Fight Night Kansas City: Machado Garry vs. Prates

The UFC took their talents to Kansas City and the T-Mobile Center. The fights were amazing with some crazy KO's and dominant performances. Let's look into the main card.

The first fight was between Ikram Aliskerov and Andre Muniz. Muniz is returning from a hiatus of around a year and a half, while Aliskerov is returning after his 1st round KO loss to Robert Whittaker. The fight started out with both men throwing kicks to gauge distance and set the tempo. Aliskerov's boxing started coming out after the first 90 seconds, landing good crosses to the head and body. Aliskerov pushes the tempo, looking to finish the fight with around two minutes left. A short left hook lands and knocks down Muniz and secures the finish. A great bounce-back from Aliskerov to possibly move up in the division rankings.

We move into the fight of the night between Randy Brown and Nicolas Dalby. The first round kicks off with Brown closing the distance immediately. Brown is landing a lot of good long punches down the pipe and damaging Dalby early, breaking his nose badly. Many follow-up shots, but Dalby lands a big overhand right that knocks down Brown. Dalby ends on top in half guard. The second round starts off very quickly with both men taking the tempo up a couple of notches. These two are swinging. Brown is landing good shots, but Dalby is landing harder ones. Brown lands a clean right hook to walk-off knockout Dalby.

Following this slugfest, we have Michel Pereira vs. Abus Magomedov. Pereira starts by moving to the outside. Big shots from Magomedov are hurting Pereira early, getting him on the ground and pounding him in. The second round started with Magomedov leading the dance and clinching to put pressure. Not a lot of action from either side. The third round starts with both men slowing down slightly. They're both trying to look for that big finish to secure their standing as a possible contender. They both are looking for the finish late in the final round. Magomedov gets the easy UD.

The following fight is between seasoned vet Giga Chikadze and David Onama. Onama came in cool and composed as he was fighting out of his hometown. Chikadze works the leg kicks and heavy single shots. But Onama stuns Chikadze with a clean boxing combination. First round ends with Onama on top, holding half guard. The second round kicks off with Onama leading the dance and putting Chikadze on the back foot. Onama shoots a good blast double leg and gets to side control and holds him down for the remainder of the round (around 2 minutes). The third round starts with both men knowing it will come down to a finish or winning this round. As Onama shot for a takedown, the two seemed to clash heads. Onama retains top position for the remainder of the fight. Onama secures the UD, moving him into the top 15 for sure.

For the Co-Main Event, we have Anthony Smith's swan song fight against Zhang Mingyang. Zhang starts with a flurry of low kicks, and Smith wants to counter. Both of these fighters are landing strongly, and Smith gets a nasty cut on his forehead that Zhang is elbowing to damage more. It gets really bad with Zhang putting everything he can on that. It was tough to see Smith end on a loss, but he is a legend in the sport and will be missed in the octagon.

For the Main Event, Carlos Prates looks to continue the Fighting Nerds' win streak, standing in his way is Ian Garry. We saw Garry looking for the head kicks early as he was looking to land them throughout the entire night. He was having a lot of success with his striking and not letting Prates shoot anything back his way. Garry was doing a great job of keeping his head off the center line. In the second round, Garry landed a strong flurry of punches, which ended with a massive uppercut. The third round had a lot of striking, with Prates getting taken down late in the round. In the fourth, Prates started showing some signs of success, opening some cuts on Garry. There was no more momentum going into the fifth round. Garry switched it back and took the fight the distance. It was a great and much-needed bounce-back for Garry.

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