The best and worst from UFC 242: Khabib vs. Poirier

#3 Best: Felder vs. Barboza delivers the goods

Paul Felder's war with Edson Barboza was tremendous fun to watch

The initial meeting between Paul Felder and Edson Barboza – which took place just over four years ago – delivered one of the better striking battles of 2015, and while tonight’s rematch might’ve featured a bit of a questionable decision, I felt that it was probably the best fight of the night, at least on the main pay-per-view portion of the card.

After three rounds of hard-hitting action, Felder was awarded a split decision, taking a 29-28 and 30-27 to a lone 27-30 scorecard for the Brazilian. Personally I had it 29-28 for Barboza, feeling he did enough to take the first two rounds, but it was definitely close – and the fact that Felder was cosmetically damaged badly by an accidental first round headbutt may have played a part in the thinking that Barboza deserved the win.

In the end, Felder was the slightly more active fighter but Barboza probably landed the harder shots, and realistically, we still don’t really know who the better fighter is. What we do know is that despite taking a ton of damage recently, Barboza can still take a shot, and despite becoming better known for his commentary lately, Felder is still tough as old leather.

The UFC could do a lot worse than simply matching these two up in a third encounter and giving them five rounds – as the main event of a Fight Night show – to settle the score once and for all. I’d definitely love to see it.