The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) made its second ever appearance at New York’s famous Madison Square Garden on Saturday night as fight fans gathered around the arena for UFC 217. The event hosted a fight card full of exciting fights. Three different title fights went down during the night’s pay-per-view, including the octagon return of Georges St-Pierre. More dazzling than the fight card itself, was of course the fights themselves. By the end of the night, there were three new UFC champions.
Kicking off the first title fight of the night, Joanna Jedrzejczyk went toe-to-toe with Rose Namajunas. Jedrzejczyk entered the octagon as the UFC strawweight champion, but suffered a swift first round knockout loss to her opponent.
Co-headlining the night’s card, Cody “No Love” Garbrandt attempted to make his first title defense as he faced off against T.J. Dillashaw. However, Dillashaw defeated the UFC bantamweight champion with a second round TKO finish.
In a stunningly exciting main event, former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre made his big octagon return after taking a nearly 4 year long hiatus from the sport of mixed martial arts. For his big return, the fighter moved up in weight to challenge UFC middleweight champion Michael “The Count” Bisping for his title. With a vicious rear-naked choke in the third round, St-Pierre claimed the middleweight title as his own with a submission victory over “The Count.”
With three different belts having changed hands at this exciting event, UFC President Dana White offered his reaction to the night in an interview with UFC reporter Megan Olivi. Check out the interview in the video below:
