Israel Adesanya has defended his UFC middleweight title with a dull unanimous decision over Yoel Romero in the main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In the penultimate fight, Zhang Weili defended her UFC strawweight championship with a spectacularly brutal split-decision victory over former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
After Weili and Jedrzejczyk put on one of the most viscerally entertaining bouts in recent UFC history, Romero and Adesanya staged a snoozer that had fans booing and chanting obscenities.
Adesanya (19-0) still defended his belt for the first time, winning 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46 on the judges’ scorecards.
Romero (13-5) fought an extraordinarily passive fight. Adesanya appeared unable to figure out a way through the 42-year-old Brazilian’s defences, but his efforts mattered more to the judges.
“I did what I had to do to win this fight,” Adesanya said. “He’s out there trying to lure me into a false sense of security. I needed 25 minutes of focus. You can’t (fight) with somebody who doesn’t want to dance.”
In the main event, Adesanya’s fearsome counterpunching skills were useless largely because Romero barely threw a punch in the first two rounds. Adesanya appeared unable to figure out how to penetrate Romero’s defences, and Romero did well on the few occasions that he tried fighting offensively in the first four rounds.
Adesanya only joined the UFC in February 2018, but the Nigeria-born, New Zealand-raised fighter has been among the UFC’s fastest-rising stars since the moment he hit the cage. He won his first seven UFC fights while displaying his incredible athleticism and all-around skills, steamrolling the middleweight division once ruled by pound-for-pound legend Anderson Silva.
Zhang (21-1) and Jedrzejczyk (16-4) traded brutal punches and kicks throughout five technically fascinating rounds, badly damaging each other’s faces. After the last of several standing ovations from the Las Vegas crowd, Zhang won the fight 48-47 on two judges’ cards, while Jedrzejczyk won 48-47 on the third.
