It has been quite a whirlwind week for Baysangur Susurkaev who headlined the UFC 319 preliminary card Saturday night in Chicago just four days after earning a UFC contract with a win on Dana White’s Contender Series.
Susurkaev improved to 10-0 in professional mixed martial arts after submitting fellow UFC newcomer Eric Nolan with a rear-naked choke following a spirited opening round at the United Center.
Nolan rocked Susurkaev late in Round 1 with a right hand that had Susurkaev on wobbly legs as the horn sounded, but the unbeaten 24-year-old from Chechnya rebounded in the second.
Susurkaev injured Nolan’s left knee with a kick before taking back control and locking in the submission finish.
“I haven’t been this excited about a guy in a very long time,” UFC president Dana White said of Susurkaev earlier in the week.
Susurkaev defeated Murtaza Talha via first-round technical knockout on Tuesday night at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas thanks to a devastating front kick to the body. Susurkaev had also accepted that matchup on less than one week’s notice.
Susurkaev trains with some of the top middleweights in the sport at Kill Cliff FC in Florida and helped UFC 319 headliner Khamzat Chimaev, a fellow Chechan, prepare for the middleweight title fight main event against Dricus Du Plessis. Susurkaev also trains with popular middleweight contender Gregory Rodrigues.
Meanwhile, Nolan had won four consecutive fights before this short-notice debut. The 27-year-old typically competes at 170 pounds, but Saturday’s bout took place in the 185-pound division. The American won the Cage Fury Fighting Championships welterweight title back in May and had won three in a row by knockout prior to UFC 319.
In other preliminary action, Michal Oleksiejczuk made quick work of fellow middleweight Gerald Meerschaert.
The 30-year-old southpaw from Poland had a clear speed and striking advantage and caught Meerschaert repeatedly with left hands until the 37-year-old American went down to the canvas and Oleksiejczuk followed up with several unanswered strikes.
Oleksiejczuk went 0-3 in 2024 but has turned his career around since joining the Fighting Nerds team. He has won two fights in 2025 by first-round finish, building off an April TKO of Sedriques Dumas. Meerschaert has lost three straight and five of his past seven since 2023.
Loopy Godinez earned the biggest win of her career by edging out former strawweight champion Jessica Andrade via unanimous decision.
The Mexican-Canadian out-landed Andrade 71-33 in significant strikes over the first two rounds and withstood a late surge from the one-time titleholder in the final round to get her hand raised and keep moving up the 115-pound rankings. Andrade out-landed Godinez 57-36 in Round 3 but has now lost three in a row and six of her past eight overall.
Alexander Hernandez pulled off an upset knockout of Chase Hooper in the waning seconds of the opening round of their lightweight bout.
Hernandez had gone through a rough 4-7 stretch from 2019 to the middle of last year but has now won three fights in a row. Hooper had a five-fight win streak snapped.
Joseph Morales won the flyweight tournament for season 33 of The Ultimate Fighter with a second-round submission of Alibi Idiris in the opening bout of the card.
The TUF 33 welterweight tournament final between Rodrigo Sezinando and Daniil Donchenko was originally also scheduled for the UFC 319 prelims but the matchup is being rebooked for a later date after an undisclosed injury to Sezinando this week cancelled the bout.
Karine Silva avenged a previous loss to Dione Barbosa in a tightly contested unanimous decision. All three judges had the bout 29-28 for the No. 11-ranked women’s flyweight contender, scoring the final two rounds for Silva. Barbosa had won a decision over Silva in 2019 when the two Brazilians met at a Katana Fight event.
Drakkar Klose picked up a win over Edson Barboza in a meeting of veteran 155-pounders. Klose, 37, hadn’t fought since being knocked out by a Joel Alvarez flying knee this past December but has won five of his past six overall.
Barboza, 39, was returning to lightweight for the first time since 2019. The Brazilian striker went 4-4 competing as a featherweight and held notable past lightweight wins over Dan Hooker, Beneil Dariush, Anthony Pettis, Gilbert Melendez and Bobby “King” Green, among others. Barboza last fought 15 months ago when he lost a Fight of the Night to Lerone Murphy who was featured in the UFC 319 co-main event against Aaron Pico.
Saturday’s prelims were originally slated to be headlined by veteran lightweights Bobby “King” Green and Diego Ferreira, however, the 155-pound matchup was removed from the card after Green sustained an undisclosed injury, which forced him to withdraw from the event.
A middleweight contest between Bryan Battle and Nursulton Ruziboev was removed from the card on the eve of the event after Battle missed weight by a whopping four pounds on Friday morning, marking the third time Battle has missed weight in his UFC career.
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