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UFC Fight Night: Rozenstruik vs. Gaziev Takeaways and Thoughts
March 4, 2024
UFC Fight Night: Rozenstruik vs. Gaziev took place on Saturday. While there were some fun and interesting things that happened, it became pretty clear why Saudi Arabia did not want this show and opted to wait for the UFC to debut there until later in the year.
Let’s take a quick look at the results…
Main card
Jairzinho Rozenstruik def. Shamil Gaziev via fourth-round TKO (5:00)
Vitor Petrino def. Tyson Pedro via unanimous decision (30-27 x2, 29-28)
Muhammad Mokaev def. Alex Perez via UD (29-28 x3)
Umar Nurmagomedov def. Bekzat Almakhan via UD (30-26 x2, 30-25)
Steve Erceg def. Matt Schnell via second-round KO (0:26)
Preliminary Card
Eryk Anders def. Jamie Pickett via unanimous decision (29-27, 29-28 x2)
Vinicius Oliveira def. Bernardo Sopai via third-round KO (4:41)
Aiemann Zahabi def. Javid Basharat via unanimous decision (29-28 x3)
Christian Leroy Duncan def. Claudio Ribeiro via second-round TKO (1:57)
Ludovit Klein def. A.J. Cunningham via first-round TKO (4:36)
Loik Radzhabov def. Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady via third-round KO (0:49)
The Prelims
This is becoming a common part of my write ups, but my friends - don’t sleep on the Prelims! The night (or day - since this show started at 1:30 PM EST) started off with a fun back and forth fight before Radzhabov got the KO upset. Ludovit Klein put on a striking clinic, Christian Leroy Duncan had a nice win, Zahabi had an upset victory, and Olivera had a “KO of the Year” contender. These were all impressive wins and these guys have climbed up my radar, for sure.
Retirements
As we saw on the broadcast and post fight press conferences (and as David Tees reported here on PWInsider), both Jamie Pickett and Tyson Pedro announced their retirements on Saturday. Both men had up and down moments in MMA, but they made things fun. The MMA world is losing two tough fighters who are retiring for the right reasons. Best of luck to both men!
Steve Erceg
Erceg was impressive in his first two UFC fights last year. Both went to decision, though, so I had a feeling that he would be looking to get a finish on Saturday if given the chance…and boy, he got the chance! He got a big KO over Matt Schnell in a statement win. He will continue to climb the rankings and have more prominent fights. He called out Brandon Moreno, which is a fight I’d love to see!
Umar Nurmagomedov
Umar did his best with what was given to him. He fought a very game Almakhan, who honestly impressed me with his grit. I have watched much better fighters look worse against Umar. In fact, Almakhan had one nice shot in the first round that almost made Umar human. Crazy! Don’t let the scorecards fool you - Almakhan is tough. It’ll be interesting to see what is next for Umar. Very few people are willing to fight him.
Muhammad Mokaev
With an impressive win, Mokaev could have set himself up for a title fight against Pantoja. I don’t know. I don’t think he did enough to get me excited for a title fight. I think he needs at least one more win and it needs to be a statement win. We’ll see what the UFC does, though, because the division is wide open right now.
Vitor Petrino
Petrino stayed perfect here against a very tough Pedro. He seems to have all of the tools to go far in the UFC, so I’m hoping he gets a well-rounded opponent for his next fight to see if he has any holes that need fixing before going for a rankings climb.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik
Just about everyone was all aboard the Gaziev train - me included. Rozenstruik derailed all of that, using his jab beautifully to, basically, make Gaziev quit. This was a disappointing loss for Gaziev, who was poised to make a splash in the Heavyweight Division. Instead, most people watched in disbelief as Gaziev allowed for Rozenstruik to tee off on his face. For Rozenstruik, though, this was a much needed win that now puts him in line to get another heavyweight fight with a Top 10 guy to try and prove that he truly belongs.
Overall, as someone who watches every MMA show that he can, this show was fun enough to watch. I’d be interested to see how many non-die hard fans watched, but I don’t think there’s a way to get those numbers. As for my picks, I went 7-4. My streak of doing really well in predicting the Prelims ended and my Gaziev pick turned out to be very wrong. 7-4, though…not too shabby.
Did you watch on Saturday? If so, let me know what you thought at matt.tenhoeve@gmail.com. While you’re at it, let me know what you are looking forward to on UFC 299, which I plan on talking about later this week on PWInsider. See you then!
