Key takeaways
Dricus Du Plessis beat Sean Strickland by split decision after five rounds in the main event of UFC 297 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. The co-main event also went to the scorecards: Raquel Pennington beat Mayra Bueno Silva after five rounds at women's bantamweight.
Across the twelve bouts that produced a result, two ended by knockout, three by submission and seven on the judges' scorecards — five stoppages in twelve fights. Four of the seven decisions divided the judges.
The quickest finish belonged to Sam Patterson, who stopped Yohan Lainesse at 2:03 of round one, and one of the five finishes came inside the opening round. The longest was Neil Magny's knockout of Mike Malott, 14 minutes and 45 seconds in. End to end, the twelve fights filled two hours and 51 minutes of cage time.
The preliminary card out-finished the main card: four of its seven results came early, against one of the five above it. Gillian Robertson (knockout, round two), Sam Patterson (submission, round one) and Jasmine Jasudavicius (submission, round three) all closed before the judges were needed.
Eight ranked fighters appeared, and three of them were in the top two bouts, among them champion Sean Strickland.
Seven weight classes were used, middleweight most often with two bouts.
