Ketlen Vieira edges Holly Holm on the cards at UFC Vegas 55

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, May 21, 2022, for UFC Vegas 55, headlined by former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm and no. 6 ranked contender Ketlen Vieira.

Co-headlining the event is a welterweight bout between a pair of Brazilian strikers in Santiago Ponzinibbio and Michel Pereira.

Back to our main event:

Vieira has gone 6-2 thus far inside the octagon, and is coming off a win over former champion Miesha Tate, the woman to take the belt from Holm. Then we have Holm, who’s gone 3-1 over her last four and 4-2 over her last six.

Click here for UFC Vegas 55 results

Continue reading to see how this women’s bantamweight main event went down:

Official Result: Ketlen Vieira def. Holly Holm via split decision (47-48, 48-47, 48-47)

Merely the entire first round is spent with Holm pressing Vieira into the fence.

Vieira hits a beautiful hip toss in the second, something she was looking for in the first, and puts the former champion on her back. Holm is back to her feet quickly however, but gets locked into a standing rear naked choke.

Vieira nearly gets the win right then and there, but not having any hooks whilst attempting the choke, Holm was able to escape and keep the Brazilian pressed into the fence for the remaining couple minutes of the second.

The third round showcases more of the same, though Vieira is able to land a couple hard punches that stun Holm at he end of the round. Nonetheless, Holm has about nine minutes of clinch control time through the first 15.

The fourth is a bit different of a round, with most of it taking place on the feet at distance.

Vieira is out-boxing Holm quite handily, which is something we really haven’t seen before. She’s landing all sorts of combinations while the women are exchanging back and forth.

Holm lands a nasty side kick that sits Vieira to her butt momentarily, but other than that this was Vieira’s round.

Vieira starts out the fifth with a nice head kick that gets Holm’s attention, and not long after that lands an equally vicious elbow. Holm is able to tie her up again however until the final bell, and you’d think she would have won the fight on control time.

But, if there was any damage given in this fight, it was Vieira giving it to Holm.

Ketlen Vieira is now on a two-fight win streak, and she defeated a former champion in each outing (Miesha Tate – Strikeforce & UFC, Holly Holm – boxing & UFC).

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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!