Last night (Sat., Jan. 11, 2025), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) returned home to UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada for UFC Vegas 101. The first show of the year didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel with next-level name quality. In fact, it was headlined by a rematch between Mackenzie Dern and Amanda Ribas that nobody really asked for. Fortunately, the fights themselves turned out to be pretty great!
Let’s take a look back over at UFC Vegas 101’s best performances and techniques:
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Dern Earns Revenge
Mackenzie Dern has improved since 2019.
The improvement can at times be difficult to notice. Dern has lost several fights in recent memory, after all, and many of the flaws she demonstrated in 2019 are still being taken advantage of. Just because she remains an imperfect fighter doesn’t mean there hasn’t been progress though, and a revenge win over Amanda Ribas served as a perfect demonstration.
On the feet, Dern still moves in straight lines and doesn’t have the best sense of distance. Yet this time around, she was able to hold her own, using surprisingly effective low kicks and that always dangerous overhand to keep Ribas honest. Her wrestling is still inconsistent, but that double leg in the first was quite well-timed, and she wasn’t able to take Ribas down at all in the first fight.
Progress is progress.
Fortunately, it’s not her weak points that make Dern a special fighter. That would be her jiu-jitsu, which was on display twice when Ribas opted to take top position following clinch scrambles. The first omoplata reversed her way into top position, while the second armbar ultimately finished the fight.
Plain and simple, Dern can finish anyone on the floor. It means she’s a unique style match up for the division’s elites and is always dangerous, regardless of how outmatched she may be in other areas. At 31 years of age, there’s still a real chance she fights for the belt before her career is up.
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Ponzi Still Has That DOG In Him
Santiago Ponzinibbio isn’t at his best. He’s slowed down over the years in a big way and is no longer a top contender. Even so, the Argentinian’s fights are very much worth watching, because he still brings the action every single time.
Carlston Harris was a great foil for “Gente Boa.” Everything about his game and how he throws punches is awkward, but he makes it work by being long and powerful. He spent most of the first round getting out-struck by Ponzinibbio only to floor him with the ugliest right hand you’ll ever see.
Ponzinibbio worked his way back into the fight in the second, winning the technical kickboxing match once more. The bout heated up again in the final frame, as Ponzinibbio’s right hand simply couldn’t miss. He threw everything into those punches, trying to take off Harris’ head. The referee stepped in at an odd time, but Ponzinibbio certainly did enough damage to score the knockout win.
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KOTY!
I fully understand we’re only a dozen fights and one UFC event into 2025, but I have a feeling we’ll remember Cesar Almeida vs. Abdul Razak Alhassan when December rolls around. We do, after all, recall Cheick Kongo knocking out Pat Barry way back in 2011, and this fight had a similarly dramatic finishing sequence.
Alhassan does nothing without absolute power. He lives and dies by the sword, and for a moment, the momentum swung his way. He floored the decorated kickboxer with a big swing, and he followed it up with some thunderous connections on the floor. When Almeida scrambling back to his feet, Alhassan kept swinging for the fences.
The problem is that Almeida has something like 50 professional kickboxing matches and 30 knockout wins. He’s been rocked before and knows how to fire back. In this case, he weaved a perfect left hook between Alhassan swings, putting his foe out cold in a brutal reversal of fortunes.
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Middleweights Bring The Violence
Chris Curtis vs. Roman Kopylov was always going to be awesome. Beforehand, most were baffled the fight was booked as anything other than the co-main event, located strangely far down the card. Those thoughts were immediately vindicated by the incredible war that just took place.
Kopylov is so fast. For much of the first round, he was tuning up Curtis, stinging him with sharp jabs and deadening the lead leg with thudding low kicks. Curtis, however, did a better job than in previous fights cutting off the cage, and he began to find his range. Using his lead hand to grab the collar tie, Curtis funneled uppercuts into the mush of his foe’s face then ripped the body too. A couple minutes into the second, Curtis seemed firmly in control, pushing the pace and landing hard punches on a bloodied opponent.
Credit to Kopylov, he stayed in it despite the damage and fatigue. Curtis does great work in rolling shots, but Kopylov’s left hand started finding the mark more often and wobbling the durable “Action Man.” Everything was up for grabs in the third, and Kopylov mixed it all up quite well by hurting Curtis with his left and surprising him with a takedown. He was likely on his way to a unanimous decision nod (rounds one and three) when a high kick floored Curtis … and the referee saved a fairly conscious Curtis with just a single second remaining while Kopylov was on the other side of the cage.
I don’t think it’s a bad call necessarily — I don’t think it’s a good one either! — but it compounds to being bad luck for “The Action Man.” Curtis was fouled twice in the second, and Kopylov didn’t lose any points, then the referee takes away any chance at winning a decision? Under a different (better?) referee, this could easily ended up a draw.
Regardless of that minor controversy, the bottom line is this fight was the most entertaining of the evening.
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Punahele Reborn
Welterweight definitely appears to be the proper weight class for Punahele Soriano. At Middleweight, he felt like a very limited fighter. He was athletic and fast for the division, and his Southpaw overhand was no joke … but that was it! In his first bout down at Welterweight last time out, however, he showed off a really solid wrestling approach in grounding Miguel Baeza for three rounds.
Last night, Soriano confirmed that his knockout power came down a division too. Uros Medic is a NASTY striker, but Soriano was able to time him circling with a wide right hook. It landed right on the button, and Medic went out immediately.
Formidable punching power and quality wrestling is a proven combination at Welterweight more than any other division. Now 2-0 at 170-pounds, Soriano might just be a standout prospect in his new class.
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Additional Thoughts
- Felipe Bunes defeats Jose Johnson via first-round armbar: It’s hard to have much sympathy when a 6’ tall Flyweight doesn’t make the 125-pound limit. Duh! Johnson used his size to ground Bunes early, but he was a bit lazy with his arm position. Subsequently, Bunes was able to attack the arm more than once, wrapping up the limb and the tapout on his second attempt. The 35 year old has now won nine fights via submission and came through as a significant underdog here!
- Marco Tullio defeats Ihor Potieria via first-round knockout: Potieria is not a lucky fighter. Fresh off getting fouled constantly, the Ukrainian scrapper took a hard shot below the belt early in this fight. Not long after the restart, Tullio put Potieria on the floor with a huge right hand. Potieria was barely with it … just conscious enough to survive for moment and get smashed by a series of huge blows. “Duelist” has now lost three straight and missed weight here, so this could be the end of his UFC stint.
- Jacobe Smith defeats Preston Parsons via first-round knockout (highlights): It’s always fun when a talented collegiate wrestler makes the transition to MMA and starts gaining confidence in his hands. Smith, a former OSU wrestler, made his UFC debut here against Parsons, who has proven himself a scrappy striker in five previous UFC bouts. This one didn’t last long, however, as Smith fired a 1-2-3 straight down the pipe early. The final hook clipped Parsons right on the chin, folding him over his own knee as he hit the floor hard. A follow up hammerfist or two sealed the deal, securing Smith his eighth knockout win in 10 fights. It’s still early, but “Cobe” looks like a Welterweight to watch!
- Fatima Kline defeats Victoria Dudakova via second-round knockout (highlights): Kline picked up her first UFC win in good style here. The 24-year-old prospect lost her UFC debut on short-notice and up a weight class versus Jasmine Jasudavicius, so this felt like a much more accurate demonstration of her abilities. In what was largely a wrestling battle, Kline wore down Dudakova to gain top position and batter her for the second-round stoppage. Dudakova wasn’t a high-level test, but Kline remains an interesting 115-pound prospect moving forward.
For complete UFC Vegas 101 results and play-by-play, click here.
