A -1200 Favorite/UFC Prospect Was Just Humbled And Dominated At UFC 311

We just watched Raoni Barcelos dominate the hell outta Payton Talbott at UFC 311 - handing him the first loss of his professional career and humbling him quite a bit in the process. I don't know if it was just the experience advantage or what, but Barcelos looked fantastic tonight and easily controlled the -1200 favorite for three straight rounds at the Intuit Dome in what probably should've been a prospect showcase for Talbott. Talbott was able to scramble well and land a few decent shots at different points of the fight, and didn't look horrible, but he just never strung anything together or got going.

Many are blaming the loss on Payton cutting his hair off, which admittedly did remove major aura points for the young enigma....

....but I still have faith in Talbott rebounding and coming back improved after this. He's still so young and sometimes it's oddly the best thing for a fighter to get that first loss over with - removing the pressure of carrying that undefeated record. Now you go back to the drawing board, see what you have to work on, and return even stronger with a chip on your shoulder. As Coach Kavanagh always said about mixed martial arts, "You either win or learn." 

Hopefully we see Talbott again soon. Congrats to Raoni Barcelos on the big hype-train stopping win tonight, though - great stuff all around.

Honestly, the prelims weren't amazing otherwise (we've seen A LOT of decisions tonight) - but we did get this brutal controversial finish, polarizing due to the multiple shots landed to the back of Zachary Reese's head….

It's so harsh to watch Reese's head bounce off the canvas like that….and he was out for a while after this. It was fucking scary.

The UFC 311 PPV starts now, with a couple great fights on the slate ahead of us….

Advertisement

Go Manders and Moicano.