UFC 290 rundown: Volkanovski's dominance highlights an all-time card

Alexander Volkanovski retained the UFC featherweight title Saturday, defeating Yair Rodriguez by third-round TKO in the UFC 290 main event in Las Vegas.

In the co-feature, Alexandre Pantoja won the UFC flyweight belt with a thrilling split-decision win over Brandon Moreno.

Here are four takeaways from the pay-per-view card.

UFC 290 was one of the best events in recent memory

UFC 189 in July 2015 has been the gold standard for International Fight Week pay-per-view events for years. It featured Conor McGregor's impressive win over Chad Mendes, the now-Hall of Fame rematch between Robbie Lawler and Rory MacDonald, and tons of other memorable fights and performances. UFC 189 was an all-time card in terms of entertainment. But now it has competition.

UFC 290 thrilled from start to finish. The fans at T-Mobile Arena were spoiled silly. In the featured attraction, Volkanovski again showed why he's one of the UFC's pound-for-pound greats. In some ways, Rodriguez was the "hipster" pick, but Volkanovski dominated his fifth title defense. He intelligently relied on his wrestling to beat up Rodriguez and punctuated his performance with a devastating finish. Volkanovski was coming off his first-ever UFC loss in a superfight against lightweight champion Islam Makhachev. This was as good of a rebound as you can get.

Slobber knockers and highlight-reel stoppages littered the rest of the event. In particular, Pantoja's win over Moreno may have been the best flyweight bout in UFC history. Nine of the 13 fights on the UFC 290 card ended inside the distance - four in 60 seconds or less, which set a modern UFC record for most sub-one-minute finishes on a card. Two of the four fights that went to the judges - Pantoja versus Moreno and Dan Hooker versus Jalin Turner - will be in talks for Fight of the Year come December. The two others, at worst, still entertained.

From Volkanovski continuing his reign of terror at 145 pounds to Lawler winning his retirement fight emphatically to several prospects like Bo Nickal, Cameron Saaiman, and Tatsuro Taira taking the next step, almost everyone on the card showed out in a big way. Unless the second half of 2023 is truly ridiculous, there's almost no way UFC 290 doesn't go down as the Event of the Year. Fans will undoubtedly talk about this card for years to come.

Du Plessis' awkward style works

Just about everybody in the MMA world owes Dricus Du Plessis an apology.

Few people gave Du Plessis much of a chance to beat former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker, with oddsmakers listing him as a heavy +300 underdog. The widespread belief was that although Du Plessis was undefeated in the UFC, he'd be in over his head against someone as talented as Whittaker, long considered the second-best middleweight on the planet.

Well, let's just say MMA is unpredictable.

Du Plessis used his physicality, powerful striking, and unorthodox style to do to Whittaker what only UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya has done in the last nine years - beat and finish him. Excluding Adesanya, Whittaker was 12-0 against every middleweight he fought. What Du Plessis did Saturday night was impressive. Whittaker had a strong start, jabbing Du Plessis from range. But Du Plessis worked in his ground game to bust up Whittaker later in the first round before rocking and putting the ex-champ away with a barrage of shots in the second.

Aesthetically, Du Plessis' style doesn't necessarily look like it should belong to one of the best middleweights in the UFC. He's not the most technical fighter. But there's no more doubting him. He broke through in a big way. And just because not everyone fights like Du Plessis, it doesn't mean he can't make it work. He clearly has.

One last thing about Du Plessis-Whittaker: The UFC matchmakers nailed this one. Many people criticized the promotion for giving Du Plessis a tough test in Whittaker and risking a fresh matchup for Adesanya. There had already been bad blood between Adesanya and Du Plessis. And even though Du Plessis may not have deserved a title shot yet, MMA fans would have been content if the UFC booked that fight.

Instead, Du Plessis nabbed his career win and proved he's one of the best at 185 pounds, and then had a heated faceoff with Adesanya in the Octagon. That matchup - which could happen as early as UFC 293 on Sept. 9 in Sydney, Australia - will now be way more anticipated than before. Initially seen as potentially a big mistake, the UFC's risk paid off massively.

A bump in the road for Mexican MMA

Mexico has been on fire in the MMA world this year, but the country didn't have the best night at UFC 290.

Rodriguez and Moreno lost their UFC titles (Rodriguez was the interim featherweight champion). On the prelims, Mexico natives Yazmin Jauregui and Edgar Chairez also fell short. Jauregui's 20-second TKO defeat to Denise Gomes was particularly surprising. Jesus Aguilar was the only Mexican to win at the event, though he thrilled fans with a devastating 17-second knockout.

Saturday's results shift away from the success Mexico has realized in the UFC in recent months. The promotion has crowned three Mexican champions in 2023 alone - Moreno, Rodriguez, and Alexa Grasso, who stunned Valentina Shevchenko in March to become the new women's flyweight champ. Irene Aldana could have been the fourth, but she fell short against Amanda Nunes in a women's bantamweight title fight in June.

Despite Moreno and Rodriguez no longer wearing UFC gold, there's no doubt Mexico is still an up-and-coming powerhouse in MMA. The UFC is opening a Performance Institute in Mexico City, and we'll continue to see more and more prospects - and likely contenders, too - emerge from the country.

UFC 290 may not have been a step in the right direction, but everyone has a bad night. It likely won't be a huge deal in the long run.

Lawler's MMA farewell was a rare great one

Former UFC champions Frankie Edgar and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua recently had retirement fights that didn't go their way - both brutally finished by relatively unknown fighters. That's far too often the case for MMA legends who decide to walk away. Storybook endings in this sport are few and far between. Perhaps that's a sign fighters stick around too long. In many instances, the UFC doesn't do much to ensure these retirements are feel-good moments.

That's what made Lawler's retirement fight against Niko Price so special.

The former UFC welterweight champ put an end to his swan song before it could really get started, scoring a 38-second walk-off finish against a younger man favored by the oddsmakers. It was the third-fastest finish of Lawler's illustrious 47-fight career dating back to 2001 and just his second victory since 2017.

For newer fans who perhaps didn't witness Lawler's championship run firsthand, the 41-year-old will go down as one of the most violent and entertaining fighters in MMA history. His career is probably worthy of being in the UFC Hall of Fame. Lawler was involved in three "Fight of the Year" candidates between 2014 and 2016 - all three were title fights, two of which he won. His fight against MacDonald in 2015 is widely considered one of the best ever, and it was quite possibly the best display of heart we've seen from a defending UFC champion. The fifth round between Lawler and Carlos Condit in 2016 - and really that entire bout - will still come up in conversation decades from now.

Lawler was a 13-year veteran who had experienced many ups and downs throughout his MMA career when he took the welterweight title from Johny Hendricks in 2014. Frankly, Lawler wasn't supposed to become UFC champion. But he did. And on Saturday, Lawler wasn't necessarily supposed to beat Price. But he did. He defied the odds. This was a full-circle moment for the "Ruthless" one.

Lawler, a man who rarely shows emotion, teared up during his postfight interview while watching a video package of his career highlights. It's hard to reach any other conclusion than the UFC nailed his retirement fight.