Dominick Reyes, Movsar Evloev among big winners on stacked UFC 310 prelims

Outside of marquee events such as UFC 300 from earlier this year, fight fans are rarely treated to preliminary cards that boast as many credentialled fighters, including former champions, as UFC 310 did on Saturday night.

Past light-heavyweight title challengers Dominick Reyes and Anthony Smith met in the featured preliminary bout at T-Mobile Arena with Reyes putting away Smith late in the second round.

Smith fought with a heavy heart, shedding tears on his walk to the cage and crying with his team prior to stepping into the Octagon. The 36-year-old’s best friend and coach, Scott Morton, recently died unexpectedly at age 47. Morton had cornered Smith in the majority of his 58 pro bouts prior to UFC 310 and Smith had said earlier in the week he did not care about winning or losing.

After a spirited opening round, Reyes began inflicting damage with repeated elbows in the second. Eventually, Smith stopped intelligently defending himself and the referee called a halt to the action.

Reyes set a new personal record for strikes landed in a fight. In fact, Reyes landed more significant strikes in less than two rounds against Smith than he did in his five-round championship fight with Jon Jones.

Reyes and Smith both sniffed UFC gold earlier in their careers but fell just short under interesting circumstances when they challenged Jones during his 205-pound title reign.

Smith could’ve forced a Jones disqualification to become champion at UFC 235 in 2019 after eating a damaging illegal knee in the fourth round for which Jones was deducted two points — DQ is how Aljamain Sterling first beat Petr Yan to become a UFC champ — and the majority of the MMA world still believes to this day Reyes should’ve gotten the decision over Jones in their closely contested UFC 247 main event decision.

Reyes was knocked out in three consecutive fights immediately after his loss to Jones but returned earlier this year looking revamped. He earned a knockout win over Dustin Jacoby in June and heads into 2025 on his first multi-fight winning streak in five years.

An emotional Smith hinted at retirement following the loss, saying he doesn’t know how many more times he can compete without having his late friend in his corner.

Featherweights Movsar Evloev and Aljamain Sterling put on a clinic in both wrestling and scrambling with Evloev improving to 19-0 in mixed martial arts following 15 gruelling minutes.

“I’m always ready for a title shot,” the undefeated contender said after his eighth consecutive victory since debuting in the UFC five years ago.

Sterling, a former bantamweight champion who moved up a weight class after losing his title to Sean O’Malley in 2023, impressed in his first 145-pound UFC bout in April when he beat Calvin Kattar and had success against Evloev. However, his inability to maintain top control late in the first and third rounds was likely the difference in this outstanding, grappling-heavy contest.

Evloev, 30, was riding the momentum of a January win over Arnold Allen and holds a previous victory over Diego Lopes that has aged extremely well as Lopes’s star power has continued growing during his current five-fight winning streak.

Current featherweight champion Ilia Topuria knocked out Alexander Volkanovski in February to win the title and knocked out Max Holloway in October to defend it.

A rematch with Volkanovski is possibly next for Topuria given Volkanovski’s track record in the division when he was champion, however, Evloev as well as Lopes have strong arguments to make based on recent success.

UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili was in Sterling’s corner and could be heard shouting instructions during the fight.

Vicente Luque got back in the win column in a big way by ending Themba Gorimbo’s five-fight winning streak thanks to a vintage performance.

Luque rocked his opponent early with a punch and went for a choke immediately as Gorimbo dropped towards the canvas. The Brazilian locked in a tight anaconda choke that put Gorimbo to sleep in under a minute.

The win was the fastest anaconda choke finish in UFC history. Matt Brown is the only welterweight competitor in UFC history with more finishes than Luque.

Luque was originally and perplexingly scheduled to face Nick Diaz at this event before Gorimbo was named his replacement. Luque and Gorimbo are both 33 years old despite there being a disparity in experience. This was only Gorimbo’s 19th pro bout compared to it being Luque’s 34th pro fight and 22nd appearance at the UFC level alone.

Bryan Battle was the lone fighter to miss weight on Friday but Randy Brown wasn’t able to make him pay on fight night as Battle edged out a narrow split decision win.

Brown said Friday he felt it was disrespectful and unprofessional for his opponent to miss weight by a whopping four pounds, for which he was fined 30 per cent of his purse. The six-foot-three Brown, on the other hand, has never missed the welterweight limit in his 19 UFC appearances.

The 34-year-old Brown had won seven of his past eight fights prior to UFC 310. Meanwhile Battle, 30, was able to extend his unbeaten streak to six consecutive fights.

The split decision was met with some boos and then Battle egged on the crowd some more during his post-fight interview. All three judges scored the first round for Brown and the second for Battle with the close third being split two judges to one in favour of Battle.

Former middleweight champion Chris Weidman was denied his dream of fighting at Madison Square Garden in his home state at UFC 309 a few weeks ago when food poisoning forced his opponent, Eryk Anders, off the card after the pair had already made weight. The tilt was rescheduled for UFC 310 at a 195-pound catchweight and Anders picked up the biggest win of his career.

Each fighter had their moments in the opening round but Anders took over in the second round by gaining top position and then landed 47 ground strikes that resulted in the referee stepping in.

Weidman is now 1-2 since suffering a gruesome broken leg in 2021. The 40-year-old began his pro career 13-0 and ended Anderson Silva’s run as champion, however, Weidman has gone 3-8 since losing the title in 2015.

Earlier on the prelims, Michael Chiesa capped off quite the week by closing out his 2024 campaign a perfect 2-0. Not only did he earn his jiu-jitsu black belt on Friday, he put it to good use Saturday on his 37th birthday, picking up a third-round submission win over Max Griffin. It was Chiesa’s 12th career win by submission and second consecutive via rear-naked choke.

Chase Hooper was just four years old when Clay Guida made his professional MMA debut in 2003, and a 25-year-old Hooper submitted a 42-year-old Clay Guida with an armbar in the opening round of their lightweight bout.

UFC 310 was headlined by a men’s flyweight title bout, a spotlight 125-pounders Joshua Van and Cody Durden hope to one day occupy. 

Van put on a great performance and landed 140 significant head strikes over three rounds in his unanimous decision win over Durden. The 23-year-old Van is a high-ceiling flyweight fighter who should debut in the UFC rankings next week since he was unranked and Durden sat at No. 14 prior to the result.

At the other end of the weight class spectrum, Kennedy Nzechukwu opened the night with a first-round knockout of fellow heavyweight Lukasz Brzeski after connecting with a flush right hook as the two traded punches.