Key takeaways
Aljamain Sterling beat Henry Cejudo by split decision after five rounds in the main event of UFC 288 at the Prudential Center in Newark. The co-main event also went to the scorecards: Belal Muhammad beat Gilbert Burns after five rounds at welterweight.
Across the twelve bouts that produced a result, five ended by knockout, one by submission and six on the judges' scorecards — six stoppages in twelve fights. Two of the six decisions divided the judges.
The quickest finish belonged to Parker Porter, who stopped Braxton Smith at 2:10 of round one, and four of the six finishes came inside the opening round. The longest was Claudio Ribeiro's knockout of Joseph Holmes, 8 minutes and 21 seconds in. End to end, the twelve fights filled two hours and 17 minutes of cage time.
The preliminary card out-finished the main card: five of its seven results came early, against one of the five above it. Matt Frevola (knockout, round one), Kennedy Nzechukwu (submission, round two) and Parker Porter (knockout, round one) all closed before the judges were needed.
Seven ranked fighters appeared, and two of them were in the top two bouts.
Eight weight classes were used, welterweight most often with two bouts.
