UFC 208 went down last night (Sat., Feb. 11, 2017) from inside Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., with the promotion's first-ever women's Featherweight title fight between Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie spearheading the pay-per-view event (highlights).
Plus, Anderson Silva made his long-awaited return to the cage to take on Derek Brunson in the co-headliner (see it), while Ronaldo Souza and Glover Teixeira also had their time to shine in main card action. On paper, the event looked like a winner, but at the end of the day, it failed to entertain, as most of the bouts lacked luster. But, don't take my word for it, as UFC president Dana White expressed his disappointment for the lack of excitement and entertainment from the promotion's first big card of the year.
"This was not one of our better events," said White during a post-fight interview with UFC's Megan Olivi. "I feel like when you come into a place, you’re going to have at least a few good fights that are going to get you out of your seat. We didn’t have any of those. Well, I shouldn’t say that, the Poirier-Miller fight was awesome and obviously the fight of the night. They gave everything the had and props to them for putting on a great performance tonight," said White.
As for the headlining title fight, White was less than enthused.
"It wasn’t the best fight I ever saw. I was hoping that the main event would deliver and erase most of the rest of the night and that didn’t happen. You know me, it’s been a long time since we’ve since we’ve had a bad show. And, well, it happens."
Indeed, many expected a main event bout between two accomplished stand-up strikers to have a bit more spark to it, while Silva looked all of a 41-year old trying his best to simply not suffer another loss. As noted, the lone shining spots — at least on the main card — were Jim Miller and Dustin Poirier, who duked it out in the center of the Octagon for 15 minutes, thrilling fight fans with a back-and-forth affair (recap). For their efforts, not only did they get White's seal of approval, but a $50,000 bonus check, too.
And while White was seemingly impressed with "Jacare's" first-round submission of the "dangerous" Tim Boetsch — which also secured a $50,000 bonus — he did sneak in that fact that Souza did make "The Barbarian" look like the No. 13 ranked guy in the world ... as he should've. Backhanded compliment?
How about it, Maniacs, the head honcho wasn't too excited with what he saw last night in Brooklyn ... were you?
For complete UFC 208 results and coverage click here.