UFC 273: Khamzat Chimaev beats Gilbert Burns in Fight of the Year contender as Aljamain Sterling upsets Petr Yan

Khamzet Chimaev and Gilbert Burns stole the show at UFC 273, despite there being two title fights on the card in Jacksonville, as Aljamain Sterling downed Petr Yan to defend the bantamweight championship.

Chimaev remained undefeated in his career but went through by far the toughest test he has faced so far, battling past Burns for a unanimous decision win over three rounds.

All three judges gave the fight to Borz 29-28 and there were no complaints about that from the Brazilian’s side, despite Burns landing plenty of memorable shots and rocking Chimaev a number of times.

The Chechnyan left Burns a bloody mess through strikes of his own but could not, or possibly opted not to, dominate him on the ground as he has done to his previous UFC opponents.

The scrap caught the attention of The Rock, who tweeted: ‘Holy shit. What a fight!!! Burns/Chimaev.’

<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>Holy shit. What a fight!!! Burns/Chimaev #UFC273

In the first of two title fights Sterling got the better of Yan and took a split decision to truly become the undisputed UFC bantamweight champion.

The first meeting between these two ended in a DQ win for Sterling, which left Yan claiming he was still the true champion, but the Funkmaster has now put an end to that claim.

It was not without debate, with UFC president Dana White saying that he gave Yan the fight by three rounds to two, but two judges gave it to Sterling by that margin and that’s all that matters.

The Russian finished the fight strongly, but Sterling’s dominance on the ground in rounds two and three appeared to do enough for him to keep hold of the belt.

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