UFC 273 was entertaining
Comments on the top 3 fights
The Burns/Chimaev fight was sensational and I thought Burns could easily have been given the last round and I reckon Chimaev was close to done at the end of the 2nd round but was saved by the buzzer. Chimaev is definitely a top 5 guy but is aura has disappeared after that IMO. I doubt he beats Usman or Colby at this point and one of them (or Leon Edwards) will be his next opponent. I don't think Colby takes the fight because why would he? Colby ain't getting another shot at Usman any time soon so he needs Usman to lose and if Chimaev (or Edwards for that matter) get the job done then Colby gets his shot.
The Sterling/Yan fight was a bit boring and I'm not sure the judges got it right. It was a split decision so that will always garner debate. Sterling dominated rounds 2 and 3 and Yan was the clear winner of rounds 4 and 5. For me Yan edged round 1 but two of the judges disagreed. The difference from the first fight was Sterling was able to get Yan's back twice and dominate the grapple from there. In the stand up Yan was still better but not as dominant as the first fight. I actually had the fight a 47-47 draw as Sterling earned a 10-8 in the 2nd IMO.
The main event was the definition of domination. Volk looked next level and Zombie had absolutely no answer for it. I can't say I am surprised because I remember what Volk did to Ortega and in turn I remember what Ortega did to Zombie in October 2020 in a dominant unanimous decision. There are levels to this game and as far as the featherweight division goes it is Volk, Max, daylight, Ortega, daylight, the rest until someone proves otherwise. Volk continuously tagged him with heavy hits with Zombie not being able to handle the hand speed and taking him down when he felt like it too. It was sad to watch at times as Zombie was completely outclassed and took unnecessary damage from the 3rd round onward. One thing boxing does better than MMA is the corners use the towels more often and save their fighters. All respect to Zombie for trying to tough it out but his corner should have thrown in the towel midway through round 3 and it is an absolute disgrace that they let him continue beyond round 3. Herb Dean couldn't wait for an opportunity to stop it and thankfully he did because Zombie has a hard chin and probably would have gutted it out to the end.
Interesting to see what they do at FW form here. Max is the obvious one and there is every chance he eeks out a decision as those fights will always be close but we can't just have them fight perpetually. Yair will probably get his chance at some point and whoever survives out of the inevitable fights between Allen, Emmett, Chikadze and Mitchell will be after that. Ultimately Volk, Max or both will move up to LW IMO. I reckon Max will do it first as Volk probably likes the idea of running through the names I mentioned before moving up.
