Eight winners from twelve fights made this a strong card from an analysis point of view.

The main event went to the right man. Christian Leroy Duncan handled Jared Cannonier. Fatima Kline confirmed the gap between her and Tabatha Ricci. Chase Hooper found the submission. Tommy McMillen produced the sort of performance that can shift a prospect’s whole career in fifteen minutes.

There were misses too. Austin Bashi could not turn his wrestling into enough control. Seokhyeon Ko failed to win the fight on his terms. Levi Rodrigues Jr. was stopped by Felipe Franco. Alvin Hines barely had time to settle before RJ Harris ended the fight.

The final record was 8-4, but the more useful part came from how those fights played out.

Du Plessis did not need a war

Dricus Du Plessis beat Kamaru Usman by unanimous decision, with scores of 50-45, 49-46 and 49-46. The result was clear. What stood out was the way he got there.

The obvious pre-fight question centred on wrestling.

Usman had the right tool to attack Du Plessis’ weakest area. He needed to close space early, force the South African towards the fence and build rounds through takedowns, mat returns and clinch work.

That fight never really took shape.

Du Plessis defended the entries, kept the exchanges short and returned to open space before Usman could build the long grappling sequences he needed. There was no early phase where Usman took control and forced the favourite to dig himself out.

Instead, Du Plessis looked calmer than usual.

His best performances have often come from making ugly fights work in his favour. He can survive bad positions, absorb clean shots and keep producing offence long after the technique has broken down.

This time, much of that chaos was missing.

Du Plessis managed range, picked his moments and stayed ahead without chasing a finish that was not there. He later described the performance as “Stillknocks 2.0”, pointing to better composure, cleaner execution and stronger takedown defence. The branding can be left to him. The shift in style was real enough.

Usman showed the toughness that has defined much of his career, but toughness was not enough to close the physical gap.

At welterweight, Usman once had the strength to make his preferred positions feel inevitable. At middleweight, against a man built like Du Plessis, each entry came with less control and more cost.

Du Plessis did not overwhelm him. He removed his best route, then won the rest of the fight.

That may be more useful for his future than another wild finish.

McMillen broke Montes with pace

Tommy McMillen delivered the performance of the night.

He stopped Alberto Montes in the third round after landing 252 significant strikes, breaking the UFC record for a three-round fight. The previous mark belonged to Nate Diaz. McMillen also picked up another performance bonus.

The number is eye-catching. The way he reached it tells the fuller story.

McMillen did not produce one huge burst and fade. He kept the same kind of pressure across the fight, forcing Montes to work almost every second. Even when Montes found space, McMillen gave him very little time to settle.

That sort of pace changes the opponent’s job.

Montes was no longer trying to win clean exchanges. He was trying to survive enough of them to find a reset. By the third round, those resets were gone.

McMillen’s offence is still raw in places. There are defensive risks in fighting at that speed, and better opponents will punish openings that Montes could not. The excitement around him will now rise quickly, perhaps faster than the technical development.

Still, this was not empty chaos.

The pressure had shape. The output had purpose. The finish came from accumulation rather than one lucky shot.

McMillen now has two UFC wins and two bonuses. The next step should not be a rush towards the rankings. It should be another opponent capable of pushing back and making him solve a different kind of problem.

Kline had answers everywhere

Fatima Kline beat Tabatha Ricci by unanimous decision.

The matchup always looked difficult for Ricci because Kline could meet her in the phase where she normally gains ground.

Ricci needed to close distance and turn the fight into clinch work and wrestling. Against a taller striker with limited grappling, that route can cancel out the reach gap.

Kline was not that opponent.

She could score before the clinch, stay balanced when Ricci entered and work her way through the scrambles without giving up long spells of control. Ricci kept trying, but too many of the exchanges ended with Kline either escaping or finishing in the stronger position.

The fight lacked one huge moment because Kline never needed one.

She won through range, physical strength and enough grappling skill to stop Ricci from turning persistence into control. The scorecards reflected a fight where one athlete had more ways to solve the same problem.

Kline still has room to sharpen the finishing side of her game, but this was a useful win. She showed that the physical advantages were backed by sound decisions, not just size.

Duncan made Cannonier look old

Christian Leroy Duncan beat Jared Cannonier by unanimous decision, extending his winning run to five.

Cannonier’s recent use of wrestling made this more than a simple striker-versus-striker fight. His best chance was to slow Duncan down, crowd him and make the younger man work in positions where speed and range mattered less.

Duncan refused to stay there.

He managed distance well, chose his shots and did not linger after landing. That last part mattered most.

Earlier in his UFC career, Duncan sometimes gave opponents a chance to fire back because he stayed in the pocket too long after finishing his own work. Against Cannonier, he looked more willing to bank the exchange and leave.

There was no dramatic finish, but there was plenty of control.

Cannonier remained dangerous enough to demand respect, yet rarely found the kind of fight he needed. Duncan’s performance felt less like a breakout and more like proof that the rough edges are being filed down.

At middleweight, that is often what separates a talented athlete from a real contender.

Delgado passed the wrestling test

Jose Miguel Delgado beat Austin Bashi by unanimous decision.

Before the fight, Bashi’s wrestling looked like the cleanest route to disrupting Delgado’s offence. The question was whether he could impose it often enough at UFC level.

He could not.

Bashi had moments where the entries forced Delgado backwards, but the control never lasted. Delgado created space, punished the breaks and kept enough offence flowing to win the rounds.

This was a valuable performance because it answered the biggest question around Delgado.

His striking had already looked dangerous. What had not been tested properly was how well it would hold up against a fighter built around pressure and takedowns.

Delgado did not completely shut Bashi down. He did enough to stop the wrestling from becoming the centre of the fight.

That is the difference between having the right style on paper and being able to make it work against a stronger opponent.

Bashi reportedly suffered facial fractures in the loss, which says plenty about the damage Delgado produced once he found room.

The lower card gave no easy answers

Chase Hooper submitted Mitch Ramirez in the opening round and ended a two-fight skid. Dione Barbosa also found a first-round submission against Anna Melisano. Alden Coria and Ezra Elliott both won by decision.

The misses came in very different fights.

Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani beat Seokhyeon Ko by decision. Felipe Franco stopped Levi Rodrigues Jr. Alvin Hines was finished early by RJ Harris.

These were among the fights with the least UFC evidence going into the card. That does not make the wrong picks meaningless, but it does limit how much can be claimed with confidence before the cage door closes.

Ko never built the control expected of him. Rodrigues Jr. could not handle Franco once the pressure rose. Hines barely had time to show anything before Harris ended it.

The lesson is not to avoid lower-card fights. It is to be honest about how thin the evidence can be.

Final word

Du Plessis left Oklahoma City with the clearest win of the night.

McMillen left with the loudest one.

Kline and Duncan both showed why development is not always about adding more offence. Sometimes it is about removing the moments where an opponent can drag the fight away from you.

The card finished with eight correct winners from twelve. The strongest reads held up because the matchups played out along the lines the data suggested, even when the exact route changed.

That is the useful part of a post-fight review.

Not proving the preview right.

Finding out which parts of it survived contact with the fight.