19-year-old Raul Rosas Jr. is starting to really settle into his place on the UFC roster, and delivered another solid performance beyond his years in submitting Ricky Turcios in the second round.

There were some things to really like out of the performance from Rosas Jr. (9-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC). He is showing more patience in his grappling execution and appears to be much more calm in all positions. We didn’t get to see a ton of his striking in this one, but the grappling, which will seemingly always be his bread-and-butter, was on point.

I’ve still not seen enough from Rosas Jr. to taper my expectations for his career to match the lofty achievements he’s setting for himself. However, you can’t doubt he seems to be doing it all the right way, and as long as he does that, he should be able to maximize his potential – whatever that may be.

There was perhaps no one on this card who needed a win more than Dominick Reyes. Not only did he get his hand raised, but he did it impressively in just two minutes against Dustin Jacoby.

Reyes (13-4 MMA, 7-4 UFC) believed in his striking in a way we haven’t quite seen since his infamous loss to Jon Jones in February 2021. That fight was the turning point in his career, because he was undefeated going in, and had been winless coming out.

“The Dominator” can finally put the losing skid narrative behind him, though – at least for now. That’s got to be a massive relief, because now he can start thinking about the future and rebuilding the momentum he once had in his career.

Is it possible for Reyes to capture that magic? I don’t know. He’s 34 years old and has taken a lot of damage and some nasty knockouts. It’s always a coin toss when he’s getting in there with elite light heavyweights given the power at play, so it’s going to take near-perfection if he wants to climb back to the top.

Nothing is a guarantee for Reyes going forward, but we know one thing for sure: His current position is much better than if this result had gone the other way, because you’d have to imagine a fifth consecutive defeat would’ve been the nail in the coffin to his UFC run.

What should’ve been a glorious moment of achievement for Nassourdine Imavov was marred with controversy courtesy of an early stoppage by Jason Herzog in the main event with Jared Cannonier.

After Cannonier (17-7 MMA, 10-7 UFC) started the fight strong, Imavov (14-4 MMA, 6-2 UFC) started to come on in the second and third rounds of the middleweight headliner. He legitimately hurt Cannonier on multiple occasions in Round 3, and was definitely on the verge of a stoppage before Herzog jumped in prematurely.

I will join in the slew of people who have said in the aftermath of this that while Herzog might be the best referee in MMA at the moment, this was not his finest work. Cannonier is a 40-year-old contender who doesn’t have many runs left in him, and he’d never been stopped in his career as a middleweight.

I’m well aware external factors like that aren’t meant to come into play when a referee is deciding when to stop a fight, but even without that, this seemed like Herzog jumped the gun. Maybe Cannonier was about to get put out cold with several minutes on the clock still remaining in the round, but he deserved more of a chance to prove it, honestly, even if he was turning his back and running to escape.

If Imavov had won clean the praise on him would be coming with a significantly different tone. He got robbed of his moment by the referee. Maybe he doesn’t care, but when you’re going to make a callout like a Sean Strickland rematch in the aftermath of the fight, it would’ve been a lot more meaningful if the people could be more excited about the result they just saw.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC on ESPN 57.