Last night (Sat., Oct. 4, 2025), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) ventured forth to T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada for UFC 320. After more than a month without a high-profile event or title fight,
it was great to have two belts on the line! In the main event, Alex Pereira aimed to improve upon the lackluster performance that cost him his title versus Russian ace Magomed Ankalaev, and this rematch carried the added intrigue of genuine bad blood. Before the 205-pounders threw down, Merab Dvalishvili looked to keep his incredible win streak alive by turning away Cory Sandhagen for his third title defense of 2025.
Let’s take a look back over the best performances and techniques of the evening:
Return of the King
Alex Pereira cut through Ankalaev like a hot knife through butter.
Answering every critique of his first performance in the opening exchange, “Poatan” fired an immediate 1-2 down the middle against the vaunted counter puncher. Another powerful right followed moments later and this one landed. After a few hard low kicks — which seemed to immediately bother Ankalaev, not that it mattered — Pereira stepped into another clubbing overhand right, and this one stunned the Russian champion.
One bad takedown attempt and a dozen 12-6 elbows later, the Light Heavyweight belt belonged to Alex Pereira once more.
All the time, we hear fighters speak of illness and injury after losses. Often, it’s much ado about nothing, and future performances show the same flaws. In the case of Alex Pereira, however, I think we can safely say he was not at his best for the first Ankalaev bout back at UFC 313. As promised, he settled this rivalry in an instant, despite each man officially holding a single victory.
Alex Pereira vs. Carlos Ulberg at the White House, anyone?
The Machine Keeps Rolling
Merab Dvalishvili vs. Cory Sandhagen was a great fight.
Sandhagen brought a proper game plan to his first undisputed world title fight. He was aggressive, worked up and down the body, and was clearly well-trained to deny takedowns and escape when grounded. Sandhagen did a ton right in the matchup, and he was able to clearly take the first frame as a result.
The problem is Sandhagen isn’t the only man who has improved. Dvalishvili has genuinely become a much better striker in the last 12 months, and he’s still an absolute horse of a Bantamweight. Early in round two, he bullied Sandhagen to the fence and blasted him with a right hand, nearly knocking out Sandhagen and certainly stealing some of the wind from his sails.
From that point forward, Sandhagen was like every other Merab opponent, trying to dig himself out of a hole. That’s a brutally difficult game to play, because Dvalishvili’s cycle of takedowns and constant offense is nearly impossible to break once it begins. Sandhagen continued to fight gamely, but the takedowns started coming more and more easily, and everybody knows Dvalishvili isn’t going to slow down.
To all future Merab opponents — good luck! At some point, the champ will fall off athletically. Until then, withstanding his wrestling barrage is a Herculean task.
Prochazka’s Strangest Performance Yet
I love Jiri Prochazka. I believe there’s often an overlooked method to his madness. Against Khalil Rountree Jr., however, I could not identify such patterns or logic behind his decision-making. Seemingly of his own free will, Prochazka spent two full rounds hanging back and striking at distance with perhaps the meanest kicker Light Heavyweight has ever seen.
Oh, and he slipped all around the place for no conceivable reason.
Prochazka’s strategy didn’t behoove him, and he was down two rounds with five minutes remaining. Suddenly, “BJP” woke up and got on the front foot! After walking into one massive counter, he stung Rountree with a lead hand uppercut and flipped the script. Suddenly, Rountree was circling off, desperate for a moment to breathe. Prochazka chased him down with relentless punches from both stances, stabbing teeps to the belly, and lots of close range elbows and knees. He pushed Rountree into the fence and then UNLOADED with a massive 3-2 combination, putting Rountree into the canvas face-first.
The momentum switch literally happened within seconds of Prochazka committing to his pressure. Why not press from the jump?!? I have no answer, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of some injury to Prochazka’s toes or ankles in the coming days. At the very least, that would explain the slipping.
Baffling or not, it’s time for fight fans to put some real respect on Jiri Prochazka’s name. In the last decade, the man has faced lots of excellent opposition and only ever come up short to Alex Pereira. He’s a genuinely great Light Heavyweight and deserves to be back in the title mix!
32 wins, 28 KOs — “The Czech Samurai” is a legend.
Top Five Bound?
Youssef Zalal made it look easy versus Josh Emmett.
“The Moroccan Devil” stayed mobile early on and then timed a picture-perfect double leg while still in the feeling out process. He landed in great position, already half on Emmett’s back. When the powerful wrestler tried to escape out the back door, Zalal slid off into an armbar/triangle attack. That’s a dangerous game to play — particularly against a powerhouse like Emmett — but Zalal executed the submission masterfully. He stayed clamped on the elbow, secured the angle, and hipped in hard, forcing a verbal submission in the opening couple minutes.
After this victory, Zalal has won five straight since returning to the Octagon, securing four taps in the process. He’s clearly at the top of his game, and it’s time to push him into the immediate title mix. There are lots of Featherweights closing in on a title shot — Diego Lopes, Movsar Evloev, Lerone Murphy — and Zalal deserves to face one of them next.
Joe Pyfer, Genuine Prospect
As a whole, the fighting community seems a little tired of Joe Pyfer. He’s said some dumb s—t — regular dumb, not Bryce Mitchell dumb — and was the beneficiary of an overeager UFC push that saw him upset by Jack Hermansson a few fights back. When he lost to “The Joker” in his first UFC main event, there was a lot of celebrating and “FRAUD CHECK” claims in the comments.
Unfortunately for those fans/haters, Pyfer is actually quite good and showed it again opposite Abus Magomedov. Rather than just slug it out, Pyfer opted to wrestle hard from the first bell. It was a surprising strategy that didn’t create initial success, but the jiu-jitsu black belt did manage to quickly wear down the German veteran. By the start of round two, Magomedov was an absolutely diminished man.
Pyfer ran over him, knocking him down quickly and chaining together submission attempts until Magomedov was forced to tap. It’s another feather in the cap of “Bodybagz,” who has won three straight and just showed off new wrinkles to his game. Like it or not, the 29-year-old slugger is a serious 185-pound prospect.
A Scheduled Execution
Ateba Gautier made short work of Tre’ston Vines.
He was supposed to. Gautier — a hard-hitting physical force nicknamed “Mini Ngannou” — was facing a short-notice replacement, and Vines isn’t particularly accomplished on the regional scene. Subsequently, Gautier swelled up to the biggest favorite in UFC history and then lived up to the odds. If there was ever an obvious time to bet your entire mortgage and win back 1/40 of it, this was the fight.
Vines had no chance. He ran around the cage and tried to time wild takedowns twice. The first time, he ate a hard knee that nearly put him down for good. The second shot landed him in better position, but Gautier still threw him to the floor and knocked him cold with strikes.
It’s not a fight that really needed to happen. We already knew Gautier was a monstrous physical talent — nothing has changed there. As for Vines, he found a painful way to get his foot in the UFC door, but I wouldn’t bet on his Octagon career lasting very long.
I hope for his sake he proves me wrong.
Patchy Mix Officially A Bust
Fun fact: I wrote the little headline above before the judges decision’ was read, as I assumed Mix would be granted the decision victory over Jakub Wiklacz. Getting (debatably) robbed by the judges is another nail in the coffin, but the important bit here is that Mix looked awful yet again. In fact, he looked worse than he did against Mario Bautista, a performance that was already a step down from some of his Bellator showings.
Mix has never been fleet-footed, but he looked abysmally slow here. Even on the canvas, the jiu-jitsu ace was a step behind. He was nearly guillotined and swept on multiple occasions. Until Wiklacz gassed, Mix struggled to find any success on the feet or the canvas.
It feels like Patchy Mix used up all his greatness to win the Bellator Bantamweight Grand Prix. Stopping Magomed Magomedov, Raufeon Stots, and Sergio Pettis in five rounds total was genuinely amazing work that could only be done by a top fighter.
Sadly, that magic is gone, and Mix’s UFC career may already be at its end.
Additional Thoughts
- Daniel Santos defeats Jin Sang Yoo via second-round knockout (highlights): This was a great clash of striking styles. Santos is classic Muay Thai, a hard charging puncher who likes to punctuate his powerful swings with kicks. Yoo, conversely, is all slickness and speed, a precision counter puncher that looks to turn off the lights with one shot. What made this match up so fun is that both men were finding a lot of success! Yoo won the first frame on the strength of his jab and calf kick, which were routinely catching Santos off-guard thanks to the South Korean’s speed. However, Santos still found success by extending his combinations. Several times, he even caught Yoo after getting clipped by that picturesque Yoo counter shot, because the Brazilian made it a point to always fire back. His aggression paid off early in round two when Yoo pulled away from an exchange, dodging the first punch, the second, and then eating the third (a huge left hook) right on the chin.
- Edmen Shahbazyan defeats Andre Muniz via first-round knockout (highlights): Every Shahbazyan fight features a certain tension. We’ve seen “Golden Boy” collapse from fatigue in fights he was winning too many times. Even as he’s slowly fixed his conditioning, it’s hard to fully trust the boxer. This time around, Muniz got off to a fast start and landed some heavy body kicks off the bat, which raised the concern level. However, Shahbazyan handled the shots well and bided his time, cracking Muniz with a hard right hand towards the end of the first. With short time on the clock, Shahbazyan was able to unleash a series of elbows and force finish. Now 3-0 in 2025, perhaps Shahbazyan has turned a corner and can be reconsidered as a genuine contender once more? Somehow, he’s still just 27 years old!
- Ramiz Brahimaj defeats Austin Vanderford via second-round guillotine choke (highlights): Brahimaj’s UFC career did not get off to a hot start. The jiu-jitsu black belt lost three of his first five appearances, and whatever hype he debuted with dissipated as a result. Since then, however, he’s won three straight via finish as an underdog — perhaps it’s time to reevaluate? In this bout, Brahimaj was both the better striker and grappler. Vanderford was getting touched standing and forced to wrestle, but he failed to advance position or do much of anything when able to take down the Texan. As a result, he was forced to keep shooting, and Brahimaj eventually found his neck for the best win yet of his career.
For complete UFC 320 results and play-by-play, click here.
