Timur Valiev defeats Raoni Barcelos by majority decision at UFC Vegas 30

Timur Valiev survived a second-round onslaught to beat Raoni Barcelos by majority decision at UFC Vegas 30 on Saturday, June 26.

Valiev dropped to the canvas after eating a left hand from Barcelos. Valiev managed to survive and sway the judges in the end.

Timur Valiev vs. Rani Barcelos Preview

A pair of top-five heavyweights headline UFC Fight Night 190 on Saturday, June 26. 

Unbeaten contender Ciryl Gane faces former Bellator champion Alexander Volkov inside the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sticking with the big guys, the co-main event features another heavyweight affair between Tanner Boser and Ovince Saint Preux.

Continuing the action early on the main card is a welterweight clash between Tim Means and Nicolas Dalby.

A bantamweight bout between two real studs in Brazil’s Raoni Barcelos and Russia’s Timur Valiev took place on the main card.

Barcelos came in with a record of [16-1], he’s a BJJ black belt a national wrestling champion. His striking is absolutely incredible. The 34-year-old, is the former three-time RFA featherweight champion and a former Shooto featherweight champion.

Valiev came into tonight with a record of 17-2, having gone 1-0-0-1 in the UFC thus far.

Here is how the bantamweight bout between Barcelos and Valiev went down at UFC Fight Night 190, including round-by-round scoring. For full results of the event, check them out right here.

Timur Valiev edges out Rani Barcelos 

Round 1

Valiev comes out light on his feet, while Barcelos is stalking his opponent looking to set up his big shots. Barcelos didn’t look bad in round one, he got a couple nice punches and kicks off, but Valiev was by far the more active party. This probably awarded Valiev the first. Valiev then presses Barcelos into the fence for the remaining 20 seconds of the round.

Round 2

Valiev picks up in round two where he left off in round one, using his superior footwork to out-point Barcelos. However, Barcelos starts to time his right uppercut in this round, as well as his left hook. One left hook of which drops Valiev and has him in all sorts of trouble. He attempts to get up after eating some ground-and-pound, only to be dropped by an even more vicious uppercut. Valiev was hurt so badly, the fight was so close to being stopped. Valiev was able to hold on until the end of the round.

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Round 3

Valiev comes out trying for a takedown once round three starts and and is immediately stuffed. Barcelos is looking good for the first minute or so, until Valiev comes back with his pace and wide volume of strikes. Valiev’s footwork seemed to be baffling Barcelos early on, until round two. Then the middle section of the third was like that as well. He doesn’t get tired. Even after being hurt that badly, something that takes the most conditioned athletes’ cardio away from them. Barcelos is landing the harder, more effective strikes, but he was out-struck in rounds one and three. This was a very close fight that could’ve gone either way.

Official Result: Timur Valiev def. Raoni Barcelos vis majority decision [28-28, 29-28, 29-28]

🇷🇺@TimurValiev_DF gets the majority decision!

What do your scorecards look like? 📝

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— UFC (@ufc) June 26, 2021

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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