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With a huge middleweight title clash in the headline bout and a number of other big fights elsewhere on the card, the stakes were always high at UFC 271.
While UFC 271 wasn’t quite as stacked as the biggest pay-per-views we’ve seen recently, it definitely delivered the goods for the most part. A number of fighters will be pleased with their efforts today.
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With a number of fighters climbing the ladder towards title shots – and one in particular remaining at the peak of his division – this will be a show that has ramifications for the rest of 2022 and further on.
With that in mind, here are the five biggest winners from UFC 271: Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker 2.
#5. Andrei Arlovski – defeated Jared Vanderaa in a UFC heavyweight bout
Okay, so it’s safe to say that nobody would’ve considered Andrei Arlovski’s win over Jared Vanderaa as a classic. In fact, it probably doesn’t rank within the top-15 wins of Arlovski’s career.
However, the fact that ‘The Pitbull’ is still competing in the UFC’s heavyweight division at the age of 43, after being written off on so many occasions before, makes him one of the biggest winners from last night’s event.
Sure, Arlovski definitely isn’t going to move into title contention any time soon. In fact, judging by the struggles he had against Vanderaa, who was 1-2 in the octagon coming into the bout, to put him against an opponent like Derrick Lewis or Ciryl Gane would be downright dangerous.
However, ‘The Pitbull’ clearly outworked ‘The Mountain’ in all areas and deserved his victory, which, bizarrely, puts him on a three-fight winning streak.
How much longer can Arlovski remain competing in the promotion, even against lower-level opponents like Vanderaa, is anyone’s guess. After all, his chin was seemingly cracked well over a decade ago now.
For now at least, though, he remains a solid member of the roster. While his best years are blatantly behind him, he’s the kind of fighter that fans should appreciate a little more while they still have the chance.
#4. Casey O’Neill – defeated Roxanne Modafferi in a UFC flyweight bout
Outside of middleweight Jared Cannonier, the fighter who probably inched closest to a title shot with her performance last night was Casey O’Neill. It wasn’t her best showing, but ‘King Casey’ clearly outpointed Roxanne Modafferi, moving her to 4-0 in the octagon. A meeting with UFC flyweight champ Valentina Shevchenko could even be next for her.
Quite how one judge decided Modafferi had won this fight was truly baffling. O’Neill essentially bested her in every possible area, clearly outstriking her veteran opponent and never letting her bother her on the ground, too.
Naturally, the knock on ‘King Casey’ here would be the lack of an explosive finish. However, Modafferi has not been stopped since 2018. More to the point, she’d upset a vaunted prospect in Maycee Barber in recent years, meaning O’Neill was probably smart to not take too many chances.
Can the Scottish-born, Australian-based fighter provide a threat to Shevchenko, then? Based on last night’s evidence, it seems doubtful, but then again, O’Neill is a young fighter who, theoretically, should be improving with each bout.
Right now, she’s got as good a chance as anyone else of defeating the champ. After last night’s win, she’s probably the most viable challenger too. It’s time for the promotion to book this fight for later in 2022.
#3. Tai Tuivasa – defeated Derrick Lewis in a UFC heavyweight bout
The most explosive finish from UFC 271 came from Tai Tuivasa. He dispatched Derrick Lewis with a genuinely brutal elbow strike in the second round. Due to the high stakes of the bout, ‘Bam Bam’ was undoubtedly one of the night’s biggest winners, too.
Not only should his win over Lewis, a former heavyweight title challenger, move him into the division’s top five, but it also proved a lot about his sheer toughness.
Most fans figured that the first man to land a big bomb would win the fight. In fact, ‘The Black Beast’ landed first in both the opening and second rounds, and yet Tuivasa ate the shots right up and fired back. He eventually landed a hard enough strike to put Lewis down for good.
Quite how the Australian’s chin withstood the same punches that’d previously put 13 different fighters down is anyone’s guess. Will eating shots like that do any good for Tuivasa’s future health? Of course not, but it’s unlikely that he’ll care right now.
Whether ‘Bam Bam’ is a genuine threat to the likes of Francis Ngannou, Curtis Blaydes and Ciryl Gane is also a fair question. He may well be too limited to beat them, but given his toughness and knockout power, it’s now impossible to count him out.
If nothing else, this win should guarantee him a headline spot in his next bout. For a fighter who seemed on the verge of being cut from the UFC just a year or so ago, that’s huge.
#2. Jared Cannonier – defeated Derek Brunson in a UFC middleweight bout
Last night’s middleweight clash between Jared Cannonier and Derek Brunson was effectively billed as a title eliminator. While it wasn’t a flawless showing from ‘The Killa Gorilla’, his second-round knockout win should be enough to net him a shot at Israel Adesanya later in 2022.
Early on, it looked like Brunson was the more likely to come out of the fight on top. He hurt Cannonier with some heavy shots and then came close to finishing him off with a rear-naked choke, too.
However, he also pushed himself too hard in his pursuit of the finish and seemingly gassed himself out. That was enough to allow Cannonier back into the fight.
Sure enough, ‘The Killa Gorilla’ obliged, hammered Brunson with his trademark heavy strikes and eventually put him away with some genuinely brutal elbow strikes.
Given the way the fight started, it’s going to be hard to sell Cannonier as a genuine threat to Adesanya, particularly given how Robert Whittaker comfortably defeated him in 2021.
However, when you add this win over Brunson to his previous ones over Kelvin Gastelum, Jack Hermansson and Anderson Silva, it’d also be very harsh to deny him a title shot at this point. In that sense, ‘The Killa Gorilla’ must be considered one of last night’s biggest winners.
#1. Israel Adesanya – defeated Robert Whittaker to retain the UFC middleweight title
Naturally, last night’s biggest winner was definitely Israel Adesanya, who outpointed former champion Robert Whittaker to retain his UFC middleweight title.
Sure, the victory didn’t come quite as easily as his first one over ‘The Reaper’ back in October 2019, but in a lot of ways, this win was actually more impressive. It saw him fight through at least some adversity to come out on top.
No, Whittaker didn’t hurt Adesanya at any stage or come close to finishing him. However, he made a number of the adjustments that observers expected could lead him to avenging his earlier defeat.
‘The Reaper’ tried taking Adesanya down, he was more patient and he even engaged ‘The Last Stylebender’ in more of a point-fighting bout than the first time around. But he still came up short.
Was this win as entertaining as Adesanya’s victory over Paulo Costa, for instance? Obviously not, but given that Whittaker is clearly head and shoulders above everyone else in the division, to see ‘The Last Stylebender’ edge him out again was a very big deal.
Who is next for Adesanya? Based on his own big win last night, it’s Jared Cannonier. However, based on that win, it’d be a shock to see him come close to beating the New Zealand-based striker, who remains the greatest middleweight fighter on the planet.
Based on that, there’s no doubt that ‘The Last Stylebender’ was UFC 271’s biggest winner by far.
