Coming into their lightweight bout on the prelims, Terrance McKinney was known as the man capable putting opponent’s lights out in the blink of an eye. After it, though, those type of expectations have to placed on Esteban Ribovics.

Ribovics (13-1 MMA, 2-1 UFC) needed just 37 seconds to punt McKinney’s head into the bleachers with a beautiful right head kick while in the motion of a combination. The Argentinian fighter set McKinney up perfectly and landed the brutal knockout shot, and this type of performance isn’t foreign to him – we just haven’t seen it in the UFC to this point.

Out of his now 13 professional wins, Ribovics has won inside two minutes a total of six times. That includes a seven-second knockout back in December 2020 on the regional scene, and now he’s transitioning those results to the biggest stage. He somehow didn’t get a Performance of the Night bonus for this, either, which is kind of tragic.

McKinney is an admittedly inconsistent competitor and defines “kill or be killed” in there. This time it didn’t go his way, and that allowed Ribovics to shine.

Chase Hooper no longer can be described as one-dimensional after his performance against Viacheslav Borshchev.

Yeah, Hooper (14-3-1 MMA, 6-3 UFC) spent most of the time on the ground and ultimately finished the job with a D’Arce choke in the second round, but it was all started in the opening round of the lightweight bout, when he scored his first UFC knockdown.

Borshchev was floored by the shot and never found a moment of success from that point forward. It was a promising moment for Hooper fans. He’s now 3-0 since moving up to 155 pounds a year ago, and this effort showed he’s evolving.

At 24, Hooper still has a lot to of work to do on his game before competing with the elite of the division. But he’s taking promising strides against increasingly more difficult competition, and that’s all you can ask for out of a prospect like him.

Robelis Despaigne told MMA Junkie prior to stepping into the octagon with Waldo Cortes-Acosta that he was going to be fighting for the UFC heavyweight championship by 2025. Those ambitions took a massive blow with his first career loss.

Coming in, Despaigne (5-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) looked like he was capable of wreaking havoc over the division. He blew threw his first five career opponents in the first round, with four of those wins coming in less than 20 seconds. That type of fighter is scary, but also a target for many questions.

Despaigne gave us answers to a lot of unknowns, but not in a good way. His takedown defense and conditioning were not up to par for someone looking to put their name in title contention, nor was his resistance to adversity.

All due respect to Cortes-Acosta, who rightfully did what he needed to do to get this win, but a superior fighter to him would’ve had the referee pulling them off Despaigne on this night.

UFC CEO Dana White seemingly felt the same. He completely crapped on Cortes-Acosta’s win at the post-fight news conference, claiming it would’ve gotten a bonus for “sh*ttiest fight of the night” if he was able to give one.

White was correct in his description that Cortes-Acosta vs. Despaigne was the worst fight on the card. He went down this road at first to show that the rest of the action on the night was entertaining, but it’s also hard to know what more Cortes-Acosta could’ve done. Standing with Despaigne for any length of time would’ve been foolish, and the takedowns came easy.

The criticism should ultimately fall bigger on Despaigne, as he had no defense for Cortes-Acosta’s basic game plan. It’s a tough lesson for Despaigne, but one that’s best to learn now if he’s going to achieve any of the potential that’s clearly there with him.