Key takeaways
Justin Gaethje beat Dustin Poirier by knockout at 1:00 of round two in the main event of UFC 291 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. In the co-main event, Alex Pereira beat Jan Blachowicz, the division's No. 4, by split decision after three rounds at light heavyweight.
Across the eleven bouts that produced a result, four ended by knockout, five by submission and two on the judges' scorecards — nine stoppages in eleven fights. One of the two decisions divided the judges.
The quickest finish belonged to Derrick Lewis, who stopped Marcos Rogerio de Lima after 33 seconds, and three of the nine finishes came inside the opening round. The longest was King Green's submission of Tony Ferguson, 14 minutes and 54 seconds in. End to end, the eleven fights filled one hour and 33 minutes of cage time.
The preliminary card out-finished the main card: five of its six results came early, against four of the five above it. Gabriel Bonfim (submission, round one), Roman Kopylov (knockout, round two) and Jake Matthews (submission, round two) all closed before the judges were needed.
Seven ranked fighters appeared, and three of them were in the top two bouts, among them champion Justin Gaethje.
Seven weight classes were used, welterweight most often with four bouts.
