On August 1, 2020, the UFC held another fight night event at the UFC Apex facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. The main card featured only four bouts after two fights were pulled from the card. A bout between Gerald Meerschaert and Ed Herman was cancelled when Meerschaert tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday. And the bout scheduled to kick off the main card, Kevin Holland vs. Trevin Giles was abruptly scrapped when Giles fainted backstage as he was preparing to walk out for the bout. At the post-fight press conference Dana White stated that the doctors that attended to Giles thought his pre-fight anxiety “went through the roof”. Hopefully Giles will bounce back from the setback. But this instance serves as a reminder of the tremendous amount of anxiety and pressure fighters experience before fighting on television in their underwear with hundreds of thousands of fans watching.
Even prior to losing these two bouts scheduled for the main card, the event lost its headliner on July 22 when Irene Aldana was pulled from the headline bout against Holly Holm after Aldana tested positive for Covid-19. Luckily, the event had four remaining fights that appeared on paper to be fun and interesting fights between high-level UFC fighters.
Lando Vannata vs. Bobby Green
The opening bout of the main card was an incredibly entertaining fight between Bobby “King” Green versus “Groovy” Lando Vannata that earned “Fight of the Night” honors. Green won the bout by scores of 30-26, 30-27, and 30-27. In the first round Vannata got off to a good start by landing a counter right hook that briefly forced Green to put his right hand down on the mat to avoid completely going down. Green landed a right hand at the same time, but Vannata got the better of the exchange. With two minutes to go in the first round Green pumped out two quick jabs, stepped in and landed a hard right hand that knocked Vannata to the canvas. Vannata, however, recovered well as Green was only able to do a little bit of ground and pound damage. The first round had several moments where both fighters fired shots at the same time and landed simultaneously. Dominick Cruz on the commentary pointed out that Green was just a little sharper and quicker with his boxing as he seemed to land just before Vannata on several occasions.
In the second round Green’s low kicks began to show damage on Vannata’s lead leg. Green also found success in the second round with his jabs and straight right hands. Green scored a takedown midway through the second round as Vannata tried to lock in a guillotine. But Green showed good defense as he passed to side control to neutralize the submission attempt. After a very short amount of time with his back on the mat, Vannata worked his way back to the feet. Vannata scored a takedown of his own with a little less than a minute left in the second round but Green quickly worked his way back to his feet without taking damage. On the way up, though, Vannata landed a hard right hook as the fighters broke away from the clinch. Toward the end of the round, Green scored with two hard calf kicks followed by a jab that snapped Vannata’s head back. Vannata also had a nice moment just before the horn sounded when he caught a front kick from Green and landed a hard straight right hand after releasing the kick.
Vannata got off to a strong start in the third round with a hard counter right and a spinning back kick to Green’s midsection. Green had some dominant moments about one minute into the final round with a wicked thai clinch. He opened the sequence by landing a hard knee to the body that nearly knocked down Vannata. Green then hit another knee from the clinch and Vannata tried to counter with uppercuts but Green released the clinch and landed a huge right elbow that knocked Vannata to the floor. Green followed up with hard punches to Vannata’s face while standing over Vannata. Green then landed several hard, short elbows from half-guard. Green landed another takedown with a coupe minutes to go in the round. At that point in the fight, Vannata’s face was showing quite a bit of damage. However, Vannata once more did a good job of working his way back to the feet without spending too much time on his back. Despite being outclassed by a fairly significant margin in the last two rounds, to his credit, Vannata was still throwing and landing some hard shots s the fight wound down.
Vicente Luque vs. Randy Brown
Vicente “The Silent Assassin” Luque continued his incredible UFC run by defeating Randy “Rudeboy” Brown by KO at 4:56 of the second round. Luque wasted little time in hammering Randy Brown’s lead leg with outside low kick after outside low kick in a clear attempt to prevent Brown from establishing his outstanding jab. With a 78” reach on his 6’3” frame, Brown has a dangerous jab but Luque all but eliminated that shot from his opponent with his vicious low kicks. Luque forced Brown to change his stance several times during the fight due to the punishing kicks. Luque scored a knockdown with a big right hand over the top in the third minute of the first round. Luque would have scored a second knockdown during the opening round as he hammered Brown with a hard left hook, but Brown used a blatant fence grab to stay on his feet, drawing a warning from the referee in the process.
Leg kicks rarely result in knockdowns, but Luque sent Brown down and onto his back with a calf kick early in the second round. Brown had his finest moment of the match when he caught a body kick and landed a hard spinning elbow after releasing the kick. Brown then followed up by pressuring Luque and landed several nice punches before scoring with a nice knee to the face from the thai clinch. With a minute to go in the round Brown landed a slick takedown as he got double underhooks and a bodylock leading into the takedown. Luque wasted little time, however, working back to his feet. Luque then applied the finishing sequence as he landed a knee to the head of Brown and followed up with punches forcing the referee stoppage. Luque has now won eight of nine fights with his lone loss coming to Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson in November 2019. A big fight should await Luque in his next UFC bout.
Joanne Calderwood vs. Jennifer Maia
Joanne “JoJo” Calderwood took a big risk in taking this fight against Jennifer Maia as Calderwood reportedly could have waited to fight flyweight champion Valentina “Bullet” Shevchenko. Instead it will be Maia who next fights Shevchenko for the flyweight title as she turned in a dominant performance, finishing the bout via armbar submission at the 4:29 mark of Round 1. Maia got the better of Calderwood on the feet throughout the first round as Maia’s boxing skills proved superior to Calderwood’s Muay Thai striking.
Midway through the opening round, Calderwood caught a high front kick from Maia putting her on the ground. Maia, however, showed brilliant jiu-jitsu as she tied up Calderwood and limited her options from top position. From full guard, Maia turned to her left side and deftly swung her right leg across Calderwood’s face and into armbar position. Calderwood initially defended well by placing her shin on Maia’s face but Maia adjusted well to produce the tap.
Derek Brunson vs. Edmen Shahbazyan
Derek Brunson has long been a high level middleweight whose five UFC losses have come only at the hands of top fighters who were either future or former UFC champions (Israel Adesanya, Robert Whittaker, Anderson Silva), a title challenger in the monster Yoel Romero, and former Strikeforce champion Jacare Souza. Edmen “The Golden Boy” Shahbazyan, on the other hand, came into this bout with a ton of hype as an undefeated 11-0 contender ranked #9 and a protégé of former UFC great Ronda Rousey.
Shahbazyan had some nice moments in the first round as he landed some hard strikes. Brunson, who traditionally has displayed relatively little patience in his approach utilized a more calculated game plan in this bout. Both fighters landed hard punches during an entertaining sequence in the middle of the first round.
Shahbazyan scored with a hard body kick that landed cleanly to Brunson’s midsection early in the second round. Brunson started to beat up Shahbazyan midway through the second round as he began to mix his wrestling and punches really well. The beginning of the end started with a little more than one minute remaining in Round 2 as Brunson secured a takedown near the cage. Brunson landed some big shots while on Shahbazyan’s back before moving to mount. Shahbazyan then turned to his belly as Brunson transitioned to Shahbazyan’s back and landed huge elbows. During the last 5 seconds of the round, Brunson landed another huge elbow and followed with 5 or 6 hard punches, one of which appeared to have possibly knocked Shahbazyan out, but at the very least severely compromised his opponent. The end came via TKO just 26 seconds into the third round as Brunson blitzed, landing a lead left hand followed by several punches before pulling Shahbazyan to the mat. Brunson then took Shahbazyan’s back but it was clear Shahbazyan was done and referee Herb Dean called the fight after Brunson landed two more punches.