Askar Askarov dominates Joseph Benavidez to unanimous decision victory at UFC 259

Askar Askarov dominates Joseph Benavidez to unanimous decision victory at UFC 259

We have an incredibly stacked card of fights coming to us tonight at UFC 259. We have three title fights in total, as well as a ton of other incredible, meaningful match ups.

The first title bout comes the long awaited bantamweight showdown between UFC bantamweight champion Petr Yan and No. 1 ranked UFC bantamweight contender Aljamain Sterling.

The co-main event comes a women’s featherweight title bout, as the greatest female fighter of all-time, Amanda Nunes looks to defend her UFC featherweight championship for the second time against Megan Anderson.

Headlining the event is a champion vs. champion clash between UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and UFC light-heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz, who looks to make the first defense of his title tonight.

Joseph Benavidez vs. Askar Askarov Preview:

Tonight came a very important flyweight clash between top five talents Joseph Benavidez and Askar Askarov.

Benavidez was coming off back-to-back finish defeats to the champion, just the second and third times he’d been finished in his career, and Askarov was riding a two-fight win streak coming in.

Benavidez had actually only ever lost to three people prior to Deiveson Figueiredo: Dominick Cruz twice, Demetrious Johnson twice, and Sergio Pettis once. Three of those were title fights, and three of the defeats were via split decision.

Askarov went to a draw with former WFF & LFA flyweight champion, and No. 1 flyweight contender Brandon Moreno in his UFC debut, before picking up back-to-back unanimous decision victories over Tim Elliott and Alexandre Pantoja.

Continue reading to see how this incredible flyweight match up went down:

Official Result: Askar Askarov def. Joseph Benavidez via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26)

Round 1

The round starts out with Benavidez throwing a number of loopy punches, as he normally does, while Askarov is getting his front snap kick going early.

Benavidez lands a couple of those overhand rights, before being caught with a beautiful straight right from Askarov.

Toward the end of the round, Askarov gets ahold of Benavidez and takes him down, securing back mount by the rounds end.

Round 2

Benavidez gets stunned by a flurry of strikes from Askarov early in round two and ends up on his back again just one minute in.

He manages his way up, before being dragged down again. Askarov takes his back again and secures the body triangle.

Benavidez is able to shake the body triangle, but is still being dragged around. It’s really something seeing anyone out-wrestle Benavidez like this, he has some of the best scrambling abilities in the sport, and he can’t do anything here.

With about five seconds left, Benavidez makes his way back to his feet and eats two hard right hands on his way up.

Round 3

This was a much better round for Benavidez, as the entirety of it was played out on the feet, but he was still being picked apart. He was able to land some of his overhands and hooks, but was caught with a number of Askarov’s strikes as well.

The only person we’ve ever really seen out-wrestle Benavidez before is Dominick Cruz, and now we have Askar Askarov.

author avatar
Brady Ordway
I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!