Two former champions faced off in the first fight of UFC 300, as Cody Garbrandt faced off with Deiveson Figueiredo.
After moving up from flyweight following his quadrilogy loss to Brandon Moreno, Deiveson Figueiredo beat Rob Font, and now Cody Garbrandt. This time it came by mixing in his grappling skillet. Former bantamweight champ and Cruz-dethroner Cody Garbrandt had rebounded from losing four out of five fights by winning two in a row against unranked opponents, but a ranked foe proved too much still.
Despite being from different weight classes, the two fighters looked the same size in the cage. Figgy began with leg kicks early as Cody mostly tried to counter with boxing. Figgy level changed but was denied, though he turned it into a body knee. A bit later they both threw a right high kick at the same time. Garbrandt came away from his Saenchai style high kick stumbling, as he caught a bit of Deiveson’s foot. His chin held up, though. Figureido’s volume was quite low, Cody was more active and ran forward with a blitz with ninety seconds left in the round. Figgy fell backwards, off balance, and Cody declined to go into his guard. Despite being more accurate, the lower volume of the former flyweight champion made him potentially lose the round.
Round two saw Figgy take Cody’s back with a duck-under before dragging him down and sliding into mount. From mount, Deiveson spent most of the round attacking an arm-triangle choke, but Cody created just enough space to not tap despite the tight squeeze. He exploded to get up twice after Figgy let go to readjust the choke, but was denied both times. The second time, Figueiredo took the back with a body-triangle locked in and did what he could not do the first time, finished the choke.
By rear-naked choke, Deiveson Figueiredo got his first finish since 2020, and got his second bantamweight win. In the top-ten of the bantamweight division, who knows what he can do next?
Official Result: Deiveson Figueiredo def. Cody Garbrandt by Submission (rear-naked choke), Round 2, 4:02
