UFC 217 might go down as one of the greatest cards in history after three title fights all resulted in new champions being crowned.
In the main event, Georges St-Pierre returned from nearly four years away from the Octagon to finish Michael Bisping by third-round rear naked choke to become the new middleweight champion and only the fourth fighter in history to hold titles in two different weight classes.
St-Pierre definitely had a battle on his hands as Bisping opened up two different cuts on the Canadian’s head that had him bleeding rather profusely, but that didn’t stop him from powering back with a dramatic finish in the third round. After cracking Bisping with a devastating left hand, St-Pierre followed him to the ground where he wrapped up the rear naked choke to get the submission win.
According to fantasy players, St-Pierre was a very slight favorite going into the night with 53 percent picking him to win versus 47 percent selecting Bisping. Ultimately, St-Pierre got the job done while also earning an extra 150 points for the players who picked him because this was a title fight.
The co-main event saw a new bantamweight champion crowned as TJ Dillashaw took out former training partner Cody Garbrandt with a second-round TKO as he becomes a two-time champion while also settling a long standing feud with his old team. Dillashaw had to survive a scare in the first round where he nearly got put away before storming back to get the finish in the second.
Dillashaw was actually a sizable underdog by the picks made by fantasy players with just 27 percent selecting him to win on Saturday night. Once again, because it was a title fight, Dillashaw’s win earned the players who picked him an extra 150 points.
While Dillashaw was definitely an underdog, Rose Namajunas seemed to have the entire world picking against her as she faced off with ferocious strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 217. As it turns out, Namajunas was the one everybody should have been fearing as she made short work of Jedrzejczyk with a first-round knockout to become the third strawweight champion in UFC history.
Going into the card, only 15 percent of fantasy players picked Namajunas to win but her victory paid off huge with the 150-point bonus for a title fight and another 175 points paid out because she was such a heavy underdog against Jedrzejczyk.
While there were definitely a couple of upsets in the title fights on the main card, Stephen „Wonderboy“ Thompson and Paulo Costa came through as favorites with both picking up big wins on Saturday night.
Thompson dispatched Jorge Masvidal with a unanimous decision victory with 74 percent of fantasy players picking him at UFC 217 while Costa had a whopping 75 percent picking him to beat former welterweight champion Johny Hendricks.
On the preliminary portion of the card, James Vick came through with a huge win to knock off highly touted Irish fighter Joe Duffy with just 31 percent of fantasy players picking him. Vick also earned an extra 120 points because his fight with Vick was such a toss up.
Ovince Saint-Preux came through with a huge third-round head kick knockout to finish Corey Anderson in a light heavyweight showdown on the prelims. Saint-Preux was selected by 83 percent of fantasy players to win, but he had to get the job done late after losing both the first and second rounds to Anderson.
In one of the bigger upsets all night, Randy Brown dealt Mickey Gall his first professional loss as he got the win by unanimous decision after a three-round battle. Brown was only picked by 18 percent of fantasy players despite his experience edge over Gall going into the night.
During the early prelims two more upsets took place as Curtis Blaydes picked up a win over Aleskei Oleinik with 42 percent of fantasy players picking him to win while Ricardo Ramos dished out a devastating spinning back elbow to knock out Aiemann Zahabi with just 26 percent of fantasy players picking him going into the card. Ramos also got another 120 bonus because his fight with Zahabi was such a tight matchup.
At the end of the night, the underdogs out dueled the favorites, with seven fights ending by way of upset according to the final selections made by fantasy players going into UFC 217 in New York. Meanwhile, only four favorites picked up wins in what was one of the biggest and most exhilarating cards of 2017.
