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UFC 268 took place on Saturday night in New York’s hallowed Madison Square Garden, and the event was the kind of instant classic worthy of its legendary setting.

In the main event, UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman defended his title with a hard-fought unanimous victory over nemesis Colby Covington, whom he first beat with a TKO in fifth round at the end of 2019.

In the main co-event, we were treated to another rematch, as strawweight queen Rose Namajunas retained her seat on the throne with a split decision victory over Chinese Weili Zhang. Namajunas and Zhang first met earlier this year, the first winner by header knockout in just 78 seconds.

The other big highlight on the card was an unforgettable brawl between lightweight action heroes Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler, which the former won by unanimous decision. However, fans will also be talking about the big wins for Marlon “Chito” Vera, Alex Pereira, Ian Garry and several others for the weeks to come.

Keep scrolling for the real winners and losers of this dynamite event in the Big Apple.

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The initial response is often negative after revenge from the UFC Championship. The two title revenges that topped UFC 268 were no exception.

When they announced that Colby Covington, who was stopped by Kamaru Usman just two fights ago, would get the champion a second chance, many fans suggested he didn’t do enough to deserve it. When it was revealed that Weili Zhang would have the opportunity to reclaim her belt from Rose Namajunas, the same fighter who had already flattened Zhang this year, other fans claimed she needed to get a few wins first.

These opponents are bound to be pretty calm after UFC 268. Sure, Usman and Namajunas retained their titles by decision, but both competitions were extremely entertaining and extremely competitive.

Every fight was so good that questions of whether the challengers deserved their opportunity were suddenly irrelevant. As a result, the odds of trilogy fights between the two sets of champion and challenger seem not only likely but inevitable.

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When Glover Teixeira won the UFC light heavyweight title at age 42 last weekend, he gave many aging fighters hope that similar triumphs are still attainable.

However, the endings of storybooks like the one Teixeira wrote are extremely rare.

40-year-old former UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar learned it the hard way.

After a hot and cold run at the featherweight, Edgar recently dropped out of another weight class, landing in the 135-pound bantamweight division. After defeating ranked contender Pedro Munhoz by decision on his bantamweight debut, he rekindled hopes for a late-career title victory.

Unfortunately, Edgar has since lost two games in a row, both by knockout. First, he succumbed to a brutal flying knee kick courtesy of Cory Sandhagen in February. Then, on the main card for UFC 268, Ecuador’s Marlon “Chito” Vera knocked him down with a front kick .

It was fun imagining Edgar getting his hands on a new title in a new division in the twilight of his career, but these things don’t happen that often in MMA.

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Normally, we wouldn’t talk about a fighter who just won his UFC debut as a future title challenger, but Alex Pereira is nothing ordinary.

The Brazilian middleweight made his UFC debut in the final UFC 268 undercard fight, knocking out Greece’s Andreas Michailidis with a flying knee in the second round. His meteoric debut in the UFC comes after a long and impressive career in the Glory kickboxing ring.

Pereira has accomplished many feats as a kickboxer, but arguably his best of the lot is a 2017 knockout victory over Israel Adesanya, who now holds the UFC middleweight title.

Pereira probably has quite a bit of work to do before he wins a middleweight title, but the fact that he’s already knocked out the reigning division champion, even though it was in a different sport, almost guarantees that he will be quick. regular.

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The UFC loves billing fights that are “guaranteed fireworks.” The term generally applies to matches that look so good on paper that they can’t disappoint. Often, of course, they do. Do you remember Derrick Lewis vs. Francis Ngannou?

This was not the case for Justin Gaethje’s lightweight fight against Michael Chandler of UFC 268. The fight not only met the expectations of the mountains, it exceeded them.

We were promised fireworks and we got a mushroom cloud.

Right from the opening bell, the two fan-favorite lightweight contenders traded the kind of skull strikes that would have separated most other fighters from consciousness. However, in a miraculous display of tenacity and heart, the pair were still standing 15 minutes later, leaving the cage judges to make a decision.

The judges eventually scored the fight for Gaethje unanimously, but it really was the kind of fight without real losers. The two guys can go home with their heads held high. It was just so good.

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Glendale, California, the Glendale Fighting Club was once one of the hottest gyms in MMA. The gym’s reputation was due almost exclusively to the success of former UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey who, in his heyday, was not only one of the best fighters in the sport, but its biggest star. Unfortunately, when Rousey crashed and burned down after back-to-back knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, the gym’s reputation did too.

For a brief period, a 23-year-old middleweight talent Edmen Chahbazyan It looked like he would be the man who would bring the Glendale Fighting Club back to its former glory.

Shahbazyan started his career 11-0 – with nine of those KO wins – and was ranked in the top 15 in the UFC middleweight division in his first five fights in the Octagon. Sadly, he has since had some tough times. After suffering his first loss at the hands of Derek Brunson in 2020 and relinquishing a decision to Jack Hermansson in his next fight thereafter earlier this year, he came across a three-fight slippage on the UFC 268 undercard, where he was trapped in a crucifix and reduced to pulp by Frenchman Nassourdine Imavov. The fight was stopped at 4:42 of the second round.

Suddenly the man who looked like the next big star in Glendale Fighting Club looks like a flash in the pan. It is certainly possible that he will reverse the situation – he is still very young – but the current prognosis is not good.

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Very few people have had a longer path to the UFC than Chris Curtis.

The 34-year-old middleweight, who has fought professionally since 2009, nearly landed a UFC contract when he beat Sean Lally in Dana White’s Contender series in 2018, but was ultimately turned down by the show’s namesake .

After a brief retirement he then spent several years competing for the Professional Fighters League and a number of small regional promotions. After winning his five most recent fights outside the UFC, he was finally offered a contract with the sport’s biggest promotion this year. He made his UFC 268 undercard debut against the much-loved Phil Hawes.

Despite being seen as a moderate underdog, Curtis came out on top, stopping Hawes with a left hand block as the first round ended.

It took an immeasurable amount of patience to get there, but finally, he has a UFC win under his belt.

“Ten years old baby,” he shouted at the crowd as he came out of the cage.

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The Bellator 270 broke down on Friday night in Dublin, Ireland, and unfortunately it wasn’t a good night for the home team as local heroes Peter Queally and James Gallagher were defeated in main and co-main events, respectively.

Fortunately for the entire Irish MMA scene, 23-year-old Irish super-prospect Ian Garry was in action on the UFC 268 undercard, and he quickly erased the memory of Queally and Gallagher’s losses with a crushing knockout of Jordan. Williams.

The victory over Williams marked a successful UFC debut for Garry and cemented him as one of MMA’s hottest prospects right now. Already frequently compared to former UFC two-division champion and MMA superstar Conor McGregor, he is now 8-0 overall and has all the hallmarks of a future title challenger.

Time will tell how far he can go, but his stunning UFC debut couldn’t come at a better time for Irish MMA.

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Rising heavyweight star Chris Barnett (22-7) doesn’t have the kind of physique we normally associate with top mixed martial artists, but make no mistake: that’s exactly what he is. Barnett reaffirmed his status as such on the UFC 268 undercard, when he put out the lights on retired veteran Gian Villante with a spinning second-round kick to the dome.

It was the kind of maneuver one expects from a bantamweight, not from a 263.8 pound heavyweight, but Barnett obviously didn’t get the memo. Anyone who followed the heavyweight before he came to the UFC, of ​​course, was well aware of what he was capable of heading into UFC 268: He has suffered a number of equally dazzling attacks in previous fights. .

His post-fight celebration – a surprisingly smooth flip – was the icing on the cake. This is a classic example of why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.