AMANDA NUNES upset the odds to stop Miesha Tate and claim the UFC women’s bantamweight title on an action-packed night at UFC 200.
Nunes hammered Tate with strikes from the very start then, with Tate weakening, took her back and locked up a neck crank to force Tate to tap out a submission after three minutes, 16 seconds of the very first round.
Nunes came into the bout a 3/1 underdog, but made light of those odds with a blistering performance to become Brazil’s only undisputed UFC champion following her compatriot Rafael dos Anjos’ lightweight title defeat to Eddie Alvarez on Thursday night.
And Brazilian Nunes also scored a notable win for the LGBT community by becoming the first openly gay athlete to win a UFC world title.
The night’s co-main event saw the return of former UFC heavyweight champion – and WWE superstar – Brock Lesnar.
And the 265lb monster made a successful comeback, defeating Top 10 heavyweight contender Mark Hunt by unanimous decision, with scores of 29-27 on all three scorecards.
Lesnar took the opening round with a succession of powerful takedowns, but Hunt came back in the second, stuffing Lesnar’s takedown attempts and punishing him with short punches.
But Hunt wasn’t able to find that one-punch KO he’s been so famous for, and in the third Lesnar landed another takedown on the tiring Kiwi and kept him on the mat, landing ground and pound until the buzzer to secure his victory.
UFC light-heavyweight champ Daniel Cormier wasn’t able to defend his title due to Jon Jones’ failed drug test, but he still claimed victory at the event.
The former Olympic wrestler took on MMA legend Anderson Silva, who agreed to step in at just three days’ notice following Jones’ enforced withdrawal.
And Cormier dominated the Brazilian with his wrestling, taking down Silva almost at will and grinding his way to a unanimous decision victory with scores of 30-26 on all three cards.
Brazilian pound-for-pound star Jose Aldo claimed the interim UFC featherweight title with a thrilling unanimous decision victory over Frankie Edgar.
Aldo and Edgar battled across five hugely competitive rounds, with the Brazilian getting the nod with scores of 49-46, 94-46, 48-47 after one of the tightest title fights we’ve seen this year.
And after the win, Aldo paid tribute to his coach Andre Pederneiras before calling for a rematch with the owner of the full title, Conor McGregor.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez made a devastating return to action in the opening bout of the main card, as he destroyed fellow contender Travis Browne in the opening round.
Velasquez rocked Browne with a spectacular spinning heel kick, then dropped him with a huge right before eventually finishing him on the mat with ground and pound.
The first female winner of The Ultimate Fighter Julianna Pena scored a career-best win with a unanimous decision victory over top contender Cat Zingano in the featured preliminary bout.
Zingano dominated the opening stanza, but Pena came back strongly in the second and third rounds to secure the victory.
And another former winner of The Ultimate Fighter, Kelvin Gastelum, scored the biggest win of his UFC career with a unanimous decision win over former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks.
Hendricks looked a shadow of the man who won the UFC title back in 2014 as he was outstruck and outwrestled by Gastelum, who is fast becoming a rising force in the UFC’s 170lb division.
Gastelum took the win with scores of 29-28, 30-27, 30-27 as he bounced back from his split-decision loss to Neil Magny last November.
Former UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw was in fine form in his bout, as he cruised to a shutout 30-27 win against Brazilian Raphael Assuncao.
Dillashaw’s stick-and-move style proved too tricky for Assuncao to decipher, as the former champion comprehensively outstruck the Brazilian contender to win all three rounds on all three scorecards.
Lightweight prospect ‘Super’ Sage Northcutt rebounded from his January loss to Bryan Barberena with a narrow decision win over Spanish fighter Enrique Marin.
Marin came close to submitting Northcutt twice in a dominant second round that saw him lock up a nasty-looking armbar, then a Kimura.
But Northcutt managed to escape both holds and ground his way to a 29-28 win on all three scorecards after taking Rounds 1 and 3.
The battle of the fan-favourites went the way of Joe Lauzon in devastating fashion as the Octagon veteran put a 86-second beating on the first-ever winner of The Ultimate Fighter Diego Sanchez.
Lauzon cracked Sanchez early on and poured on the pressure, dropping ‘The Nightmare’ twice before referee Mark Smith eventually jumped in to call a stop to the action with Sanchez up against the cage.
Dutch star Gegard Mousasi had the crowd gasping in shock at the conclusion of his bout with dangerous Brazilian prospect Thiago ‘Marreta’ Santos.
Mousasi had already rocked the Brazilian earlier in the opening round, then taken him to the mat in search for a submission.
But when the pair worked their way back to their feet, Mousasi exploded with a huge straight right that sent Santos crashing to the canvas.
The opening bout of the night saw lightweight veteran Jim Miller claim a dominant victory over former PRIDE champion and Japanese icon ‘The Fireball Kid’ Takanori Gomi.
Miller took Gomi to the mat, quickly ended up on his back, flattened him out then rained down ground and pound until referee Mark Smith called an end to the action after two minutes 18 seconds of the opening round.
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