{"id":272809,"date":"2025-11-09T07:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T07:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/272809\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T07:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T07:57:09","slug":"ufc-main-event-winner-gabriel-bonfim-responds-to-stoppage-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/272809\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC main event winner Gabriel Bonfim responds to stoppage criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

UFC Fight Night 264: Gabriel Bonfim full post-fight interview<\/p>\n

UFC Fight Night 264 winner Gabriel Bonfim talks to MMA Junkie and other reporters post-fight after his second-round knockout of Randy Brown.<\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS \u2013 Was the UFC Fight Night 264<\/a> main event stoppage proper?<\/p>\n

Despite what the critics have to say, Gabriel Bonfim is confident Mark Smith made the right call.<\/p>\n

“He was asleep,” Bonfim told MMA Junkie and other reporters at a post-fight news conference Saturday at the UFC Apex. “He was knocked out. His eyes were in the back of his head.”<\/p>\n

Bonfim (19-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) defeated Randy Brown (20-7 MMA, 14-7 UFC) by knockout at 1:20 of Round 2 after a cracking knee<\/a>. Brown fell hard to the canvas but complained about the stoppage immediately as it transpired. Regardless, a win is a win and Bonfim is happy to enter 2026 with more momentum.<\/p>\n

“You guys can see it,” Bonfim said. “The loss to (Nicolas) Dalby changed me completely. I knew what I had to do. I had to level up. You guys see what I’m doing right now. … What you can expect from me in 2026 is I’ll be in the top five before I become the champion of this weight class.”<\/p>\n

After the fight, Bonfim called for a bout against Colby Covington, a former interim UFC welterweight champion who has been largely inactive in recent years, and unsuccessful when he does appear. But that sounds like exactly why Bonfim called him out.<\/p>\n

“He’s the one that’s holding up the weight class,” Bonfim said. “He’s the one fighter that’s holding up the weight class. I need to be the one to retire him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC Fight Night 264: Gabriel Bonfim full post-fight interview UFC Fight Night 264 winner Gabriel Bonfim talks to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[449,64,63,802,786,2874,2623,796,801,785,324,44,17425,323,335,451,439,85,635,2875],"class_list":["post-272809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-arts","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-fighting","tag-las","tag-las-vegas","tag-martial","tag-martial-arts","tag-mma","tag-neutral","tag-news","tag-nv","tag-overall","tag-overall-neutral","tag-overall-positive","tag-positive","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-vegas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}