5 biggest takeaways from UFC Fight Night 193: Did Kevin Holland get lucky with no contest?

Let’s get this out of the way off the top: That main event between Thiago Santos and Johnny Walker underdelivered in a big way. That’s not the fight anyone wanted or expected from the Brazilians, but unfortunately life is full of letdowns.In the grand scheme of things, the man who needed the win more got his hand raised, and that was Santos (22-9 MMA, 14-8 UFC), who took home the unanimous decision win. The past few years have been a bit of a nightmare for “Marreta,” who seemingly hasn’t been the same guy since he fought Jon Jones tooth and nail to a split decision at UFC 239 in July 2019.Santos suffered bad injuries in that fight with Jones and was out for nearly 18 months recovering from double knee surgery. When he came back, he didn’t look himself. It cost him, too, because Santos dropped fights to Glover Teixeira and Aleksandar Rakic.With three straight defeats on his resume, Santos had to show he’s still a relevant part of the light heavyweight title picture. He hardly put a stamp on that notion, but escaping with a win was all he needed to get some confidence and momentum back on his side.To be blunt, Santos still doesn’t look like the pre-Jones version of himself. What’s to blame for that? It could be that it’s not physically possible given the severe nature of his injuries. It could be that he’s 37 years old. It could be all the grueling wars he’s had both in the octagon and in the gym. Perhaps it’s also a combination of everything.The upside here for Santos is he’ll be able to show he’s capable of better. He revealed post-fight this was the final bout on his UFC contract, and it’d be rather shocking if the promotion didn’t offer him a new deal. With that should come another high profile fight at 205 pounds, and Santos will get another chance to show he’s still the knockout artist of old.

Johnny Walker is a necessary part of the MMA space. We need as many fun characters as possible. But there’s an art to being unique, and Walker (18-6 MMA, 4-3 UFC) didn’t live up to his end of the deal with the loss to Santos.After more than a year away from the octagon, Walker came into fight week claiming he was a new version of himself. He pointed to his move to train at SBG Ireland under John Kavanagh as the foundation for his takeover of the light heavyweight division. It’s all exciting stuff to hear him say, but reality provided something different.By no means did Walker look like trash against Santos. However, it was clear he was a conflicted fighter in there. Walker was battling himself to stay disciplined and keep to the game plan he set out. His natural instinct is to go berserk and throw wild techniques repeatedly, but in the past that has led to mixed results.On one side of the coin, Walker’s reckless, risky style can set up spectacular wins. It makes him a huge threat, but also opens him to retaliation. On the flip side, the more strategic approach to the Santos fight didn’t pay off. Nor did it give much in the way of entertainment for the viewers.Given how the fight played out, Walker might have a choice to make. He can opt to build off what he did against Santos and fight behind a game plan, or he can revert to his old self and choose to live or die by the sword. At this point, it’s honestly hard to predict which path would serve him better.

Even a full night after the middleweight co-headliner between Kyle Daukaus and Kevin Holland was deemed a no contest, there is still a inferno of online debate about whether it was a valid conclusion to a very unusual fight.You’ve probably seen it many times by now. Holland (21-7 MMA, 7-4 UFC) was knocked out by Daukaus’ (10-2 MMA, 1-2 UFC) unintentional head butt before being submitted, only for the whole thing to be ruled a no contest because of a replay review. In theory, this was handled properly, but was it fair?The armchair analysts are going to hound referee Dan Miragliotta for not jumping in to halt the action the moment Holland went down from the head butt. If that’d happened, he could have given Holland as much time as he needed to recover, consulted the replay to verify it was a foul, then restart the action if/when Holland was able to do so.Is it realistic to expect Miragliotta to make that call, though? People significantly underestimate the difficulty of that. Things are moving at a lightning-quick speed in that octagon, and it would’ve been tricky for him to make that split-second call, especially given how fast Holland showed signs of life after getting dropped with the head butt.Since Miragliotta wasn’t able to intervene at the moment of illegal contact, the debate shifts to whether it would’ve been right to accept how the rest of the fight played out. Daukaus simply fought to the best of his ability and went on to catch Holland in a choke that elicited the tap, yet now none of that counts.Daukaus could easily throw a giant fit over this whole thing. He definitely got the short end of the stick in this scenario, but dealt with it respectfully. In many other jurisdictions Daukaus would’ve got his hand raised and it would’ve been on Holland to file an appeal, but not this time.Ultimately, we want to see the ruled enforced. We haven’t had a situation quite like this happen before inside the octagon, so everyone involved was trying to find the right answers on the fly. It’s hard to put too much protest behind how it played out, but Holland should definitely feel fortunate he doesn’t have a third straight loss on his record.

Women’s flyweight prospect Casey O’Neill impressed again by becoming the first to put away Antonina Shevchenko with strikes in MMA competition. Not a bad little feat by the 23-year-old.Australia’s O’Neill (8-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) couldn’t have drawn up a better start to her UFC career. Three fights and three finishes so far, and although Shevchenko isn’t nearly the fighter her younger sister Valentina is, it’s still a solid win for the resume.It does look like O’Neill has all the attributes to be a contender at women’s flyweight, especially as she continues to mature. Can she ever evolve into someone who could test Valentina’s title reign? That’s the difficult question to answer.It feels like no matter what kind of interesting names pop up at 125, it’s just trending toward their ultimate demise. Getting a title shot in that division right now is more of a sentence than a reward, but O’Neill seems to want all the smoke.There’s no sense in rushing O’Neill at this point. Valentina is only going to get older and more shop-worn, while O’Neill is going to go into her body and skillset as time goes on. Maybe it’s a fight that happens one day.

Bethe Correia bid her farewell to MMA competition on the prelims with a one-sided unanimous decision loss to Karol Rosa, who appears to have tremendous upside in the women’s bantamweight division.Correia (11-6-1 MMA, 5-6-1 UFC) is not a fighter who many people are going to be celebrating for years to come. She had a sub-.500 promotional record at the time of her retirement, but she did reach some big heights in the form of a UFC championship bout with Ronda Rousey in her native Brazil back in August 2015.Although that fight with Rousey went horribly and Correia was knocked out in 34 seconds, she fought herself to a spot that only few in UFC history will receive.Correia’s tenacity and unique personality will be her most memorable traits (maybe the dancing, too) and she definitely milked about every possible ounce out of her fighting career. Happy trails, Bethe!