Belal Muhammad, Paddy Pimblett And the Real Winners and Losers ...

0 of 10

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Or, as it relates to MMA this weekend, repackage and move to Europe.

Both the main and co-main event fights on Saturday night's show from England were rematches of original fights that lasted less than six minutes from end to end.

Welterweight champion Leon Edwards met second-ranked contender Belal Muhammad again after their previous engagement on a Fight Night show three years ago was halted early in the second round when Muhammad was injured by an inadvertent eye poke.

Edwards won his belt from Kamaru Usman 17 months later and had since defended twice while Muhammad had won five straight since and nine in a row overall minus the no-contest.

It's a similar story in the co-main, where interim heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall faced fourth-ranked Curtis Blaydes two years and four days after a knee injury forced him out of their first bout after just 15 seconds.

Blaydes was awarded a TKO win that night and had split two bouts since, while Aspinall was back in the cage a year later and had won two straight bouts by first-round finish.

The B/R combat team was in place to take in those two bouts and the other 12 on the card from Manchester and delivered a real-time list of the show's definitive winners and losers.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought in the comments.

1 of 10

Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

It's a name spoken in hushed tones in MMA circles:

Khabib Nurmagomedov.

So, when an analyst on the level of Daniel Cormier invokes the name while referring to the level of a fighter's performance in a significant bout, it's legitimate praise.

And make no mistake, Belal Muhammad deserved it. And then some.

The methodically aggressive No. 2 welterweight contender, without a loss on his record in more than five years, did everything he promised he would do during the run-up to a match with welterweight king Leon Edwards and took his title in his English backyard.

And made it look easy.

"It looked like a Khabib-type of performance," Cormier said.

Muhammad scored nine takedowns, spent more than 12 minutes in position control, provided highlights with a couple of punishing slams, and generally smothered the reigning champ while earning the verdict by scores of 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46.

B/R agreed with the third judge, scoring four of five rounds for Muhammad.

"We studied. We get better every single fight. I have a team. No one knows their names, but these guys are killers," Muhammad said. "Now the world knows it. The world sees it. And they have to start respecting it."

Edwards, who'd not lost a fight since 2015, said he'd like a chance to regain his title, perhaps by the end of the year either in November or December.

"My body felt tight. From round one," he said. "But all credit to Belal Muhammad."

2 of 10

Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

In the moments before the start of Paddy Pimblett's step-up lightweight match with 15th-ranked King Green, analyst Michael Bisping had a few significant questions.

"Is he gonna live up to the hype?

"Is he gonna enter the top 15?

"Can he compete with guys like King Green?"

Turns out it was less than three-and-a-half minutes—or 202 seconds if you prefer—before the brash Liverpudlian had all the answers.

That's precisely how long it took Pimblett, in just his sixth UFC appearance, to put the 37-year-old veteran gatekeeper to sleep with a triangle choke.

And to the surprise of no one, the winner had a few things to say in the aftermath.

"Statement made, b-tches," a beaming Pimblett, standing alongside interviewer Daniel Cormier in the center of the cage, said. "I knew it. I'm the first person to submit (Green) in the UFC. That's saying something. That's a statement. To all you haters who said I'd never get a ranking, what now?"

Indeed, Pimblett is all but guaranteed a number when updated rankings come out on Monday, and, alongside an emotional message to the family of a young fan who recently succumbed to cancer, he had a specific name when it comes to who's got next.

"(Tenth-ranked) Renato Moicano," he said. "That's the fight I want. Hopefully we can get it done before the end of the year or early in the new year."

3 of 10

Tom Aspinall is not a man interested in long nights at the office.

He'd won seven of his first eight fights in the UFC while only seeing the second round once, and even the loss lasted just 15 seconds thanks to an unfortunate knee injury.

Things were no different on Saturday. And the company's interim heavyweight champ got to strike that loss from the record in the process.

Aspinall sidestepped some heavy shots from Curtis Blaydes in the initial exchange of their rematch then made things academic with his first heavy punch, dropping the fourth-ranked challenger with a hard left and following with a series of more than a dozen ground shots to prompt the intervention of referee Marc Goddard at exactly one minute.

And in doing so, he revved the engines for a showdown with full-fledged champ Jon Jones.

Aspinall claimed he'd spoken to Dana White and then immediately asked the crowd whether it'd be interested in seeing a fight between the title claimants. Following the predictable enthusiasm, he was asked by interviewer Daniel Cormier if he had a specific message for Jones in case he was watching.

"I have nothing against you personally," Aspinall said. "But I just think I'm better than you. I know I can beat you."

Jones is penciled in for a match with former champ Stipe Miocic later this year, but the suggestion among the broadcast team was that it ought to be skipped in favor of an immediate duel between Jones and Aspinall. Aspinall, incidentally, had been given an interim title shot when Jones was injured preparing for Miocic.

"With respect to the undisputed champ Jon Jones, this is an active competing heavyweight, and he looks like a problem for anyone," blow-by-blow man Jon Anik said. "Whoever wins that fight, Jon Jones or Stipe, this fight has to be next."

4 of 10

It was bad enough that the middleweight fight between Gregory Rodrigues and Christian Leroy Duncan, forecast by many to be a bonus-worthy slugfest, turned out to be a flop.

Rodrigues won by a desultory unanimous decision, sweeping all three rounds on all three scorecards, in case anyone was still interested after 15 minutes of drowsiness.

But it wasn't the lone reason things were going south in the final hour before midnight ET.

It was in those 60 minutes that the pay-per-view broadcast turned south for apparently technical reasons, with weird instances related to graphics, sounds, and other issues.

A basic scan of the crowd for celebrities and famous athletes was interrupted by a repeated flashing of graphics related to former NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who wasn't in the building and hasn't played in 2021.

Minutes later, a commercial break was going south when advertisements were stalled in favor of generic exterior shots of the fight venue and outside crowd and accompanied by an ESPN+ message conceding the problems were occurring.

Finally, in the interim between the end of the Rodrigues-Duncan bout and the reading of the scorecards, a repeated sound check occurred in which someone sounding like an engineer was audible repeating "Channel 1, Channel 2, Channel 3," etc.

The broadcast crew never mentioned the issues and the show continued without a blip once Paddy Pimblett's hype package began.

So, all's well that ends well.

5 of 10

Giga Chikadze is a man of many MMA talents.

He punches well. He kicks well. And if things get to the mat—as evidenced by an armbar finish two months after an appearance on Dana White's Contender Series—he's also capable of generating a victory by submission when circumstances allow.

But none of those were Arnold Allen's problem on Saturday.

Instead, Allen's biggest issue with the 35-year-old from the Republic of Georgia was that Chikadze simply never stood still long enough to damage him.

Or at least that's what it seemed like before Bruce Buffer took hold of the scorecards.

A moment later, the tuxedo-clad announcer read three 29-28 scores in Allen's favor and awarded him a unanimous decision that, as dubious as it may have seemed to those not firmly in his camp, ended a two-fight skid and had him making big plans.

"Bring me one of the big boys (at featherweight)," he said. "Those are the guys I want. Those are the fights we've been trying to make."

It seemed as if Chikadze's movement and precision with punches and kicks had been enough to win him the first two rounds, and, thus, the fight. But the judges put more emphasis on the intermittent single power shots Allen landed that ultimately started a trickle of blood from Chikadze's face that grew more noticeable as he tired in the third.

All according to the game plan, according to Allen.

"He's a great striker but I'm a great striker, too," he said. "He's dangerous. But there were only so many powerful kicks before he was gonna slow down."

6 of 10

Molly McCann had a lot of advantages.

She was fighting in front of an adoring home crowd. She was participating in her 13th UFC bout against a comparative novice who'd lost two of her first three with the company.

And she was the biggest female betting favorite on the card, going off at the final horn as a –360 proposition, meaning it'd take a $360 bet on her to recoup a $100 profit.

But once the fight with Bruna Brasil started, everything flipped.

The taller, lankier, and well-prepared Brazilian was superior by nearly every measure from the outset, punishing McCann to the body with heavy knees and kicks, and taking her down three times in three tries—compared to her foe's 2-for-7 rate—on the way to a surprise unanimous decision in their mid-card strawweight bout.

McCann had three finishes in her seven UFC wins but was never close to getting Brasil into imminent danger, and instead ended the match wearing a large mouse on her forehead and redness across much of the rest of her face.

Brasil landed more total strikes (63-57) and more significant strikes (44-32), many coming as McCann tried to force the issue and was greeted with precise counters with the hands and knees to the body that frequently left her wincing in pain.

7 of 10

It was the biggest upset of the night.

And maybe of the year's first seven months, too.

Flyweights Manel Kape and Muhammad Mokaev fought one another at the UFC's Performance Institute. They fought one another at the fight hotel in Manchester.

They required security guards to keep them from fighting one another in the octagon before Bruce Buffer had a chance to introduce them.

Then, after 15 minutes of combat that was more tactical than titillating—with 81 total strikes, less than 2:30 in combined control time, and zero submission attempts—they got together to produce the biggest surprise of the weekend.

They shook hands. They hugged. And Kape, amid a stream of verbal pleasantries as he and Mokaev stood together along the fence, kissed his one-time blood rival on the cheek.

Do you believe in miracles?

Oh, what happened in the fight?

Well, Mokaev was awarded a unanimous decision in which two judges gave him two of three rounds and the third scored it 3-0 in his favor, helping him boost his pro record to 13-0, his UFC record to 7-0, and his interest in securing a title shot to off the charts.

"I'm 23 years old and 7-0 in UFC. I'm still this young and I'm fighting these old veterans," Mokaev said. "I want a title shot. What do you think, Manchester, do I deserve a new UFC contract?"

8 of 10

Sam Patterson arrived in the UFC with a lot of hype 16 months ago and instantly found himself on the wrong end of a 75-second KO.

But he wasn't about to let the upset loss define him.

Instead, the 28-year-old went back to the drawing board, returned to his natural weight, and went about redefining his reputation, which he continued to do Saturday night with a first-round submission finish of welterweight foe Kiefer Crosbie.

It's been impressive enough to catch the eye of analyst Michael Bisping.

"Two first-round finishes, two world-class submissions," he said, "from the first time I saw him to now, it's a massive difference."

Patterson engaged Crosbie on the feet for the first two minutes but cinched in a body lock soon after wobbling his foe with a right uppercut, then tossed him to the mat and positioned himself for the arm triangle that yielded a tap at 2:50.

"No disrespect to my opponent, but I always knew that first fight I didn't show up," Patterson said. "It's good to be back at my natural weight class. I can't wait to keep coming in here and performing."

9 of 10

He's got some ground to cover before he's a heavyweight contender.

But Mick Parkin already knows how to capture a room.

The 28-year-old Englishman climbed in for his fourth fight with the promotion on Saturday's prelim card and made it particularly memorable with an abrupt first-round stoppage of Polish-based veteran Lukasz Brzeski, instantly bringing an early-arriving crowd to its feet.

"That was amazing," he said. "I'm speechless."

Parkin weighed in just shy of the divisional limit at 264 pounds and was methodically aggressive from the start, controlling space with effective stand-up against a smaller foe.

But it became a noteworthy night when he landed a hard right that sent Brzeski wobbling toward the fence, then followed with a combination punctuated by the left hook that dropped Brzeski to the floor and left him vulnerable for a series of ground strikes that prompted an intervention from referee Marc Goddard.

The official time was 3:23 and the win bumped Parkin to 10-0 as a pro.

"I know most of the time (climbing the ladder) is gonna be in America," he said. "Here I am two-and-a-half hours from where I live. It's awesome and I'll never forget it."

10 of 10

Main Card

Belal Muhammad def. Leon Edwards by unanimous decision (48-47, 48-47, 49-46)

Tom Aspinall def. Curtis Blaydes by KO (punches), 1:00, Round 1

Paddy Pimblett def. King Green by technical submission (triangle choke), 3:22, Round 1

Gregory Rodrigues def. Christian Leroy Duncan by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Arnold Allen def. Giga Chikadze by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Preliminary Card

Nathaniel Wood def. Daniel Pineda by unanimous decision (29-27, 29-27, 29-28)

Bruna Brasil def. Molly McCann by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)

Jake Hadley def. Caolán Loughran by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)

Muhammad Mokaev def. Manel Kape by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)

Early Preliminary Card

Oban Elliott def. Preston Parsons by unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)

Modestas Bukauskas def. Marcin Prachnio by submission (arm triangle), 3:12, Round 3

Sam Patterson def. Kiefer Crosbie by submission (arm triangle), 2:50, Round 1

Mick Parkin def. Lukasz Brzeski by KO (punches), 3:23, Round 1

Shauna Bannon def. Alice Ardelean by split decision (28-29, 29-28, 30-27)