Recap: UFC 203

Stipe Miocic survived some tough spots against Alistair Overeem to retain his title with a first round knockout of the former Strikeforce Champion.

Miocic was dropped early on by Overeem, almost getting submitted with a guillotine before recovering and applying pressure to Overeem, hurting the Dutchman on several occasions. Despite being hurt by Overeem again halfway through the round, Miocic managed to land a takedown, putting on some brutal ground and pound that knocked Overeem out and forced Marc Goddard to step in to stop the fight.

Fabricio Werdum didn’t look great against Travis Browne, shooting in for lazy takedowns and looking sloppy with his striking compared to recent fights. Werdum wasn’t helped by Browne’s  hesitance after hurting his finger early on in the fight. It was clear that Werdum wanted to get Browne to the mat rather than stand and trade; late in the first he managed it after dropping Browne but the Brazilian couldn’t get the finish before the buzzer sounded. The second round was a poor affair, with neither man offering much in the way of attacks of any significance. The third round was as poor as the second, neither fighter showing any urgency to win this fight. In fact, Werdum showed more fight before the decision was announced, front kicking Browne’s coach, Edmond Tarverdyan in the stomach. Oh, and Werdum won by decision.

Micky Gall battered CM Punk over the course of three minutes to win the fight via submission. Punk did nothing in this fight. Gall took Punk down early and proceeded to beat the snot out of the former WWE superstar before landing a rear naked choke to finish the fight.

Time may have finally caught up with the ‘California Kid’ after a lacklustre and disappointing performance against Jimmy Rivera. Uriah Faber looked like he was attempting to emulate the fighting style of Dominick Cruz in this fight – rather than his usual style of fighting – which allowed Rivera to pressure Faber, and land heavy shots throughout the fight, including a leg kick that dropped Faber in the second round. Rivera realised that he’d caused some damage to Faber’s leg with the kick, and proceeded to target the leg at every opportunity, making Faber even more tentative and reluctant to really engage with anything substantial. Rivera did enough on all the judges scorecards to win the fight by unanimous decision.

Jessica Andrade made relatively light work of Joanne Calderwood in the opening fight of the PPV. The Brazilian fighter looked to be struggling in the stand up with Calderwood early on but as soon as she got Calderwood to the canvas, it was game over for the Scot. Andrade landed huge slams on Calderwood and was constantly landing ground and pound over the course of the round. When Calderwood looked like she had reversed the position, Andrade slapped on a super tight guillotine that had Calderwood tapping with 23 seconds of the first round left.