Rose Namajunas And the Real Winners and Losers from UFC on ...

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Welcome to the "Thug Rose" Show, Episode 3.

Two-time strawweight champion Rose Namajunas is chasing a third UFC title reign, this time at flyweight, and the latest stop in her journey took her to Denver, where she faced substitute for Tracy Cortez in a five-rounder atop a 12-bout Fight Night show at Ball Arena.

Now 32 years old, Namajunas had fought twice outside the pay-per-view spotlight since her last belted run ended, dropping a three-round decision to Manon Fiorot in her 125-pound debut in September before beating Amanda Ribas in a five-rounder in March.

She was ranked sixth at flyweight and was set to face No. 4 Maycee Barber before Barber pulled out due to health issues and was replaced by the 11th-ranked Cortez, who made the contracted 126-pound weight limit after chopping off a fistful of hair at the scale.

Cortez was unbeaten in a five-bout UFC run since a win on Dana White's Contender Series in 2019 and had most recently appeared in September, winning a unanimous three-round nod over Jasmine Jasudavicius.

The B/R combat team was in position to take in the show and deliver a real-time list of its definitive winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought or two of your own in the comments.

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It's a refrain frequently heard from high-end fighters when they face prospects or contenders attempting to climb the weight class ladder.

"There are levels to this."

Never has it been any truer than in Saturday night's main event, where two-time strawweight champion and current No. 6 flyweight contender Rose Namajunas was faced with a challenge from an ambitious Tracy Cortez.

Though Cortez had won 11 straight fights since her pro debut and five straight since a win on Dana White's Contender Series in 2019, she was in over her head and never had effective answers against Namajunas, who'd split a pair of fights at flyweight after her second title reign at the lower weight ended in 2022.

"Thug Rose" was effective at distance on the feet, moving in and out and bedeviling Cortez with precise shots whenever she chose to get aggressive, including a flash knockdown with a lead left hook midway through the first round.

Eventually, the aggression was tempered, and Cortez was picked apart for long stretches in addition to five takedowns and better than six minutes in control time.

"Once you face somebody at that level, you keep that in your head, and you compare it to everyone you fight," analyst Dominick Cruz said. "Tracy's going to have that in her head from here on out. (Namajunas is) content just touching, touching, touching. She stays consistent and then when the big shot comes, it's there."

All three judges gave it to Namajunas, with two seeing a 4-1 advantage in rounds and the third judge edging it to her by a 3-2 count. The win could provide a path toward the top at 125 pounds, which had been the domain of Valentina Shevchenko during her reign from 2018 to 2023 but is now led by incumbent Alexa Grasso.

"Gimme the belt, man. I want it," Namajunas said. "I was Colorado's first UFC champion and I'd like to bring a second one back. Or maybe a women's BMF fight."

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Upon further review, maybe it wasn't a co-main after all.

The welterweight duel between Santiago Ponzinibbio and Muslim Salikhov was marketed as a can't-miss entertainer, thanks in no small way to the matchup of particularly menacing nicknames: the "Argentine Dagger" and the "King of Kung Fu," respectively.

But perhaps it was just a 37-year-old facing a 40-year-old in a battle to decide which of the two veteran gatekeepers should be closer to mandatory retirement.

Neither man arrived in Denver having won a fight since 2022, and they were a combined 3-7 since the ends of their respective career watermarks—an eight-fight win streak for Ponzinibbio from 2015 to 2018, and a five-fight skein for Salikhov from 2018 to 2021.

The crowd let loose with prolonged boos from the midway point of the final round through the finish, and there wasn't much excitement moments later when Salikhov was announced as the winner by split decision. He was given two of three rounds on two official scorecards to offset one judge who saw it 2-1 in Ponzinibbio's direction.

Ponzinibbio appeared surprised at the result, while Salikhov celebrated the win and immediately attempted to win back the fans that hadn't been impressed.

"I love Denver," he said. "To me, it's the best city in America."

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No one's had a better UFC summer than Jean Silva.

The Brazilian featherweight was a KO winner on a pay-per-view show two weeks ago and loudly campaigned for a quick turnaround, which he was granted on Saturday night in the former of veteran Denver-based lightweight Drew Dober.

And two-plus rounds later, it's clear he's a two-division problem.

Silva was sharp with punches, kicks, and punishing elbows from a dizzying variety of stances against the hometown favorite, ultimately opening a hideous cut above Dober's right eye that prompted a TKO stoppage at 1:28 of the third.

"We already knew he was a real prospect," analyst Dominick Cruz said. "Two weeks later, on the road at elevation against Drew Dober, and he does that? That's an A-plus."

If possible, it might not be superlative enough.

A member of the "Fighting Nerds" training team, Silva landed 53 of 109 strike attempts, including 37 to the head. Among those blows were the elbows that twice dumped Dober to the floor and opened the cut that stretched the length of his eyebrow, was at least a thumb-print wide, and never stopped oozing blood once it opened.

Referee Herb Dean summoned a cage-side physician after a particularly heavy exchange in the third and the doctor immediately waved the fight off, with no protest from Dober.

"I've got these neanderthal eyebrows," Dober said. "They cut open easily. But this is what fighting's all about."

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It was billed as one of the would-be bangers on the card.

Instead, it was an anticlimax of mountainous proportions.

Denver-based middleweight Cody Brundage was on the receiving end of hard punches from Abdul Razak Alhassan that dropped him to the floor, then a series of elbows—some of which strayed to the back of the head—while he was frantically covering up in the aftermath.

The elbows prompted referee Dan Miragliotta to intervene and give Brundage a choice of whether he wanted to continue or not. He chose the latter, meaning the anticipated clash was stopped and eventually declared a no contest due to an accidental foul after just 37 seconds of combat.

Brundage indicated to two cage-side doctors that he was unable to keep fighting after a break of several minutes, a choice that drew boos from his home-state crowd, frustration from Alhassan, and a not-so-veiled blow from analyst Dominick Cruz at the broadcast table.

"You have to ask yourself the question: 'Do I want to tough this out or do I want to take a disqualification because shots made me dizzy?'" Cruz said before Miragliotta made his decision official. "You either want to fight or you don't. (The doctors) can't help him with that decision. He either does or he doesn't. At the end of the day as a fighter it's our choice.

"If you wanna stay in it, you play it off."

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Flyweight Charles Johnson was constantly pursued and intermittently punished through two rounds by rising prospect Joshua Van and entered the third round of their prelim feature with the fiery between-rounds chatter of his corner team still ringing in his ear.

He needed to boost his output, they said. He needed to find a finish.

Moments later, he proved he'd been listening.

The 33-year-old from St. Louis took the fight with less than two weeks' notice, said he immediately arrived to acclimate to the elevation, and then proved it late with a stunning come-from-behind KO just 20 seconds into the final session.

"He had felt everything that Van was doing," analyst Paul Felder said. "He'd made all the reads."

Johnson spent the first 10 minutes using lateral movement and occasional bursts of offense, but he stepped on the gas instantly after the final tap, landing a hard right hand to wobble Van and a harder right uppercut to dump him and provide a third straight UFC win after an inglorious 2-4 start to his promotional run.

It was Van's first octagonal loss after three wins.

"It's a mental battle. The third round hit and nobody's touching me," Johnson said. "I hit him with the right hook and the next thing is to come up under."

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It was a tough first assignment for Fatima Kline.

The newly-minted 24-year-old—her birthday was Friday—was up a weight class from her normal residence at 115 pounds and was in on short notice with the flyweight division's No. 15 contender in rugged veteran Jasmine Jasudavicius.

Not exactly the easiest UFC debut for the only unbeaten fighter on the card, so it's not surprising the Arizona resident exited with the first blemish on a now-seven-bout record.

But she may have made a name for herself along the way.

Though she wound up on the wrong end of four takedowns, a submission attempt, and nearly eight full minutes of control time, Kline did have her moments with clean lands during prolonged stand-up exchanges and earned the regard of the broadcast team as she continued to chase a KO finish after being mauled through the first two rounds.

She wound up scoring one takedown of her own and landed 39 significant strikes, including 32 to the head.

"It's safe to say her stock will go up in a loss," analyst Brendan Fitzgerald said.

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Dominick Cruz was a champion in the octagon.

And he's an expert analyst at the broadcast table.

But he'll never provide any better insight that he did for Saturday's prelim bout between Montel Jackson and Da'Mon Blackshear.

The former two-time bantamweight king was dialed in for the fight in his home weight class and said just after the opening glove tap that viewers should "watch the straight punches from Jackson. They're just lightning like, straight down the pike."

UFC @ufc

ONE AND DONE ????<a href="https://twitter.com/Montello135?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Montello135</a> gets it done in just 17 SECONDS! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UFCDenver?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UFCDenver</a> <a href="https://t.co/pnwAUJAc7p">pic.twitter.com/pnwAUJAc7p</a>

You'd have sworn Jackson was listening in, too, because he almost immediately delivered a left hand—directly to the point of Blackshear's chin—that left his opponent flat on his back and drew an intervention from referee Nick Berens after just 18 seconds.

It validated Jackson's "Quik" nickname and gave him a fifth straight UFC win, good for the third-longest active streak in the 145-pound ranks.

"That was Blackshear moving forward and Montel Jackson throwing a punch straight down the line," analyst Din Thomas said. "Most KOs happen because of those things happening at the same time."

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Saturday's card was headlined by a pair of ranked flyweights and a later prelim fight included a fighter who'd faced some high-profile opponents.

But Luana Santos was determined to draw some attention, too.

And the 24-year-old knew exactly how to get it.

The Brazilian chased a quick finish from the opening tap and worked to get herself in position to get it, dropping opponent Mariya Agapova with a right hand, returning her to the ground with a judo throw, and cycling through a pair of chokes before getting the surrender at 3:27 of the first round.

"I visualized this. I mentalized this," Santos said. "When I get four months (to train), this is who I am. This is the full complete result."

Santos initially put Agapova in a difficult position with an arm triangle but was unable to prompt a tap, so she transitioned to her foe's back, seized Agapova's neck with her right arm and squeezed until the result was made academic.

It was her fourth first-rounder in eight career wins.

"I had to do the judo because that's my thing," she said. "But I trained the back for four months and I had to get it that way."

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It wasn't the usual recipe for a big favorite.

Evan Elder is an obviously talented 26-year-old, but with only a 1-2 record in the octagon he didn't possess the typical resume of a prohibitive –625 pick.

But the fight's what matters. And Elder's performance backed the big number.

The Las Vegas-based lightweight climbed the ladder to take a welterweight bout on four days' notice, worked his way through a frenetic first round with Darrius Flowers, and accomplished his objective in the second with a quick submission finish.

"He did a pretty good job keeping me off him in the first," Elder said, "but everybody's tough in first round. The second and third is what we're made of."

Indeed, Elder scrambled his way out of a Flowers takedown, jumped back in to gain top position and instantly seized his foe's right arm and locked in the arm triangle that drew a tap at 1:46 and dropped Flowers to 0-3 in the promotion.

Elder seized the aftermath for a wrestling-style promo, suggesting he'll take a fight on any amount of notice and punctuating with a T-shirt worthy catch phrase.

"I'm trying to break necks," he said, "and cash checks."

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Main Card

Rose Namajunas def. Tracy Cortez by unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 48-47)

Muslim Salikhov def. Santiago Ponzinibbio by split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)

Jean Silva def. Drew Dober by TKO (cut), 1:28, Round 3

Gabriel Bonfim def. Ange Loosa by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)

Julian Erosa def. Christian Rodriguez by submission (guillotine), 4:49, Round 1

Abdul Razak Alhassan v Cody Brundage declared no contest (accidental foul), 0:37, Round 1

Preliminary Card

Charles Johnson def. Joshua Van by KO (punch), 0:20, Round 3

Jasmine Jasudavicius def. Fatima Kline by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Montel Jackson def. Da'Mon Blackshear by KO (punch), 0:18, Round 1

Luana Santos def. Mariya Agapova by submission (rear-naked choke), 3:27, Round 1

Andre Petroski def. Josh Fremd by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Evan Elder def. Darrius Flowers by submission (arm triangle), 1:46, Round 2