UFC 306 and Canelo Alvarez Delivered, but Events Shouldn’t Occur at the Same Time

Sean O’Malley and Merab DvalishviliJeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Las Vegas lived up to its reputation as the fight capital of the world on Saturday night, playing host to both UFC 306 and the latest title defense from boxing star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Both events delivered — it’s just too bad they overlapped.

UFC 306 marked the promotion’s debut in the new Las Vegas Sphere and lived up to all the pre-fight hype, taking full advantage of the state-of-the-art arena’s many bells and whistles. Also called Noche UFC, it commemorated Mexican Independence Day, and featured many of the promotion’s top Mexican fighters — except for the main event, which pitted American champ Sean O’Malley against Georgian challenger Merab Dvalishvili in a bantamweight title fight.

O’Malley, who won the belt with a knockout of Dvalishvili’s training partner Aljamain Sterling last year and defended it with a decision win over Marlon “Chito” Vera earlier this year, was one of the promotion’s biggest stars heading in the marquee fight, but ultimately suffered a comprehensive, unanimous-decision loss.

“I feel like I’m in a dream,” an elated Dvalishvili told commentator Joe Rogan after the fight, with the bantamweight belt wrapped around his waist. “Today I’m the best fighter in the UFC.”

It went more or less exactly the way anyone who was picking Dvalishvili predicted it would. The Georgian, who is one of the most relentless wrestlers in MMA at present, completed takedown after takedown throughout the five-round fight. While he was badly hurt by a body shot in the final round, he successfully neutralized the champ’s pinpoint striking and controlled enough of the fight himself to make the judges’ verdict obvious.

“That’s what I do every day — twice a day,” the Georgian said. “I work hard.

“Nothing was surprising,” he added. “I knew he was good but I made him look normal.”

SportsCenter @SportsCenterTHE MOMENT MERAB BECAME CHAMP 🔥 #NocheUFC pic.twitter.com/v6YfTv4TKX

The UFC 306 co-main event saw Mexico’s Alexa Grasso attempting to defend the women’s flyweight title against former champ and living legend Valentina Shevchenko. It was the pair’s third meeting, after Grasso submitted Shevchenko to win the belt in a shock upset early last year, and later defended the belt with a controversial draw against the former champ.

Unfortunately for Grasso and the legions of Mexican fans inside the packed Sphere, she ultimately came up short in the rivalry with Shevchenko, surrendering multiple takedowns and landing just 18 significant strikers en route to a unanimous decision loss.

“It’s a dream come true fighting in the Sphere,” Shevchenko said after reclaiming the title. “Everything about this fight was more satisfying [than the last fight]. The game plan was to go in there and fight to the end.”

With Grasso’s loss to Shevchenko, the Mexican fighters on the UFC 306 bill finished the night a disappointing 1-6 against their opposition — and a slightly better 2-6 if you count Mexico-based Brazilian Diego Lopes’ destructive decision win over two-time former featherweight title challenger Brian Ortega on the main card.

That is surely not the outcome the Mexican fighters or their Mexican fans had in mind when the card kicked off, but the country was not without major combat sports victories on the night — and that’s thanks to Canelo, who dominated Edgar Berlanga to a decision win at the T-Mobile Arena across town.

Premier Boxing Champions @premierboxing.@Canelo’s left hook that dropped Berlanga could be felt in San Juan 🇵🇷. #CaneloBerlanga pic.twitter.com/Hd6GAUFzCa

It was the outcome pretty much everybody expected from the Mexican boxing star, but it was undeniably impressive and brought him to five straight wins since a decision loss to Dmitry Bivol in 2022. Granted, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen him knock somebody out — since he beat Caleb Plant in 2021, to be exact — but it affirmed that he remains one of the top pound-for-pound boxers on earth.

“I’m the best fighter in the world,” Alvarez said after his win, which marked successful defenses of his WBA, WBC, WBO and The Ring Super Middleweight titles.

Canelo’s fight sold out the T-Mobile Arena, but had the UFC not been set up at the Sphere, many of his other fans likely would have tried to be in the building to support him. It’s outrageous that combat sports fans had to pick and choose which event they had to watch. And asking any person nowadays to fork over their hard-earned money on two pay-per-views going on at the same time is short-sighted at best and greedy at worst.

Still, let’s not take away from a gigantic combat sports evening. There were probably a great many fans in the T-Mobile Arena checking their phones to see how UFC 306 was going, and of course, there were doubtless thousands of fans all over the world watching both events in tandem on different screens.

It’s too bad fans were forced to choose between the two combat sports cards or to split their attention between them.