LAS VEGAS -- Underwhelming was the first thought that popped to mind Saturday, both the early preliminary fights at Noche UFC at Sphere and the $20 million-plus show fans were being told for months would be the greatest live sporting event they've ever seen.
As the night wore on, though, one thing became more clear: Dana White wasn't lying.
The fighters, by and large, delivered. Daniel Zellhuber and Esteban Ribovics delivered one of the best slugfests in UFC history, Ketlen Souza scored an impressive submission of Yazmin Jauregui, Diego Lopes proved he is for real by taking down Brian Ortega and Merab Dvalishvili won the bantmaweight championship by outworking Sean O'Malley.
The venue and the show the UFC's production team put on, though, were clearly the stars of the show on this tribute to the Mexican fighting culture on Mexican Independence Day weekend.
It was a mind-blowing display that was the UFC's take on a walk through Mexican history. The screens delivered brilliantly sharp and colorful images and it was in such high resolution that it gave it the effect of being in three dimensions. When a wall fell down during one of the movies that were played, it seemed the pieces were heading straight at people in the audience.
And during a Day of the Dead scene, marigolds fluttered down on the screen with some real ones fluttering onto the fans in the lower levels.
"Literally, the whole thing was seamless," White, the UFC president/CEO, said after it was over. "We didn't have a lot of time to rehearse and that was our big worry coming in here, but they nailed it. The team absolutely nailed it."
The fights were largely spectacular save for Valentina Shevchenko's yawn inducing unanimous decision over champion Alexa Grasso. In the women's flyweight title fight, Shevchenko and Grasso zapped the energy from the crowd with one of the most boring title fights in UFC history. Shevchenko won 50-45 on all cards, but it wasn't pretty.
Shevchenko kept going for takedowns, which she did nothing with, but Grasso didn't really do a lot, either.
"I think Alexa froze," said Lopes, who coaches Grasso.
O'Malley might have done the same. He entered poised to become one of the sport's biggest stars, but he was strangely quiet throughout the main event. He didn't let his hands go much at all and he didn't show a lot of urgency in attempting to get up when Dvalishvili took him down.
Nothing Dvalishvili did was surprising other than kissing O'Malley on the back and walking away from him before the second round had officially ended. For that, he took a punch in the face from behind from O'Malley, but O'Malley was out of sorts
"He didn't look sharp; he didn't look good," White said. " ... I looked at the punch stats and he had like six in a couple of the rounds."
Over promised under delivered. Sorry. Love you guys.
— Sean O'Malley (@SugaSeanMMA) September 15, 2024
As great as the show was, though, it was the Ribovics-Zellhuber fight which won the acclaim. Ribovics hurt Zellhuber badly and had him really nearly the entire way around the Octagon. But then Zellhuber's head began to clear and he started to fire back. The last round-and-a-half was like a movie, with each guy eating and then delivering crunching shots.
The arena was on fire as the two went at it and it was a perfect moment to encapsulate a special night. When Lopes knocked Ortega down with a huge shot seconds into their fight, it sounded like the roof might blow off the Sphere.
No one who was there will forget it and nothing may ever top it. White revealed that last year, he was in talks with the Colosseum in Rome to put on a fight between Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla founder Elon Musk.
"Real talks," White said, grinning.
Thankfully, he forgot about that nonsense and focused on putting the Noche UFC card together.
It was a win across the board for everyone: The UFC delivered a spectacular live event that in every way lived up to the extraordinary advance billing it received. Two titles changed hands, there was a Fight of the Year contender and the only thing that could be called a flub which occurred came when boxer Terence Crawford was identified as Kendrick Lamar on the video board.
"He kind of looks like Kendrick Lamar," White said, joking.
Not much else went wrong, though, and White and Sphere delivered on their promise.
It was, without doubt, one of the best live sporting events I've ever seen. It's hard to imagine anyone has witnessed anything any more spectacular than this.
Kevin Iole
A scene from one of the worlds during Noche UFC Saturday at Sphere.