MMA Weekly Roundup — August 2, 2026: UFC Belgrade Sets a Finishing Record

MMA Weekly Roundup · Sunday, August 2, 2026

If you only had time for one card this week, you picked a good one. The UFC's first trip to Serbia turned into one of the most violent nights in the promotion's history, the PFL crowned a free agent nobody can afford to ignore, and a title doubleheader in Philadelphia is now two weeks out. Here is what happened.

UFC Belgrade: A Record Night of Finishes

The UFC made its debut in Serbia on Saturday at Belgrade Arena, and the home crowd got a homecoming main event that lasted exactly half a minute. Welterweight Uros Medic dropped Daniel Rodriguez with a combination and finished him with follow-up strikes at 0:30 of round one — a TKO in front of his own people, in his own city.

The number that will outlive the card, though, is the finish rate. Twelve of the fourteen bouts ended inside the distance and ten of those came in the opening round, setting a new UFC record for most finishes on a single card. For a promotion more than three decades and 700-plus events deep, that is not a small thing. UFC.com has the full main card results, and Sherdog logged the round-by-round.

Navajo Stirling Finishes Jan Blachowicz

The co-main was the night's biggest career-changer. New Zealand light heavyweight Navajo Stirling, 28, came from behind to stop former champion Jan Blachowicz in round one. Stirling landed a jab that put Blachowicz down and opened a cut, and never let the veteran reset. It is comfortably the best win on his record.

Elsewhere on the main card, Aleksandar Rakic took a clean unanimous decision over Marcin Tybura, 30-27 across all three cards. And in the grappling result of the night, Swiss middleweight Robert Valentin upset Dusko Todorovic with a guillotine choke at 4:14 of the first round — he took the very first opening he was given and the tap came immediately. Details are in LowKick's full results and highlights.

PFL New York: Usman Nurmagomedov Walks Into Free Agency at 22-0

Friday night at UBS Arena, Usman Nurmagomedov closed out the final fight of his PFL contract in the most emphatic way available to him: a first-round knockout of Archie Colgan at 3:42, by way of an uppercut and follow-up ground strikes. He is now 22-0 and, by any reasonable read, the most valuable free agent in the sport.

In the co-main, Dakota Ditcheva returned after roughly a year out and swept Denise Kielholtz 30-27 on all three cards to move to 16-0. It was not the highlight-reel finish her fans have gotten used to, but a full three rounds against a durable opponent is not the worst thing for someone shaking off that much ring rust. Yahoo Sports has the full card results.

Looking Ahead: UFC Vegas 120, Then Philadelphia

Next Saturday, August 8, the UFC returns to the Apex for UFC Fight Night: Gamrot vs. Salkilld. Poland's Mateusz Gamrot headlines against Australian lightweight Quillan Salkilld, with Amanda Lemos vs. Alexia Thainara at women's strawweight and Billy Quarantillo vs. Diego Ferreira also booked. Forbes ran through the announced bouts this week.

Then the big one. UFC 330 lands at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia on August 15, with welterweight champion Islam Makhachev defending against Ian Machado Garry, and women's strawweight champion Mackenzie Dern facing Gillian Robertson in the co-main. Two belts, and in Dern vs. Robertson, a matchup between two of the best submission grapplers in the division. Yahoo has the card and start times.

The Grappler's Takeaway

Ten first-round finishes on one card is the kind of statistic that makes people say the sport has gotten more violent. What it actually reflects is how narrow the margins have become at the top level — everyone can strike, everyone can defend takedowns, and the fighter who commits first tends to end it. That is a lesson that travels directly to the mats: hesitation is its own decision, and it is usually the wrong one.

Sources

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