The former two-time champion was stopped by Pifer in the second round, giving him his fourth consecutive loss.
Published March 29, 2026
Joe Pifer took former Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight champion Israel Adesanya back to square one in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night headliner in Seattle, ending the night by stopping Adesanya at 4:18 of the second round.
Before the technical knockout (TKO), both fighters traded their best punches in a stand-up battle until a takedown by Pifer (16-3 MMA) signaled the beginning of the end.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“I have the mentality that I don’t care. I’m going to explore and destroy,” Pifer said after the match, securing the finish in top control.
Adesanya (24-6 mixed martial arts), who fights out of New Zealand, hasn’t won a fight since reclaiming middleweight gold at UFC 287 in April 2023, but admitted he has no plans to retire.
“I’m just going to keep moving forward,” Adesanya said.
Grasso dominates Barber in rematch
The five-year rematch began in the flyweight division, with former champion Alexa Grasso stopping Macy Barber with a short TKO at 2 minutes, 42 seconds into the opening round. The Mexican knocked Barber down with a left hook and immediately jumped on top of him as the referee intervened.
The two first met in February 2021, with Grasso winning the decision. Grasso (17-5-1 MMA) suffered a two-fight losing streak, while Barber (15-3 MMA) had not lost since his first encounter with Grasso and had won his previous seven bouts.
In his final MMA bout, welterweight Michael Chiesa (20-7 MMA) defeated Nico Price (16-11 MMA) with a rear-naked choke in the first round and was sent home. Chiesa needed just 63 seconds to end a UFC career that spanned more than a decade and included winning the 15th season of The Ultimate Fighter in June 2012.
Chiesa finished his UFC career with a 15-7 record, while Price, who himself has been in the promotion for more than a decade, is now 8-11, with two no-contests in the Octagon and four consecutive dropped bouts.
Finishing was the theme of the night, as Brazilian featherweight Lelian Douglas (14-5 MMA) needed 3 minutes and 33 seconds of the opening round to score a dominant TKO victory over Julian Erosa (31-13 MMA). Douglas is currently on a six-fight win streak, while Erosa continues to struggle at 9-9 in the UFC.
In the middleweight division, Yusri Bergaly of the Netherlands ended a back-and-forth battle against Mansour Abdul Malik with a perfectly timed knee kick and a third-round TKO stoppage. Bergaly (10-3 MMA) remains undefeated in the UFC with five straight wins. On the other hand, Abdul Malik (MMA 9-1-1) had won 7 of his 11 fights by KO/TKO, but this was his first professional loss.
The main card had a strong opening bout, with lightweight Terrence McKinney needing just 24 seconds to eliminate Canada’s Kyle Nelson with a flurry of punches starting with a head kick. McKinney (18-8 MMA) has won three of his last four fights, while Nelson (17-7-1 MMA) has lost two of his last three fights.
