UFC 243 Results: Adesanya dethrones Whittaker to become new champ

New Zealand-Nigerian mixed martial artist Israel Adesanya defeated UFC middleweight champion Robert Whittaker in terrific fashion at the Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.

Adesanya, 30, made an interesting entrance to the octagon, where he and 3 others performed a choreographed routine to kick start his evening in which "The Last Stylebender" knocked out Whittaker three minutes and 33 seconds of the second round.

To begin with Whittaker threw a barrage of powerful strikes at the Interim UFC middleweight champion, however Adesanya had the ability to elude the attempts and deliver shots of his own.

It wasn't quite a whitewash, as Whittaker proved when a mighty left alerted Adesanya to the New Zealand-born Australian's strength.

The bout ended when the pair traded blows in the centre of the octagon and an Adesanya right-left combination brought "The Reaper" crashing down onto the canvas.

Former kickboxing star Adesanya exploded onto the global MMA scene only last year after arriving in the UFC with an undefeated 11-0 record.

The now 18-0 fighter had since reeled off 6 successive wins before UFC 243, including a spectacular fight between Kelvin Gastelum which was a contender for Fight of the Year.

Following his impressive performance, Adesanya told UFC commentator Jon Anik that the win was always inevitable-"he threw everything we expected. We had everything from his Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. We had everything up to Plan Z."

Adesanya's first test as undisputed middleweight champion looks set to come against Brazilian Paulo Costa (ranked #2), who was a prominent figure at cage-side last night.

Like Adesanya, "The Eraser" is also undefeated, and the Brazilian has blitzed his way to the number-one contender spot with four straight TKO finishes, followed by a hard-earned decision win over Cuba's former Olympic wrestler Yoel Romero.

Now the 28-year-old from Brazil looks set to challenge Adesanya, and has already made no secret of his dislike for the self-confident Kiwi, labelling him "skinny", while the new champion described the musclebound Brazilian as looking like an "over-inflated balloon animal".

Hangman Hooker dismantles Iaquinta

The co-main event featured Adesanya's teammate, lightweight Dan "The Hangman" Hooker, who produced a dominant display to earn a unanimous decision victory over former title challenger Al Iaquinta before calling for a hometown fight against the most recent man to challenge for the UFC lightweight title.

Hooker won all three rounds on all three of the judges' scorecards (30-27, 30-27, 30-26) to take his record to 19-8 overall, and 6-1 at lightweight in a fight where he dominated New York's Al Iaquinta.

Following his dominate display, Hooker kept his post match comments short and sweet by saying, "I'm gonna announce my next fight-Dustin Poirier, I'm gonna smash your face in. Meet me in New Zealand, 2020, and I'm gonna end you!"

Poirier, the number 2 ranked lightweight in the UFC, was not interested in the demand and replied on social media by saying: "I'm fighting the Irishman next. You're close but not yet buddy keep punching.

"Dan can fight Cowboy. I'm chilling out until something really excites me. Working on my craft."

The Hangman against Cowboy Cerrone just screams excitement.

Serghei "Polar Bear" Spivak mauls Tuivasa

Tai Tuivasa looked to rebound from from back-to-back losses, however Spivak was also coming off a loss and showed how determined he was to achieve his first win in the UFC.

Between them, only one fight had ever seen the judges scorecards in more than 20 collective bouts...and that trend continued this evening as Spivac was able to register a convincing second round arm-triangle choke submission win.

"The Polar Bear's" takedown ability prevented himself from taking too much damage on the feet from Tuivasa, and gave him the chance to exploit the Australian's poor ground game.

Due to the success and ease of the first takedown, the second round began with Spivac landing another takedown- the Moldovian mixed-martial-artist successfully took Tuivasa down 7 times.

Following the 7th takedown, Spivac asserted his dominance by displaying some vicious elbows from full mount, with one causing Tuivasa to bleed badly all over the canvas.

With Tuivasa in survival mode, Spivac saw the opportunity to choke his opponent and the ref had to step in 3 minutes and 14 seconds into the second round to save an unconscious Tuivasa.

Leg Kick addict Lima beats Jumeau by split decision

Dhiego Lima fed Luke Jumeau a steady diet of leg kicks across the 3 rounds to win him the fight.

The former “Ultimate Fighter” contender appeared to do more than enough to get the job done, although he ultimately had to nervously wait out a split decision with two scorecards reading 29-28 in his favor with the third card going 29-28 for Jumeau.

The slow starting fight began with a successful tally of leg kicks produced by Lima-by the end of the first round Jumeau's calf was covered in a variety of red shades.

The second round featured Jumeau's leg giving up momentarily, allowing Brazilian Lima to wear his opponent down on the ground.

Jumeau caught Lima deceivingly with one of his few strikes slipping through Lima's defence, which resulted in Lima to briefly wobble around the octagon.

While the fight ended in a split decision, Lima seemed confident he was going to get the victory after traveling halfway around the world to get his third straight win overall.

Lima has been wildly inconsistent at times during his career but now with three victories in a row, he’s put together his longest winning streak since 2013.

Yorgan De Castro one punch KO's Justin Tafa

Yorgan De Castro showed how to make a name for yourself in your debut for an organization with an impressive Mark Hunt-esque one punch knockout of Justin Tafa.

Tafa pressured De Castro towards the cage and swang for the fences with a seemingly powerful right hook, but as Tafa lunged forward De Castro instinctively landed a right hook of his own.

The strike landed flush to the chin of Tafa and it caused his lifeless body to fall onto the canvas-without even a thought of landing additional strikes, De Castro knew there and then the fight was over and walked off in victory.

The Cape Verde mixed martial artist now has a record of 6-0 and has definitely raised eyebrows over his performance in Melbourne.