On this day six years ago, the T-Mobile Arena hosted a stacked pay-per-view card that did not disappoint.
Two of the greatest to grace the octagon, Jon Jones and Amanda Nunes, headlined and co-mained the card respectively, but they were not the ones that captured the attention.
A star was born that day: Jorge Masvidal.
He was thrust into the limelight that night, following a five-second flying knee KO against undefeated Ben Askren.
This is still to this day the fastest knockout in UFC history.
It was a massive moment; there were 89,543 tweets mentioning Masvidal the day after the fight.
This would put Masvidal on a two-fight winning streak, and due to the KO and his well-liked, ‘gangster’ personality, he was rewarded with a “BMF” title bout against fellow fan favourite Nate Diaz.
In the main event, Jon Jones retained his light heavyweight title against Thiago Santos, his 13th title fight win.
The fight ended in a split decision: 48-47, 48-47, 47-48, with four rounds scored to different fighters, showing just how close the bout was.
The fight did not go to the ground, with Jones making one takedown attempt the whole fight despite having a significant advantage on the ground, on paper.
Jon Jones, using oblique kicks, constantly attacking Thiago Santos’ knees, edged the fight in his favour and would leave Thiago Santos with a torn ACL, MCL, PCL, and meniscus.
Thiago Santos never seemed the same after. Losing four of his last five UFC bouts before moving to the PFL.
In the co-main, Amanda Nunes would do what Holly Holm did to Ronda Rousey, but to Holly Holm herself.
Nunes head kicked Holm flush to the chin, knocking her down before follow-up shots would get the fight stopped.
This was Nunes’ fifth defence at Bantamweight, on her way to becoming the consensus greatest woman of all time.
The earlier part of the card set the tone for the rest, with Jan Blachowicz welcoming Luke Rockhold for his pit stop at light heavyweight, TKO’ing him in the second round using that now-infamous Polish power.
Rockhold would go back down to middleweight and lose a war with Paulo Costa in his final bout in the UFC.
Blachowicz was going in the opposite direction, with the Rockhold win being the first win on his win streak to the title, where he would knockout Dominick Reyes to win the 205 lbs belt, before beating previously undefeated Israel Adesanya to defend it.
In the opener of the main card, Michael Chiesa dominated Diego Sanchez, winning a 30-26, 30-26, 30-26 decision.
Bizarrely, Chiesa claimed at the time that Sanchez stuck fingers up his butt, while on the ground!
In the prelims, there were plenty of familiar faces now, who were on the come-up then: Arnold Allen, Marlon Vera and Song Yadong.
Arnold Allen would beat former lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez by going the distance, and ending Melendez’s tenure in the UFC, being his fifth loss in a row.
Marlon Vera would get his fourth win on the bounce, beating debutant Nohelin Hernandez via rear-naked choke in the second round.
Hernandez would have one more fight in the company, losing to Jack Shore, also by submission, before getting cut.
Song Yadong would also get his fourth win on the bounce, knocking out former TUF winner Alejandro Perez in round one.
Vera and Yadong would meet a year after this card in May 2020, with Yadong earning the unanimous decision.
