Roman Dolidze remains undefeated at 205 lbs, defeats Anthony Smith at UFC 303

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, June 29, 2024, for UFC 303, going down live from the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada.

Headlining the event is a light-heavyweight championship rematch between current champion Alex Pereira (10-2) and no. 1 ranked former champion Jiri Prochazka (30-4-1).

Co-headlining the event is a 165 lb catchweight bout between a pair of featherweight contenders in no. 13 ranked Dan Ige (18-7) and no. 14 ranked Diego Lopes (24-6), a literal last-minute replacement as no. 3 ranked former title challenger Brian Ortega withdrew from his scheduled clash with Lopes with a fever just a couple short hours ago.

Our feature fight of the evening came in the light-heavyweight division between no. 10 ranked former title challenger Anthony Smith (38-20) and no. 10 ranked middleweight contender Roman Dolidze (13-3).

Smith came into the bout off a stoppage victory over the formerly undefeated Vitor Petrino last month in May, while Dolidze came in on a two-fight skid. Dolidze did win his first two octagon bouts up at 205 lbs before dropping down to 185 lbs, where he went on to go 4-3 across seven fights.

Did he remain undefeated as a light-heavyweight?

Continue reading to see how our UFC 303 feature fight went down:

Official Result: Roman Dolidze def. Anthony Smith via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)

The two trade leg kicks throughout the opening five minutes, each of them battering the lead leg of the other with Smith controlling the center of the octagon.

Dolidze stormed forward with a heavy combination and bullied Smith down to the mat in the second, spending a good amount of it in top position reigning down shots onto the former title challenger’s head.

Both men had success in the third and final round, each of them landing both good punches and kicks onto the other.

Roman Dolidze improves to 8-0 in his career as a light-heavyweight tonight at UFC 303.

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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!

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