Topuria on top: Dominant win over Josh Emmett highlights UFC main event in Jacksonville

Antwerp. Bogota. Abu Dhabi. Las Vegas. London. Now, Jacksonville.

Ilia Topuria added to his list of winning cities Saturday -- and the First Coast is his next stop toward the top.

The fearsome featherweight continued his rocket rise up the ranks, defeating Josh Emmett by unanimous decision in Saturday's main event to highlight UFC Fight Night inside VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.

The global mixed martial arts circuit's sixth stop in Northeast Florida, this one televised on ABC, showcased the rise of a fighter with major potential and major results as the city held a UFC event for the fourth consecutive year.

Topuria (14-0) inflicted cuts on Emmett's face in the first round, and nearly finished him entirely in the second and fourth rounds. Somehow, the 38-year-old Californian fought on through five rounds of pain, and even managed to unleash a couple of hard shots in the fifth.

Emmett's effort wasn't enough to tip the balance on the one-sided scorecards, which included a rare 50-42 tally, but he did win the admiration of the victor.

"He was tough," Topuria said. "If I connected with anyone all the punches I connected with him, they give up, but he did not."

So was Topuria. Born in Germany to parents from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and fighting out of Spain, he showed his mastery from the start with celebrities like Spanish World Cup soccer champion Sergio Ramos looking on from the side of the octagon.

For the 26-year-old Topuria (14-0), the ninth-ranked contender in the division coming in, victory on the First Coast further cements his status as a fighter on course for a championship challenge down the road.

"I showed it tonight. No one can match my level of skill inside the cage… I know that I can finish anyone in this division," Topuria said.

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'GOING TO COME FOR THAT BLOOD'

Topuria's performance highlighted a card that started slowly but picked up intensity, in sometimes bloody fashion.

Fighting fewer than 20 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, Maycee Barber took some inspiration from the sea's most notorious predator to become a shark in the octagon.

"I'm going to come for that blood," she said.

Battling on through a gaping cut around her own nose, Barber put away women's flyweight contender Amanda Ribas midway through the second round of the co-main event.

Barber had already opened up cuts on the face of Ribas in the opening round, in by far the bloodiest event of the night, and dealt more damage with a relentless ground-and-pound finish.

As "U-S-A!" chants echoed through the arena, Barber delivered a crushing left leg to the face of Ribas, then followed up with combination punches that downed her rival and finished off with a fresh barrage of strikes until referee Keith Peterson halted the bout as a technical knockout at 3:42 of the second.

For 11th-ranked women's flyweight challenger Barber, called "The Future" after breaking into the UFC ranks at the age of 20 in 2018, a fifth consecutive victory breathed fresh momentum into a career that hit choppy waters with consecutive losses in 2020 and 2021.

"I'm not backing down," she said, "and I'm coming to finish these girls again."

'That's where I belong': Former Jaguar Austen Lane eager for UFC debut in Jacksonville

EYE POKE HALTS LANE'S UFC DEBUT

The long-awaited UFC debut for former Jacksonville Jaguars lineman Austen Lane ended in disappointment amid bizarre circumstances against fellow heavyweight Justin Tafa.

Only 29 seconds into the fight, after Lane threw a right-hand strike toward Tafa, his left hand poked the opponent in the right eye and opened a wound.

Referee Dan Miragliotta called a timeout, and after doctors examined Tafa for more than three minutes, officials declared the fight a first-round no-contest due to an accidental eye poke.

The abrupt ending brought visible disappointment for Lane, who lined up as a pass rusher from 2010 to 2012 less than a mile to the east at the home of the Jaguars and became the first Jacksonville resident to fight in a home UFC event.

Lane apologized to Tafa on social media after the fight, saying the poke was "on me." To Jacksonville fans, he said, "The energy you gave me as I was walking out will be something I'll remember the rest of my life. I'm sorry I couldn't give you show."

Another fighter with North Florida ties also missed out on his goal, albeit in more conventional fashion.

Phil Rowe, born in Brooklyn but a graduate of Matanzas High School in Flagler County, fell short in his quest to go 2-for-2 in Jacksonville, losing to No. 11 welterweight contender Neil Magny in a slow-paced split-decision fight that drew boos from the crowd. Rowe had earned his first professional MMA victory eight years ago at the since-demolished Jacksonville Landing.

While the Lane-Tafa and Magny-Rowe endings proved anticlimactic, David Onama's main card finish against Brazil's Gabriel Santos was anything but. After absorbing several hard punches in the early going, the Ugandan featherweight turned the tables finished off the fight with a punishing combination for a knockout at 4:13 of the second round.

One fighter who did earn a second win in Jacksonville was Louisiana native Brendan Allen, beating Bruno Silva of Brazil for his fifth consecutive victory. Allen absorbed several venomous shots to the head but downed Silva with a solid punch, then finished him off near the cage's edge by submission via rear-naked choke at 4:39 of the opening round. Allen, ranked 13th among middleweight contenders, earlier won in Jacksonville at UFC 261.

Also notching a second Jacksonville victory was Randy Brown, jumping ahead in the first two rounds and holding on for a unanimous decision over Brazilian welterweight Wellington Turman.

During the later preliminaries, Mateusz Rebecki stretched his winning streak to 15 fights, unleashing a barrage of kicks for a second-round stoppage of lightweight Loik Radzhabov, and Brazil's Tabatha Ricci earned a unanimous decision against Gillian Robertson of Canada in a women's strawweight bout.

Jacksonville's fight night passion was also a winner. Even with no championship belts on the line, 14,101 fans -- slightly below the arena's peak crowd of 15,269 for UFC 261 in 2021 -- attended the 13-fight event, which began shortly before noon and stretched into the early evening.

On Topuria's current path, those Jacksonville fans may look back at Saturday as the day when they watched a future champion in action.

"Without a doubt, I made a statement that I'm the next guy in the line," Topuria said. "I'm coming for the title."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Ilia Topuria defeats Josh Emmett at UFC Fight Night in Jacksonville