The first UFC event of 2025 saw everything from incredible knockouts to controversial decisions and extremely gnarly cuts.
Despite not being the strongest card ever seen on paper, UFC Vegas 101 on Saturday kicked off the year for the promotion and it involved pretty much everything you could see from an event.
One of the most bizarre moments of the night was when strawweight fighter, Viktoriia Dudakova slapped her own coach after suffering a KO loss.
A few fights into the main card saw a middleweight matchup between two strong strikers, Chris Curtis and Roman Kopylov.
The Russian was coming into the fight after a split decision win against Cesar Almeida, which he may have felt fortunate to win.
'The Action Man' on the other hand was looking to bounce back from a split decision loss to Brendan Allen as he looked to once again climb near to the top 15 rankings in the 185lb division.
In the first round, Kopylov looked to show off his slick kickboxing and dominated for the large majority of the first five minutes despite the numbers reading extremely close.
However, Curtis showed his heart in the second round as he began to work his way into the fight with his relentless nature to never back down, seemingly picking up the second round and making it 1-1 going into the final five minutes.
Unfortunately, though, as with many UFC events these days, this fight was clouded by a horrendous mistake made by the referee in charge, Mark Smith.
After another impressive display by Kopylov, who wobbled Curtis on multiple occasions in the final round, he landed a huge head kick with only a few seconds left on the clock. Curtis fell to the ground after a short delay but still seemed to have his faculties.
The Russian walked away thinking he'd scored a walk-off KO but Curtis wasn't unconscious and seemed to be trying to recover as he saw Kopylov walking off. Despite that, Mark Smith stepped in and called the fight with just one second remaining on the clock.
Curtis, who is usually an extremely outspoken personality of course raged at the referee's decision and was in an emotional state following the controversy.
During Kopylov's Octagon interview, it became apparent the damage he had absorbed throughout the three rounds as he had a huge gash above his right eye.
Following the fight, UFC CEO, Dana White provided a close-up image of the 32-year-old's gnarly cut with a before and after, showing the tremendous work of the UFC doctors to stitch him up.
"I think everything was correct, everything was by the rules, I did not want to finish him because I didn't want to hurt him, he's a family man... So I wanted to make sure he can come back and feed his family," Kopylov said about the controversial ending.