It's been a while, but the UFC has three cards as its UFC Apex in its headquarters of Las Vegas, Nevada, to close out the UFC's 2025 calendar year. While there is another this coming weekend and one on December 13, the first went down yesterday, November 1, with UFC Vegas 110.
It marked the first Fight Night card to go down at the Apex since August 9, with UFC Vegas 109 seeing Anthony "Fluffy" Hernandez making easy work of Roman Dolidze.
The main event of UFC Vegas 110 saw Steve Garcia face David Onama in a featherweight matchup. After losing two of three to start his UFC tenure, Garcia entered this night a winner of six straight and ranked No. 12 in his weight class, entering off a win over Calvin Kattar. Onama, meanwhile, entered this fight ranked No. 13 and a winner of four consecutive, including a win over Giga Chikadze.
The co-main event featured a heavyweight battle between Waldo Cortes-Acosta and Ante Delija. Cortes-Acosta looked to rebound from a loss to Sergei Pavlovich at UFC Shanghai this past August. Delija, the former PFL heavyweight champion, made his UFC debut at UFC Paris in September with a highlight finish of Marcin Tybura.
Who showed up? Who bombed? Let's go through together with the hits and misses of UFC Vegas 110.
At what point can the UFC no longer defend Sedriques Dumas being a member of the UFC roster? Because it's hard not to imagine Dumas getting cut after the way he performed in his loss to Donte Johnson.
Dumas, to his credit, did seem to get the better of Johnson with his striking. Dumas did get an early takedown and tried to keep on it, but Johnson worked his way back to his feet. But that's when Dumas started performing some questionable spinning attacks, allowing Johnson to easily take him down and end the round on top.
A gassed Dumas was then easily taken down and submitted by Johnson -- to the point some wonder if Dumas was looking for a way out before the submission was even fully locked in.
Dumas is now 3-4, and with his track record, it's a wonder if he'll be given another chance.
Billy Elekana ended the UFC Vegas 110 preliminary card with a bang, courtesy of the quick way he put away Kevin Christian.
Christian seemed to be getting the upper hand with the early exchanges, namely in leg kicks. Elekana changed things, however, by making Christian overextend before dropping him with a hard right hand. Elekana then flattened Christian out and sunk in a rear-naked choke for the submission.
Elekana dropped his UFC debut to Bogdan Guskov in January but has now won both fights he's had since. It'll be worth seeing how Elekana -- an alumnus of PFL, LFA, and Tuff-N-Uff -- goes from here in 2026.
Another referee/officials error in the sport of MMA in the year 2025? What a shock... (not).
A referee being out of position can happen. But when a fighter is in the midst of being choked unconscious, the referee should be checking everywhere to ensure they can see the tap. Chris Tognoni went on the opposite side of where the tapout was occuring -- and the submission was never called until Kevin Christian was unconscious -- and he was unconscious for several seconds.
All you have to do is do a Google search for "Chris Tognoni" to see the number of times he's been slammed for one mistake or another. While the number of mistakes he's made has seemingly gone down since an infamous 2020 for him, he's had so many blunders in his tenure, it's a wonder why some haven't referred to him as the new Steve Mazzagatti.
And yet my blame for him can only go so far; he's the product of a system of commissions that don't seem to hold their officials accountable. And I don't know how many more times I can scream into the abyss about the need for such things.
Yadier Del Valle followed up on his solid performance in his UFC debut with another first-round submission victory, quickly putting away Issac Dulgarian.
Del Valle brought pressure and was easily able to score a takedown. He managed to lock up a choke from there, and despite defensive efforts from Dulgarian, the choke proved to be too tight to fight out of.
Del Valle made his UFC debut at UFC Vegas 106 this past May, defeating Connor Matthews in similar fashion. We still need to see Del Valle against tougher competition, obviously, but he just might be someone to keep an eye on.
Unfortunately, this fight ended up getting a big shadow over it...
The prop of Yadier Del Valle scoring a first-round submission had a lot of bets on it coming in the hours leading up to the fight, according to a number of people in the MMA community. And their concerns proved to be true when a number of sportsbooks pulled the fight from betting availability.
It didn't help matters with how the fight played out as it did. And a number of sportsbooks then started to offer refunds for the fight and take the fight's bets out of parlays. And now has come out a number of reports from the likes of Harry Mac in regard to this fight, among others, that have been flagged for line moments. Mac, in fact, is reporting an audit has been requested for fights refereed by Jason Herzog.
To think, the mainstream pro sports world is dealing with the NBA gambling mess, and now we're going to be dealing with this. Do I expect this to go as major as it could? No, not with Dana White's connections to the current U.S. administration. But, it's definitely not a good look.
How is it that another headlining heavyweight fight, for a second week in a row, has a controversy via eye poke? Well, it happened, and this time it saw things go from an Ante Delija knockout victory to one for Waldo Cortes-Acosta.
The fight appeared to be over after a flurry of strikes from Delija. But the referee supposedly called for a timeout instead of stepping in to stop the fight. But Delija's corner celebrated and a number of people entered the Octagon while replay was used. As it turned out, Cortes-Acosta was poked in the eye at the start of the sequence, but the fact that the fight seemed over -- in addition to replay being used and the number of people in the Octagon -- meant it looked like another heavyweight No Contest.
Instead, WCA was allowed time to sit on a stool and rest and recover. Seconds later, with both men swinging their power, Cortes-Acosta dropped and finished Delija. On one hand, it's a phenomenal showing of guts and heart, and he's worthy of a performance bonus. On the other, how is it no one -- from officials to the UFC commentators -- know of how rules work? We'll see if this result stands as it does...
Now, I don't want to completely diss the fact Waldo Cortes-Acosta won in the way he did. But let's look at his winning streak more in depth.
Andrei Arlovski in 2024 was not the Arlovski in his prime. He only fought one more time before retiring. Robelis Despaigne was a blip on the radar and only lasted three fights before he and the UFC parted ways. Ryan Spann had just made his debut at heavyweight. Spivac isn't a bad win; however, many media outlets felt Spivac should have been given the nod over him. And now this controversy after a loss to Sergei Pavlovich.
It feels like there isn't any true competition available after Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane settle their business. Heavyweight just simply isn't fun and needs a major hauling -- maybe even a complete reset.
Thankfully the night was able to end on a high note with Steve Garcia's solid, dominating performance over David Onama in the UFC Vegas 110 main event.
Garcia brought the pressure and didn't let up, overwhelming Onama, who seemed to be unable to figure out how to get things going. Garcia worked his boxing, dropping Onama briefly with a left hand before overwhelming him with a flurry of strikes to score the first-round finish.
Garcia has now won seven straight and eight of his last nine. He's definitely earned the right to either be placed in the top-10 and/or face a top-10 opponent next.
What the heck kind of performance was that on the biggest stage of your career?
Onama had all of two strikes in that main event bout, missing on another 14. He looked lost and too patient, showing too much respect for Garcia, and paying the price for it. If Onama is still in the rankings after this week, you know he's going to get a rising unranked fighter in a make-or-break situation for Onama.
Sorry, not sorry; this was a bad card, UFC. A very bad card.
It's been a while, but the UFC has three cards as its UFC Apex in its headquarters of Las Vegas, Nevada, to close out the UFC's 2025 calendar year. While there is another this coming weekend and one on December 13, the first went down yesterday, November 1, with UFC Vegas 110.
It marked the first Fight Night card to go down at the Apex since August 9, with UFC Vegas 109 seeing Anthony "Fluffy" Hernandez making easy work of Roman Dolidze.
The main event of UFC Vegas 110 saw Steve Garcia face David Onama in a featherweight matchup. After losing two of three to start his UFC tenure, Garcia entered this night a winner of six straight and ranked No. 12 in his weight class, entering off a win over Calvin Kattar. Onama, meanwhile, entered this fight ranked No. 13 and a winner of four consecutive, including a win over Giga Chikadze.
The co-main event featured a heavyweight battle between Waldo Cortes-Acosta and Ante Delija. Cortes-Acosta looked to rebound from a loss to Sergei Pavlovich at UFC Shanghai this past August. Delija, the former PFL heavyweight champion, made his UFC debut at UFC Paris in September with a highlight finish of Marcin Tybura.
Who showed up? Who bombed? Let's go through together with the hits and misses of UFC Vegas 110.
At what point can the UFC no longer defend Sedriques Dumas being a member of the UFC roster? Because it's hard not to imagine Dumas getting cut after the way he performed in his loss to Donte Johnson.
Dumas, to his credit, did seem to get the better of Johnson with his striking. Dumas did get an early takedown and tried to keep on it, but Johnson worked his way back to his feet. But that's when Dumas started performing some questionable spinning attacks, allowing Johnson to easily take him down and end the round on top.
A gassed Dumas was then easily taken down and submitted by Johnson -- to the point some wonder if Dumas was looking for a way out before the submission was even fully locked in.
Dumas is now 3-4, and with his track record, it's a wonder if he'll be given another chance.
Billy Elekana ended the UFC Vegas 110 preliminary card with a bang, courtesy of the quick way he put away Kevin Christian.
Christian seemed to be getting the upper hand with the early exchanges, namely in leg kicks. Elekana changed things, however, by making Christian overextend before dropping him with a hard right hand. Elekana then flattened Christian out and sunk in a rear-naked choke for the submission.
Elekana dropped his UFC debut to Bogdan Guskov in January but has now won both fights he's had since. It'll be worth seeing how Elekana -- an alumnus of PFL, LFA, and Tuff-N-Uff -- goes from here in 2026.
Another referee/officials error in the sport of MMA in the year 2025? What a shock... (not).
A referee being out of position can happen. But when a fighter is in the midst of being choked unconscious, the referee should be checking everywhere to ensure they can see the tap. Chris Tognoni went on the opposite side of where the tapout was occuring -- and the submission was never called until Kevin Christian was unconscious -- and he was unconscious for several seconds.
All you have to do is do a Google search for "Chris Tognoni" to see the number of times he's been slammed for one mistake or another. While the number of mistakes he's made has seemingly gone down since an infamous 2020 for him, he's had so many blunders in his tenure, it's a wonder why some haven't referred to him as the new Steve Mazzagatti.
And yet my blame for him can only go so far; he's the product of a system of commissions that don't seem to hold their officials accountable. And I don't know how many more times I can scream into the abyss about the need for such things.
Yadier Del Valle followed up on his solid performance in his UFC debut with another first-round submission victory, quickly putting away Issac Dulgarian.
Del Valle brought pressure and was easily able to score a takedown. He managed to lock up a choke from there, and despite defensive efforts from Dulgarian, the choke proved to be too tight to fight out of.
Del Valle made his UFC debut at UFC Vegas 106 this past May, defeating Connor Matthews in similar fashion. We still need to see Del Valle against tougher competition, obviously, but he just might be someone to keep an eye on.
Unfortunately, this fight ended up getting a big shadow over it...
The prop of Yadier Del Valle scoring a first-round submission had a lot of bets on it coming in the hours leading up to the fight, according to a number of people in the MMA community. And their concerns proved to be true when a number of sportsbooks pulled the fight from betting availability.
It didn't help matters with how the fight played out as it did. And a number of sportsbooks then started to offer refunds for the fight and take the fight's bets out of parlays. And now has come out a number of reports from the likes of Harry Mac in regard to this fight, among others, that have been flagged for line moments. Mac, in fact, is reporting an audit has been requested for fights refereed by Jason Herzog.
To think, the mainstream pro sports world is dealing with the NBA gambling mess, and now we're going to be dealing with this. Do I expect this to go as major as it could? No, not with Dana White's connections to the current U.S. administration. But, it's definitely not a good look.
How is it that another headlining heavyweight fight, for a second week in a row, has a controversy via eye poke? Well, it happened, and this time it saw things go from an Ante Delija knockout victory to one for Waldo Cortes-Acosta.
The fight appeared to be over after a flurry of strikes from Delija. But the referee supposedly called for a timeout instead of stepping in to stop the fight. But Delija's corner celebrated and a number of people entered the Octagon while replay was used. As it turned out, Cortes-Acosta was poked in the eye at the start of the sequence, but the fact that the fight seemed over -- in addition to replay being used and the number of people in the Octagon -- meant it looked like another heavyweight No Contest.
Instead, WCA was allowed time to sit on a stool and rest and recover. Seconds later, with both men swinging their power, Cortes-Acosta dropped and finished Delija. On one hand, it's a phenomenal showing of guts and heart, and he's worthy of a performance bonus. On the other, how is it no one -- from officials to the UFC commentators -- know of how rules work? We'll see if this result stands as it does...
Now, I don't want to completely diss the fact Waldo Cortes-Acosta won in the way he did. But let's look at his winning streak more in depth.
Andrei Arlovski in 2024 was not the Arlovski in his prime. He only fought one more time before retiring. Robelis Despaigne was a blip on the radar and only lasted three fights before he and the UFC parted ways. Ryan Spann had just made his debut at heavyweight. Spivac isn't a bad win; however, many media outlets felt Spivac should have been given the nod over him. And now this controversy after a loss to Sergei Pavlovich.
It feels like there isn't any true competition available after Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane settle their business. Heavyweight just simply isn't fun and needs a major hauling -- maybe even a complete reset.
Thankfully the night was able to end on a high note with Steve Garcia's solid, dominating performance over David Onama in the UFC Vegas 110 main event.
Garcia brought the pressure and didn't let up, overwhelming Onama, who seemed to be unable to figure out how to get things going. Garcia worked his boxing, dropping Onama briefly with a left hand before overwhelming him with a flurry of strikes to score the first-round finish.
Garcia has now won seven straight and eight of his last nine. He's definitely earned the right to either be placed in the top-10 and/or face a top-10 opponent next.
What the heck kind of performance was that on the biggest stage of your career?
Onama had all of two strikes in that main event bout, missing on another 14. He looked lost and too patient, showing too much respect for Garcia, and paying the price for it. If Onama is still in the rankings after this week, you know he's going to get a rising unranked fighter in a make-or-break situation for Onama.
Sorry, not sorry; this was a bad card, UFC. A very bad card.
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