When the UFC travels to Brazil, it’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen.
You can either get a card stacked with controversial decisions or an event jam-packed with finishes and, luckily for us, UFC Fight Night 58 was the latter.
With four finishes out of six fights on the undercard, the main card had a lot to live up to but it didn’t disappoint.
Lyoto Machida proved that he is a serious force in the middleweight picture after it took the former light heavyweight champion less than a minute to put C.B. Dolloway away.
The Brazilian, who’s truly the closest thing to a ninja that we’ve ever seen, unleashed a picture perfect left kick to the body which looked to have broken a rib.
Machida then stormed the American, who was visibly hurt, and finished him off with a succession of strikes to make middleweight champion Chris Weidman take notice.
In the co-main event, Renan Barao made a successful comeback against Mitch Gagnon after he had his bantamweight belt ripped away from him by TJ Dillashaw in May.
The Brazilian had a somewhat dodgy opening two rounds as the Canadian proved a tough opponent but it was Barao’s night ultimately as he slapped on a tight arm-triangle and forced the game Gagnon into the tap.
The only decision of the night came in the fourth fight on the main card but Patrick Cummins put on an absolute grappling masterclass against Antonio Carlos Junior en route to a unanimous decision. The American displayed superior wrestling an impenetrable submission defence throughout the three rounds.
Rashid Magomedov looked like he could develop into a serious contender in the lightweight division as he finished Elias Silverio with just 3 seconds remaining in the whole fight. After a relatively back and forth bout, Magomedov started getting the better of a tired Silverio in the third and it paid off when a left hook put the Brazilian down and a flurry of punches finished him off.
Erick Silva maintained his reputation as one of the most explosive fighters on the entire UFC roster with a first round submission victory over Mike Rhodes.
The 30-year-old Brazilian needed just 75 seconds to fight off a guillotine attempt from the American, pass Rhodes’ guard and sink in the tightest of tight arm-triangles that finished with Rhodes unconscious on the mat.
The first fight on the main card ended in controversial fashion. We enjoyed a captivating first round that saw both Daniel Sarafian and Antonio dos Santos Jr slug it out for five minutes with both fighters landing hard shots.
But in the second round dos Santos ended up dislocating his finger in a flurry of hooks and, despite his insistence on just popping it back into its joint and continuing, the referee waved it off.
