“I was pretty confident in the end I won it.” “It was different,” said Namajunas, who was serenaded by chants of “USA” and “Let’s Go Rose” by the partisan crowd throughout the fight. Judge Michael Bell submitted a 48-47 scorecard for Weili, while Eric Colon (49-46) and Doug Crosby (48-47) had Namajunas winning the fight. Following a five-round jiujitsu exhibition, Namajunas defeated Weili via split decision in the co-main event.
Seven months later, the result was the same for Namajunas, even if the path she and Weili trode was unfamiliar. There was no such controversy in the first Rose Namajunas-Zhang Weili women’s strawweight title fight, as Namajunas knocked out Weili 1:18 into the first round in their UFC 261 bout in April to retain her title. Usman won that five-round, stand-up battle with a technical knockout of Covington with 50 seconds left in the fifth round, although Covington immediately protested referee Marc Goddard’s decision, and continued to grouse about the call in the 22 months since the fight. The Usman-Covington fight was a rematch of their classic title bout at UFC 245. Usman and Covington headlined the fifth UFC pay-per-view event at Madison Square Garden, and had a pair of rematches in the co-main event and main event. Covington staggered Usman with a shot in the fifth, but was unable to put him away. The two spent much of the fourth and fifth rounds exchanging strikes. He started the third round where he left off, but Covington finished the five minutes by having Usman pinned against the cage. Usman got the first knockdown of the fight late in the second round, and attempted to finish Covington with a flurry of punches before the bell rang. And the beginning of the opening round revealed a more cautious fighter, though as the round progressed, Usman’s pressure appeared to force Covington into a defensive posture. Going into the fight, Covington said he had recalibrated his approach and would not fight the same way as he did in their first encounter. New York State Athletic Commission judges Derek Cleary (49-46), Dave Tirelli (48-47) and Sal D’Amato (48-47) all submitted scorecards in Usman’s favor. Covington, the former interim welterweight champion, dropped to 16-3-0.