UFC 306 and Canelo Alvarez delivered, but the events weren't meant to happen at the same time | News, results, highlights, stats and rumors

Las Vegas lived up to its reputation as the combat sports capital of the world on Saturday night, hosting both UFC 306 and boxing star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez's recent title defense. Both events delivered on their promises – it's just a shame they overlapped.

UFC 306 was the promotion's debut at the new Las Vegas Sphere and lived up to all the pre-fight hype by taking full advantage of the state-of-the-art arena's many bells and whistles. Dubbed Noche UFC, the event celebrated Mexican Independence Day and featured many of the promotion's top Mexican fighters – with the exception of the main event, which pitted American champion Sean O'Malley against Georgian challenger Merab Dvalishvili in a bantamweight title bout.

O'Malley, who won the belt last year by knockout of Dvalishvili's training partner Aljamain Sterling and defended it earlier this year with a decision win over Marlon “Chito” Vera, was one of the promotion's biggest stars prior to this top-flight fight but ultimately suffered a comprehensive unanimous decision loss.

“I feel like I'm in a dream,” an ecstatic Dvalishvili told commentator Joe Rogan after the fight, with the bantamweight belt wrapped around his waist. “Today I'm the best fighter in the UFC.”

It went more or less exactly as everyone who backed Dvalishvili predicted. The Georgian, who is currently one of the most relentless wrestlers in MMA, managed takedown after takedown throughout the five-round fight. Despite being badly injured by a body shot in the final round, he successfully neutralized the champion's well-aimed strikes and controlled the fight himself to the extent that the judges' verdict was clear.

“I do this every day – twice a day,” said the Georgian. “I work hard.”

“Nothing was surprising,” he added. “I knew he was good, but I made him look normal.”

In the co-main event of UFC 306, Mexican Alexa Grasso attempted to defend her women's flyweight title against former champion and living legend Valentina Shevchenko. It was the third meeting between the two after Grasso surprisingly defeated Shevchenko to win the belt early last year. She later defended the belt with a controversial draw against the former champion.

Unfortunately for Grasso and the legions of Mexican fans in the packed Sphere, she ultimately fell by the wayside in her rivalry with Shevchenko, suffering multiple takedowns and landing just 18 significant strikes en route to a unanimous decision loss.

“It's a dream come true to fight in the sphere,” Shevchenko said after regaining the title. “Everything about this fight was more satisfying [than the last fight]. The plan was to go in there and fight to the end.”

With Grasso's loss to Shevchenko, the Mexican fighters on the UFC 306 program ended the night with a disappointing 1-6 record against their opponents – and a slightly better 2-6 when you include Mexico-based Brazilian Diego Lopes' devastating point victory over two-time former featherweight title challenger Brian Ortega on the main card.

That's certainly not the outcome the Mexican fighters or their Mexican fans had in mind when the fight began, but the country was not left without important combat sport victories that night – and that's thanks to Canelo, who dominated Edgar Berlanga at the T-Mobile Arena across town to earn a point victory.

It was the result pretty much everyone expected from the Mexican boxing star, but it was undeniably impressive, giving him five straight wins since a points loss to Dmitry Bivol in 2022. Granted, it's been a long time since we've seen him knock anyone out – since he beat Caleb Plant in 2021, to be exact – but it confirmed that he remains one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world.

“I am the best fighter in the world,” Alvarez said after his victory, which marked the successful defense of his WBA, WBC, WBO and The Ring super middleweight titles.

Canelo's fight was sold out at T-Mobile Arena, but had the UFC not been held at the Sphere Stadium, many of his other fans would likely have tried to get into the building to support him. It's outrageous that combat sports fans have to choose which event they want to watch, and asking someone to spend their hard-earned money on two pay-per-views running simultaneously in this day and age is short-sighted at best and greed at worst.

But let's not take away from the excitement of this massive night of combat sports. There were probably a lot of fans at T-Mobile Arena checking their phones to see how UFC 306 was going, and of course there were undoubtedly thousands of fans around the world watching both events simultaneously on different screens.

It's a shame that fans were forced to choose between the two martial arts cards or divide their attention between them.