“That was f*cking tight, but that was the thing. These decisions you make in life,” Radtke told reporters including Cageside Press at his post-fight scrum.

“I think everybody can understand that when you go in there you’re really going to learn if you’re about it or not.”

Radtke (12-5) leaned into the grit required to edge out a hard-fought win over Francisco Prado, embracing the kind of fight that tests a competitor’s resolve as much as their skill. After going through a back-and-forth battle inside the octagon, he made it clear the performance reflected exactly who he believes he is as a fighter.

“The difference between me and a lot of people is I can actually say I’m about that life,” he said.

“I’ll put it on the line, and he would have to put me out cold to get it done, and it was f*cking close. That’s why I’m giving him all the credit in the world. He could easily go out the UFC, and get back in the UFC, and definitely be a world-beater in time to come.”

Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Charles Radtke above.

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For Suarez (12-1) the opening round proved to be one of the few moments of adversity for against Godinez. Suarez admitted she had difficulty finding her timing early before eventually settling into her grappling rhythm.

“The first round I just didn’t see the shot, but then once we actually started wrestling, I took her down,” Suarez told reporters including Cageside Press at her post-fight scrum.

“I was on top for quite a while. Once I knew that I could take her down and hold her there, which I feel like I can do that to many people, everything was easier.”

“I knew that I’d make adjustments, and get her back. I actually told my coach, I said, I don’t know why, but I feel like she’s not good on the back and I think I can get her back and I think I can get her out of there,” she said.

“I felt this very strongly before my fight. No one’s put her there except for Virna (Jandiroba).”

“I guess it just depends on Weili. I heard that she was going back down to 115, but I will gladly go fight Mackenzie Dern for that belt,” she said.

“The UFC makes those decisions. I just go in there and when they tell me this is the time of the day, I show up.”

Watch the entire media day scrum with Tatiana Suarez above.

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Gamrot (26-4, 1NC) submitted Esteban Ribovics on the preliminary card at the Kaseya Center on Saturday, and noted that there’s a risk fighting unranked foes.

“This is always a risk, when you take guys without ranking, but I took second time, and second time I showed how the difference is between me and guys without rankings,” stated “Gamer” following the win, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press.

Now, he added, “I hope I get somebody from the top, because I deserve this. I’m getting better every time. Only give me a full camp, and then I can fight with everybody.”

Getting unranked opponents is something Gamrot understands, even if he wants to fight up. “I know it’s weird, but I little bit understand this position. UFC has to mix the guys with rankings, and no rankings, this is normal. I understand there’s politics.”

Still, “right now I deserve guys from the top. Maybe BSD [Benoit Saint-Denis], maybe Paddy [Pimblett], maybe Arman [Tsarukyan] again. Doesn’t matter who. I want to fight, I want to prove that I’m the best in the world. Like I said, only full camp, and then I’m ready to rock n’ roll.”

Oddly, Gamrot also called for a fight with Diego Lopes following his win at UFC 327. Lopes, who is fighting at the White House next month, competes at featherweight.

“I know he has booked a fight at the White House against Mexican guy, but I heard like he wants to move to the lightweight division because maybe he won’t get a chance for a title fight [unless] he goes up,” explained Gamrot. “I can wait for him, I am patient, I’m in no rush. Maybe end of the year, I can compete with this guy.”

Gamrot also believes his former foe, Tsarukyan, who he’d like to rematch, should be fighting for lightweight gold. “For sure, he deserves [to fight] for the title. I don’t know why he don’t get the title. Maybe that’s like, a pretty bad reason, but for sure he deserves the title.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Mateusz Gamrot above.

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“I feel great. I feel like I just had a wild night of sex,” Holland (29-15, 1NC) quipped while addressing the media backstage at the Kaseya Center.

Holland had an anaconda choke locked in during the second round, but couldn’t quite finish the submission. “Skinny necks are harder to submit,” Holland suggested, adding that “I should have probably transferred over, I started feeling like I really had it but I should have gone over to guillotine and then took top position and just finished him from top.”

Still, the win over Brown puts Holland back in the win column, and he’s now looking to run a few fights back. “I need my rematches. I need my rematches. I need D-Rod, I didn’t spend all that bail money for no reason, and then I need Mike Malott,” stated Holland. “He gets past Gilbert Burns, then I’d like to fight Mike Malott. If he doesn’t get past Gilbert Burns, then somebody shoot him in the nuts and give me Burns.”

Burns faces Malott in the main event of UFC Winnipeg next Saturday. Rodriguez, until recently, had been AWOL, reportedly in prison in Mexico. He recently returned to social media.

As for where he’d like to fight, Holland seems to enjoy Miami, for one.

“If I could choose, it would always be Vegas-Miami. Vegas-Miami. Vegas-Miami. If I could just do those two for the rest of my career, that would be wonderful.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Kevin Holland above.

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Aaron Pico (14-5) has reason to be excited. After being embarrassed, frankly, in his UFC debut when Lerone Murphy knocked him out, Pico returned to form at UFC 327, notching his first UFC victory and picking up a win over longtime Bellator MMA rival Patricio Pitbull in the process.

Online, Pico’s performance has been called his best ever. In the cage at the Kaseya Center in Miami, he felt things were slow, he told media outlets including Cageside Press.

“I felt everything was slow in there. I felt like my punches were slow. I have to go back and watch it,” Pico stated. “I felt like I was hitting him and blood was coming down his face, I felt like everything was so slow.”

Despite a big win, Pico also admitted that “I have a lot of things to work on. He got up from me, I have to hold him down. But he’s a veteran, how many times was he champion in Bellator? He fought the top guys. I was just the better fighter tonight, but much respect to him.”

Pico’s future now looks bright once again. A lot of match-ups in the featherweight division await. When he first signed with the UFC, Pico was linked to a fight with Movsar Evloev, which never came to fruition. That’s still a possibility.

“I want to fight ranked guys. I hope this puts me in the rankings. I would love to get a rematch with Lerone Murphy, I would love to run that back. There’s Movsar, there’s so many guys in the division, and this is one of the toughest weight classes in the UFC,” noted Pico.

“I was hungry to get a win, but now I’m starving to be a champion. So I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Aaron Pico above.

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Featherweight Swanson (31-14), a longtime fan favorite fighting as a pro since 2004, fought in the WEC, later absorbed into the UFC to bring in the lighter weight classes. He’s a member of the UFC Hall of Fame thanks to his 2016 classic against Doo-Ho Choi. His retirement bout, against Nate Landwehr, came over a year after his win against Billy Quarantillo last time out.

Surprisingly, Swanson looked better than ever at age 42 on Saturday. He came out aggressive, yet picked his sports, piecing up Landwehr perfectly. Multiple knockdowns arrived before all was said and done inside of a round.

Announcing his retirement fight in advance might have led to a slightly more emotional Fight Week than normal for “Killer Cub.” During media day, the soft-spoken fighter even said outright he didn’t want to talk about his retirement anymore.

“I was kind of hitting those normal emotions, but I think sometime yesterday was probably my worst time where I was like ‘man don’t go out there and get beat up.’ So, I just put pressure on myself like always.”

Speaking with media outlets backstage at the Kaseya Center, Swanson noted that “fighting is painful. I’ve been able to have a high threshold of pain for a long time, and be able to ignore it and tell myself ‘you’re good, you’re good.’ But I’m over that part.”

Having accumulated lots of knowledge throughout his career, Swanson added “I’m better off sharing that knowledge with the next generation. I’m 42-years old, sometimes I sit back and like, ‘what are you still doing dude? Get a job, do something else.'”

While some fighters retire and return, retire and return, rinse and repeat, don’t expect to see Cub Swanson return to fighting. His decision, it seems, is a little more final than most.

“Yeah. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. I’ve said this before, when I fought Giga [Chikadze], a good friend of mine by the way now, I struggled about life after fighting and I made myself a promise that I was going to start working on the next chapter of my life. And I’ve been doing that, and I built this amazing fight team, Bloodline Combat Sports. That’s my passion now.”

That, and his family, Swanson added. “I’m pretty content.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Cub Swanson above.

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Reyes (16-5) earned a split decision victory over Walker in a fight that saw more misses than hits. “The Devastator” barely had a scratch on him after the bout, while Walker could be said to be slightly banged up at most.

“I did expect him to be a little more aggressive, but this is super f*cking dangerous. It’s a super dangerous game we’re playing,” Reyes admitted following the bout, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press.

“Everything he did I expected. I wasn’t caught off-guard with anything. It was a good technical fight,” stated Reyes, going on to add that “the game plan got switched up a little bit. I expected him to be stepping into range more often, and he didn’t. I had to force the action a few times, I wobbled him a few times. It was a technical, good fight.”

The former light heavyweight title challenger also noted that “Being Dominick Reyes, people expect me to come out and go all crazy and go for the knockout or get knocked out.” Yet there are other motivations, and other concerns, for Reyes in the cage. “I have a son, I need to come home with two checks more than anything. Getting two checks means more than entertaining.”

That would be show and win money, as Reyes was as far away from a post-fight bonus as you could get on Saturday. As for the boo-birds in the arena, “it’s the fight game. Sometimes it goes great, sometimes it doesn’t. If they’re going to boo, they’re going to boo. Whatever. They could have easily turned around to just madhouse if I had of landed the shot I was trying to land.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Dominick Reyes above.

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After feeling a little tired, “more than I expected,” at the end of the second round, Costa (16-4) nevertheless came out guns blazing in the third. “I think he felt a little bit more vulnerable and damaged,” Costa told media outlets including Cageside Press backstage at the Kaseya Center in Miami on Saturday.

Costa called it a “huge win.” Dana White called it his biggest. “I dunno if it’s the biggest, but huge,” Costa said in response.

Coming into the fight, “the plan was basically, kick a lot. He’s southpaw. I used to fight very well against southpaws. The kicks hurt a lot. Him, and me. I had every movement that he made mapped,” stated Costa, adding “we were prepared for all of this.”

Where Paulo Costa goes next is an interesting question. He says intends to pursue a title at both middleweight and light heavyweight. The 205lb weight class is in flux with new champ Carlos Ulberg injured in his own fight Saturday. He’ll need an opponent upon his return if an interim title isn’t established sooner.

“I’ll be here, I’ll be here. If the UFC matchmakers, Dana, Mick [Maynard], Hunter [Campbell], think this can be a nice fight, a great fight, I’m here to do it,” stated Costa. “I look for big opportunities, big fights, big exciting fights, big match-ups. And I’m here.”

After his victory, Costa was seen speaking to U.S. President Donald Trump, who was cageside for the main card. As to what was said, Costa intends “to keep it a secret for now. It was just between us.”

A hot mic did pick up Trump saying Costa was too good looking to be a fighter. Costa confirmed that. “Yes that part was true. That was funny. Thank you Mr. Trump.”

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Paulo Costa above.

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Ulberg knocked out Jiri Prochazka in the main event of UFC 327 in Miami to claim gold, but was critically injured in the fight, limping around the cage with a possible blown ACL or similar knee injury. That he was even able to finish the former champion, inside of the first round, was a miracle in and of itself.

“It is all over the place at the moment,” Ulberg (14-1) said following the win, speaking with media outlets including Cageside Press. “It hasn’t really sunk in, but the team is happy, we’re happy, we came in and we got the job done. And that’s what we are here for, is to get that title. And we did that.”

The key to survival as a wounded fighter, explained Ulberg, was “adapting on the fly,” and he noted that “we’re in a big fight, and you expect things like this to happen. So I never counted myself out at any moment.”

“Just sticking to the plan, sticking to the game plan, and I think that’s what got us there in the end, was staying calm. Staying calm, and whatever fire came through us. I guess Jiri made the mistake of coming forward as I was on the cage, and it walked into that left hook.”

Prochazka, following the win, bemoaned that he had shown mercy on Ulberg, backing off a bit due to his injured leg. Ulberg himself would not have employed the same strategy, he admitted. “I feel like he made the mistake there, because I would not have done the same. If you were in there to get that title, you do whatever it takes to get that win.”

The light heavyweight title picture is in flux at the moment. Dominick Reyes picked up a win on Saturday but was essentially booed out of the building, and already has a loss to Ulberg. Paulo Costa was successful as well, but was previously fighting at middleweight. Alex Pereira has gone up to heavyweight.

“I’m not too sure who else is there. Who knows, we’ll leave it up to the guys who know what they’re doing,” Ulberg said in regards to potential title defenses. “And I just get myself into the gym and prepare for whatever is next.”

With the injury, of course, what’s next might not be for a while.

Watch the full UFC 327 post-fight press conference with Carlos Ulberg above.

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