After five rounds of intense fighting inside the octagon, Leon Edwards won on a unanimous decision but that wasn’t the highlight of the fight.
At UFC 263, we saw the first-ever five-round non-title and non-main-event fight between Leon Edwards (19-3) and Nate Diaz (20-13) and Edwards came out firing; completely dominant in the first four rounds after bloodying Nate Diaz from both sides of his head. The fighter from Birmingham was just a minute away from one of the best wins of his career but things took a different route right at the end when he got caught by a straight left by Nate Diaz which put him in serious trouble.
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Edwards found himself stumbling across the octagon as he was holding on to stay on his feet and was trying to avoid any further damage. Nate Diaz meanwhile, after connecting the punch started to showboat and pointed towards Edwards who was on jelly feet and then raised his arms in the air to get the crowd going as well. For a second it felt like Diaz was set to pull off one of THE most incredible comebacks in UFC history but Edwards managed to dodge his strikes and see the fight through till the final siren.
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Edwards, in the post-fight press conference, said, “I was rocked, not enough to go down on my knees and get ground and pounded out but I felt that. I didn’t know what he hit me with until after the fight. It was a clean shot.” As for Nate Diaz, he said, “In a real fight in a real-world, that fight’s a wrap. He was sleepwalking. I got cut in training, that’s why we pushed the fight back a month. I kind of lost motivation after that. He won, but I feel like I’m the better fighter still.”
What’s next for the winner, Leon Edwards?
After defeating Nate Diaz, Edwards takes his win streak to 10 fights and many believe that he is ready for a title shot against current welterweight champion Kamaru Usman. There’s also Colby Covington who is currently #1 in the Welterweight division so it’s possible that we could see a fight between Covington and Edwards in the coming months as an eliminator for the Welterweight championship.
[Image Credit: UFC]
Shashank Iyer