Manon Fiorot's fight with Erin Blanchfield -- a matchup of two top flyweight contenders -- was the main event at UFC Fight Night from Atlantic City, N.J., on Saturday night, but perhaps the most anticipated match of the night proved to be the most controversial as well.
Middleweight mainstay Chris Weidman, looking for his first win since 2020 after breaking his leg in a fight in 2021, earned a unanimous decision over Bruno Silva -- but not without a series of events that may be talked about for some time in UFC circles.
Midway through the third round, Weidman dropped Silva (23-11-0) to the mat then pounced on him and kept pounding until the referee stopped the fight, giving Weidman a TKO.
Silva immediately protested the decision, and reviews showed that a pair of eye pokes from Weidman is what actually sent Silva down. After the match was announced as a TKO in Weidman's favor, the result was changed -- but to a technical decision with Weidman still the winner.
The eye pokes were determined to be inadvertent so judges' scorecards were used, instead. Weidman was leading on all the cards and the 39-year-old got the win, improving his record to 16-7-0.
"I got poked in the eye, too, but my advice to Bruno, much respect to him: It looked like I touched his eyeball when he was coming in -- you can't drop to the ground like that if your eye gets poked," Weidman said in his post-fight interview with Michael Bisping. "You've got to stand, if the ref sees it -- you can't just drop. He did that like three times and it caught up to him."
As for the actual main event, Fiorot extended her winning streak to 12 with a dominant beatdown of Blanchfield (12-2-0).
The Frenchwoman took every round on all three scorecards, winning 50-45 on all three for the easy unanimous decision. The win improved her record to 12-1-0.
In the co-main event, Joaquin Buckley stopped Vicente Luque by TKO in the second round of their welterweight fight.
After Luque failed to get a takedown, Buckley took advantage and landed a series of blows until the fight was stopped at 3:17 of Round 2. Buckley (18-6-0), who previously fought at middleweight, improved to 3-0 since stepping down in classes. Luque dropped to 22-10-1.
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