Key takeaways
Reinier de Ridder beat Robert Whittaker by split decision after five rounds in the main event of UFC Fight Night at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. Robert Whittaker had come in as the division's No. 10. The co-main event also went to the scorecards: Petr Yan beat Marcus McGhee, the division's No. 14, after three rounds at bantamweight.
Across the twelve bouts that produced a result, four ended by knockout and eight on the judges' scorecards — four stoppages in twelve fights. One of the eight decisions divided the judges.
The quickest finish belonged to Muslim Salikhov, who stopped Carlos Leal after 42 seconds, and two of the four finishes came inside the opening round. The longest was Steven Nguyen's knockout of Mohammad Yahya, 10 minutes and 0 seconds in. End to end, the twelve fights filled two hours and 33 minutes of cage time.
The preliminary card out-finished the main card: three of its seven results came early, against one of the five above it. Muslim Salikhov (knockout, round one), Tabatha Ricci (knockout, round two) and Steven Nguyen (knockout, round two) all closed before the judges were needed.
Ten ranked fighters appeared, and four of them were in the top two bouts, among them champion Petr Yan.
Eight weight classes were used, bantamweight most often with three bouts.
