Seventh-ranked featherweight Arnold Allen defeated No. 12 Melquizael Costa at UFC Fight Night in Las Vegas on Saturday, putting together a dominant striking performance to end Costa’s six-fight winning streak.
Allen won on the judges’ scorecards by unanimous decision, 50-45, 50-45, 49-46.
Allen (21-4) capitalized on a first-round knockdown but really started to pull away in the third round, where the Englishman landed 44 significant strikes to Costa’s 23 after the Brazilian held an early advantage in that department.
Costa (26-8) fought an effective fourth round and had Allen on his backfoot to start the fourth, but Allen quickly recovered to preserve the lead he built on the cards.
The win marks Allen’s first in the UFC since July 2024, when he beat Giga Chikadze by unanimous decision at UFC 304. Allen lost a unanimous decision to Jean Silva in January in Las Vegas.
South Korean featherweight DooHo Choi defeated Brazil’s Daniel Santos in the co-main event by TKO at 4:29 of the second round, dropping Santos with a shot to the body after a come-from-behind effort.
Santos (14-3) dominated the first round and nearly finished the fight himself with his explosive striking, but Choi (16-4-1) withstood the onslaught and the early output proved costly for Santos later on.
The victory comes in Choi’s first UFC appearance since December 2024, when he beat Nate Landwehr by TKO at UFC 310. Choi, who missed all of 2025 with a knee injury, didn’t miss a beat in his return and looked as explosive as ever in the second round despite all of the damage he sustained in the first.
Seven months after earning a UFC contract with a spinning elbow knockout during Dana White’s Contender Series, Peruvian bantamweight Juan Diaz (16-1-1) shocked heavily favored Malcolm Wellmaker (10-2) in his first official UFC fight via rear-naked choke at 4:05 of the second round. Wellmaker, from Augusta, Ga., has now lost consecutive fights after starting his career 10-0 overall and 2-0 in the UFC.
Modestas Bukauskas (20-7) defeated Christian Edwards (8-5) by split decision in a closely contested 215-pound catch-weight fight.
Bukauskas nearly finished the American multiple times early in the fight but resorted to the clinch each time, allowing Edwards to make his way back in the fight and ultimately make it a toss-up on the scorecards, 28-29, 29-28, 29-28.
A light heavyweight from Lithuania, Bukauskas now has won seven of his last nine fights following his return to the UFC in 2023 after going 1-3 during his initial stint with the organization.
Rising bantamweight Bernardo Sopaj impressed with a second-round stoppage in just his third UFC fight, beating Timmy Cuamba by submission via rear-naked choke at 2:25 of the second round after leaving the American (10-4) bloodied and battered with a series of combinations and effective ground-and-pound.
Sopaj (13-3) of Albania is now 2-1 in the UFC, winning consecutive fights after losing in his debut.
Welterweight knockout artist Khaos Williams opened the main card with one of the finest TKOs of his career, stopping Kazakhstan’s Nikolay Veretennikov (14-8) at 3:31 of the first round with an explosive combination of punches.
Williams (16-5) inflicted significant damage throughout the short-lived fight, earning the ninth KO/TKO win of his professional career. The stoppage came nearly two years after the American’s last UFC win over Carlston Harris in May 2024 and directly following an 11-month layoff after a loss to Andreas Gustafsson at UFC 316 last June.
–Field Level Media
