Exciting fighters Yair Rodriguez and Josh Emmett threw down during the co-main event of UFC 284, as they fought for the interim featherweight title.
The belt was on the line because of champ Alexander Volkanovski moving up to fight Islam Makhachev at lightweight, and the winner of this fight would face him regardless of the result in the main event. Many saw this fight as being a match-up between the thrilling, creative kickboxing of Yair Rodriguez and the knockout power in boxing from Josh Emmett. Each man’s resume was littered with thrilling fights and this fight was likely to be no different.
Both men came out round one in orthodox stance. They felt each other out for a bit; Yair threw some leg kicks and front kicks to the belly while Josh Emmett pressured forward. A big round body kick from southpaw from Rodriguez hurt Emmett a bit and made him back off. Yair was kicking so much and tagging Emmett, mostly to the body, that Emmett could not even get a strike attempt off; he had thrown zero strikes two minutes into the round. After that he did land his first strike, a right hand while Yair circled out from the cage.
Emmett would sometimes corner Rodriguez against the fence but then only had a moment to take advantage of it as the slick footwork of the Mexican was able to get him back to open space. Emmett was not doing well enough to head him off, rather he was charging forward with big straight shots. Then, with ninety seconds left in round one, a big right hand from Emmett hurt Yair. Rodriguez retreated backwards and eventually fell to his back when being off-balanced during another exchange with Emmett. Emmett rained down hammerfists and elbows while Yair looked to throw up triangles instead of trying to stand up. But in the last fifteen seconds of the round Rodriguez did land some good elbows off of his back. No matter what position he was put in he would clearly fight like a caged tiger.
Round two saw an early trade in the pocket w here both men landed massive shots. Yair then got back to working the body of Emmett, who responded by swinging massive overhands at first. Then he switched lanes, catching a kick and looking for a takedown after entering the clinch. But Yair was able to get back to striking after breaking the clinch. He slammed southpaw round kicks into the arms of Josh Emmett, then an elbow seemed to rock Emmett, who was showing signs of fading due to the heavy attritional damage he had taken to the body in so short a time. Emmett went back to massive explosions from outside with no setup which Yair was able to just slide out of the way of.
With two minutes left in the round Rodriguez did a jump knee that Emmett caught and used to dump him to his back. He was in the full guard of Yair as he tried to get off ground and pound. Yair threw up armbars and triangles and with fifty seconds left in the round locked one up. He tightened the triangle rapidly and Emmett, already depleted from body shots, was forced to tap.
#AndNEW interim featherweight world champion, @PanteraUFC! 🏆 #UFC284 pic.twitter.com/lTxaCA6txd
— UFC (@ufc) February 12, 2023
This performance was incredibly impressive from Rodriguez, who dominated Emmett on the feet for almost the whole fight, and then won the fight on the ground, which has been a weakness of his in the past. Brandon Moreno got a title for Mexico in January, so Yair winning now earns Mexico its second UFC title at the moment, with another one potentially coming soon from Alexa Grasso.
Official Result: Yair Rodriguez def. Josh Emmett by Submission (triangle choke) Round 2, 4:19
