Recap: UFC London

The UFC did not disappoint after putting on a fantastic show at the O2 Arena in London.

This featured a main event between Fabricio Werdum and Alexander Volkov.

The bout between the two heavyweight giants finished in the fourth round. However, the early stages of this fight was Werdum controlling a lot of the action with his Jiu-Jitsu. Volkov would continue to stay patient and floor Werdum with a thunderous uppercut. “Drago” later followed this up with a short amount strikes on the ground, referee Marc Goddard soon jumped in to stop this brutality.

This secured Alexander his 30th career victory and 6th straight win inside the UFC Octagon.

Breaking down the Main Event:

In the first of the main event, we saw Werdum get an early takedown. Spending most of this round on top. Once this bout took a turn and Volkov got back to his feet Werdum took a tremendous knee to the face followed up by a right uppercut. This left Werdum with some early swelling which later slowed him down as the fight continued. Fabricio would still go on to win this round.

Volkov would slowly begin to find his rhythm over the next couple of rounds. Werdum was unable to lock in a submission which could’ve been the key to winning this fight.

The co-main event happened to be the rematch between Jan Blachowicz and Jimi Manuwa. Jimi was favoured going into this bout, Jan landed some flush shots that dropped Manuwa with roughly two minutes to go in the first round. Blachowicz soon put tremendous pressure on Manuwa but the “Poster Boy” was able to make it through the first round.

In the second round Manuwa seemed to have recovered, he began pushing Blachowicz back and applying pressure. In the final 30 seconds, Manuwa landed with a big head kick which had Jan in trouble. With more time remaining Manuwa might have been able to earn a finish, but this went into the third round. This round saw more of the same, both men going back and forth landing big strikes. Manuwa and Blachowicz both looked very tired!

Blachowicz ended up taking this rematch, defeating Manuwa by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27).

In my opinion, Volkov should next face the winner of Curtis Blaydes and Alistair Overeem which will take place at UFC225. However, a fight with the current #1 ranked UFC Heavyweight Francis Ngannou would make sense. This fight would be excellent for both men and a good test for Volkov, Francis is purely a striker who possesses one-punch knockout power in both hands. With “The Predator” wanting to make a comeback this would be a perfect opportunity and a very interest fight to watch, Ngannou is coming off a title fight loss to current UFC Heavyweight Champion Stipe Miocic at UFC220 on January 20, 2018.