When it comes to fight cards, they don’t get much bigger — or better — than what we have on tap for UFC 259. With three championship fights and a host of current and former champions and title challengers up and down the card, it’s easy to see why the MMA world is eagerly anticipating the action from inside Las Vegas’ UFC Apex on Saturday night.
UFC 259: Yan vs Sterling Live Stream Free
This weekend UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya looks to join the very exclusive UFC champ-champ club when he takes on Jan Blachowicz for the Pole’s UFC light heavyweight title.
The Nigerian born Kiwi earned his shot at dual champion status after impressively winning and defending his 185 belt on two occasions last year. Last spring he beat Yoel Romero by unanimous decision and then, in September, he pasted Paulo Costa.
MMA Fighting has UFC 259 results for the Blachowicz vs. Adesanya fight card at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, live blogs of all the main card fights, and live UFC 259 Twitter updates.
In the main event, UFC light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz puts his belt on the line against UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
Two more UFC titles will also be up for grabs Saturday night. UFC featherweight champion Amanda Nunes will defend her title against Megan Anderson in the co-main event. UFC bantamweight champion Petr Yan will square off against Aljamain Sterling on the main card as well.
Check out the UFC 259 results below.
Main card (ESPN+ PPV at 10 p.m. ET)
Jan Blachowicz vs. Israel Adesanya
Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson
Petr Yan vs. Aljamain Sterling
Islam Makhachev vs. Drew Dober
Thiago Santos vs. Aleksandar Rakic
Join us today (March 6th) on Bloody Elbow for live results, discussion, round scoring, and play-by-play as UFC 259 goes down live at UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
Today’s monster show will be headlined by light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz against undefeated reigning middleweight champ Israel Adesanya, who’s looking to join the illustrious group of champ-champs. In the co-main event, two-division champion and all-time great Amanda Nunes takes on Megan Anderson for Nunes’ women’s featherweight title. First up on the championship tripleheader is men’s bantamweight champion Petr Yan in his first title defense versus Long Island standout Aljamain Sterling.
This post will cover Big Jan vs. Izzy! Every title fight will have its own play-by-play, ditto the non-title main card bouts, and the prelims obviously have their own play-by-play.
This is an earlier event start time than normal. There are SIX early prelims fights, which should kick off around 5:15 PM ET/2:15 PM PT on ESPN2 and ESPN+. Things will move to ESPN and ESPN+ for four more fights at 8 PM ET as usual, and then we’ll go over to PPV at 10 PM ET/7 PM PT.
Petr Yan vs Aljamain Sterling – UFC 259 PPV
PETR YAN VS ALJAMAIN STERLING LOWDOWN
The new bantamweight champion Petr Yan (15-1) makes the first defence of his title in a hugely anticipated clash. Yan has only had seven UFC fights but the only blemish on his record is a split decision loss to Magomed Magomedov back in 2016. Since, he has flourished into his prime with five knockouts in his 10-fight win streak which include his last two performances. Firstly, he knocked out Urijah Faber, but the veteran had just come out of retirement and pulled off a shock knockout over Ricky Simon to falsely lure people to believe he was on Yan’s level. However, Yan took himself to the next level by taking on the former featherweight king Jose Aldo and finishing him in the fifth round to claim the vacant title.
Aljamain Sterling (19-3) finally gets his shot after postponements and it has come at a great time as the ‘Funk Master’ is also in his prime right now. He suffered a painful setback on his road to the title back in 2017 when Marlon Moraes stiffened him with a terrifying flying knee. However, he has compiled arguably the best streak in the division right now including, Brett Johns (unanimous decision), Cody Stamann (submission), Jimme Rivera (unanimous decision), Pedro Munhoz (unanimous decision) and most impressively his recent and ruthless submission over Cory Sandhagen.
PETR YAN VS ALJAMAIN STERLING PREDICTION
Sterling has not hidden the fact that he plans to take Yan down and hunt a submission. They are both extremely well-rounded but the key for Yan winning is out striking Sterling and he needs to avoid getting tangled up on the canvas.
Yan’s boxing and Muay Thai has always been a thing of beauty but going five-rounds with Aldo and finishing the durable legend proved he has championship calibre striking dangerous for a full five rounds.
Sterling is proving his grappling is championship calibre and he is doing so by mixing everything together so well and that is what he needs to do against Yan. Sterling is a quality striker himself and he mixes in his wrestling seamlessly and can jump on a submission from any angle. Whether he grabs a leg from the back like that amazing Suloev stretch on Stamann or becoming a human backpack like he did to Sandhagen.
Yan has great takedown defence so Sterling needs to be unpredictable and the key will be to strike more especially as Yan is prone to eating too many shots. Just like Khabib Nurmagomedov did to Conor McGregor, it was a right hand that McGregor was not prepared for. If Sterling can catch Yan, there will be various opportunities to tie him up.
Obviously, a risky strategy against one of the most dangerous strikers in the division. If Sterling also fails on the first couple takedown attempts, Yan will be fuelled to go on and dominate the rounds with his striking.
This is such a fascinating match-up and it is going to be a spectacle of world class martial arts. It is hard to pick so Sterling is the smart money as the underdog and 25 minutes is a long time to create scrambles, but we have a feeling Yan could follow up his win over Aldo with an even better performance.
