UFC 325 took place Saturday at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia. It was the second straight week of UFC events on Paramount.
Volkanovski still Great
37-year-old Alexander Volkanovski showed that he still has it with a successful title defense against Diego Lopes. Volk won a hard-earned unanimous decision over Lopes and solidified himself as one of the best to do it at 145 pounds. The fight was a rematch of their first one this past April. After watching the rematch, one has to wonder why there was a need.
Volk’s next challenger may be Russian Movslar Evloev or Lerone Murphy. Both fighters are younger but it doesn’t matter with the combination of strength and cardio from Volk.
BSD stops Hooker
Benoit Saint Denis is still a threat to the UFC lightweight title as he easily dispensed of Dan Hooker in the co-main event. BSD was ranked #8 in the division while Hooker was #6. However, BSD’s domination of the fight showed that BSD could be in line for a title fight by the end of the year.
Attendance and gate
According to the post-fight press conference the event drew 18,102 (sellout) for a gate of 10,103,137.
Bonuses
The Fight of the Night went to Volkanovski and Lopes. The Performance of the Night went to Mauricio Ruffy and Quillan Salkilld. In addition the stoppage bonuses of $25K went to BSD, Carm Rowston, Billy Elekana and Jonathan Micallef.
Prefight Hype
The lead-up to the event had its normal media hits including Volk on the Australian version of the Today Show cooking, The Embedded episodes showed the traditional welcoming of athletes to Australia, Dan Hooker shopping and Tai Tuivasa and Junior Tafa visiting a rugby team.
Sponsorships
There were a variety of media sponsors including Knox, Hantac Markets, Ladbrokes, Four ‘N Twenty, Kick, Corpay, and RS Rewards. In addition, Bud Light, Aviator, Budweiser, VeChain, Crypt.com, Aviator, Sydney’s Tourism Board, Monster Energy had the middle shared with 7-11.
Notably, during Fight Week for UFC 325 it was announced that Knox Hydration was the worldwide hydration sponsor for the UFC outside of the United States.
Compliance Pay
| Alexander Volkanovski (c) | $42,000 (c) | Diego Lopes (ch) | $32,000 (ch) |
| Dan Hooker | $21,000 (23) | Benoit Saint Denis | $11,000 (11) |
| Rafael Fiziev | $11,000 (11) | Mauricio Ruffy* | $4,500 (4) |
| Tai Tuivasa | $16,000 (16) | Tallison Teixeira*# | $4,000 (3) |
| Quillan Salkilld* | $4,000 (3) | Jamie Mullarkey | $11,000 (12) |
| Junior Tafa | $6,000 (6) | Billy Elekana# | $4,000 (3) |
| Cam Rowston* | $4,000 (2) | Cody Brundage*# | $11,000 (13) |
| Jacob Malkoun | $6,000 (7) | Torrez Finney* | $4,000 (2) |
| Jonathan Micallef * | $4,000 (2) | Oban Elliott | $4,500 (4) |
| Kaan Ofli | $4,500 (5) | Yizha % | $4,000 (3) |
| Sangwook Kim % | $4,000 (1) | Dom Mar Fan % | $4,000 (1) |
| Keiichiro Nakamura % | $4,000 (1) | Sebastian Szalay % | $4,000 (1) |
| Sulangrangbo % | $4,000 (1) | Lawrence Lui % | $4,000 (1) |
| % Road to UFC |
| # LFA |
| * Dana White Contender Series |
Odds and Ends
Aaron Tau attempted to use the dividers to lean on to shed weight on the scale. Similar to the trick Daniel Cormier did by leaning on a towel in front of him, Tau attempted to become lighter to make the 125 pound by leaning on the dividers. His attempt work, but he came in at an unusual 122.5 pounds. Obviously something was up and his fight was canceled.
The first set of prelims was a continuation of the Road to UFC seen outside the UFC. The 6 fighters that took part were making their debut in at an official UFC event.
After a 5 fight win streak including a win over Derrick Lewis, Tai Tuivasa has lost 6 straight fights. Ouch.
Conclusion
Honestly there’s something about overseas fights that lack the big fight feel as a numbered event in the US. Whether its because Dana White was not in person or the lack of excitement in a rematch between Volk and Lopes, it did not have the same fan fervor. Perhaps the Stevenson-Lopez fight on DAZN took some steam away on combat sports social media. Obviously, the boxing event was big, someone’s toupee fell off.
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