of elbows to force the stoppage at 4:59 of the second round.
Submission of the night – Jon Delos Reyes
It was a toss-up between the respective rear naked chokes of Delos Reyes and Jon Tuck for SOTN but The Heat gets it just based on the war that took place before he used all the blood that was pouring from his eyebrow to lubricate Roldan Sangcha-An before sinking his forearm under his chin and getting the tap.
Performance of the night – Frankie Edgar
Frankie Edgar deserves endless title shots. A 1/4 favourite against Urijah Faber, he backed up every bit of that value by dominating The California Kid. The dominance didn’t come by rushing in on Faber, winging punches and throwing his opponent around.
The win came with intelligence, timing and volume punching as Edgar simply outworked Faber and impressed more than we expected him to.
One to watch – Li Jingliang
There were quite a few of the less high-profile names on the UFC Manila undercard that put would have made the UFC sit up and take notice. No more so than Li Jingliang who looked like a serious prospect in the 170lb division as he ran right through favourite Dhiego Lima.
Betting lines clearly mattered little to the 27-year-old welterweight as he came out swinging for the fences in search of the early finish which came less than 90 seconds into the first round.
