Fight fans had been salivating for nearly a full month as they waited for UFC action to return following a holiday hiatus and the first Fight Night event of 2025 did not disappoint.
The 14-fight card that took place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas was full of highlight finishes from top to bottom and was capped off by Mackenzie Dern using her world-class submission skills to avenge a previous loss to Amanda Ribas.
The popular strawweights and credentialled grapplers spent most of the rematch on the canvas, which is Dern’s comfort zone as a multiple-time world champion Brazilian jiu-jitsu artist.
Dern spent more than half of Round 1 in control on the ground after succeeding on her lone takedown attempt. Ribas responded by controlling most of the second in top position before Dern completed an advanced reversal late.
The third round followed a similar formula, with Dern staying patient on bottom before sweeping Ribas and eventually locking in an armbar. Ribas defended vigilantly, but in the waning seconds of the third round, Dern ramped up her aggression and isolated the arm, which formed a tap from Ribas with only four seconds left on the clock.
Dern, 31, has now won two in a row for the first time in nearly four years and the win was her first submission since an armbar of Nina Nunes in 2021.
Current strawweight champion Weili Zhang is scheduled to defend her title against undefeated Tatiana Suarez at UFC 312 next month in Australia. Dern did not call for a title shot yet, but if she can continue extending her winning streak and do so over competition like Ribas, who is one of two women on the UFC roster currently ranked in the top 10 in two divisions, Dern's name will eventually work its way into the title conversation.
Saturday’s main event was a rematch of a three-round unanimous decision that Ribas won in October of 2019, which at the time was merely four months after Dern gave birth to her daughter who joined her mother in the cage after the fight was over.
Dern is now 8-4 since losing to Ribas and entered Saturday as the No. 6-ranked contender in the 115-pound rankings.
Nine of the 14 fights ended without requiring the judges, including all but one of the main card bouts.
Argentina’s Santiago Ponzinibbio picked up a hard-fought comeback win over Guyana’s Carlston Harris in a back-and-forth, fan-friendly welterweight co-main event.
Ponzinibbio was rocked by a looping punch in the opening round and was getting busted up in the second until he eventually found a home for his one-two and sent Harris stumbling around the cage multiple times, throwing all his weight into overhand rights until eventually the referee stepped in to protect a dazed Harris.
The win snapped a two-fight skid for Ponzinibbio, 38, who has lost five of his past eight overall.
César Almeida took pole position in the extremely early Knockout of the Year race with a crushing KO of Abdul Razak Alhassan.
Less than a minute after getting dropped by a right hand down the pipe from Alhassan, Almeida connected on a perfect left hook as the two middleweights traded power punches.
Alhassan was unconscious the instant the punch landed and fell back stiff like an old oak tree, with the back of his head impacting the canvas with incredible force.
The 39-year-old Alhassan has won just two of his past nine UFC contests overall and remained out for several minutes. He was visibly wobbly as he was assisted out of the cage.
Almeida improved to 7-1 in MMA. The 36-year-old Brazilian was a kickboxing rival of former middleweight and current light-heavyweight champion Alex Pereira and has trained with “Poatan” since transitioning to MMA full time.
The lone loss of Almeida’s career so far was a split decision to Roman Kopylov at UFC 302 this past June.
Kopylov earned his own highlight finish in the bout preceding Almeida’s win, picking up a literal last-second walk-off knockout of Chris Curtis.
The pair of 185-pound southpaws landed 273 combined significant strikes and the most impactful strike was a head kick landed by the 33-year-old Russian on the 37-year-old American in the dying seconds of the final round.
It was the first official knockdown of Curtis’s UFC career and the stoppage became the seventh in UFC history that has occurred with exactly one second remaining in a fight.
Curtis protested and was visibly upset with referee Mark Smith who stopped the fight as Kopylov turned to walk back to his corner with Curtis on the ground.
Punahele Soriano kicked off the main card by sending fellow southpaw Uros Medić flying across the cage and showing that the knockout power he carried at middleweight has translated just fine at welterweight.
Soriano put his opponent away with a step-through right hand after eating a body shot from Medic.
Also, Christian Rodriguez pumped the brakes on the Austin Bashi hype train, handing the hyped prospect his first pro loss with a unanimous decision.
Several of Bashi’s Season 8 Dana White’s Contender Series fellow graduates, such as Jacobe Smith, were victorious on the preliminary card.
Official results for UFC Fight Night: Dern vs. Ribas 2 can be found HERE.
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