Mitch Raposo spent the last five minutes of his fight with blood running down his chest, and he still left the Octagon with his hand raised. Opening the main card at UFC Vegas 124 on Nov. 7, Raposo beat Marcos Degli by unanimous decision. All three judges scored it 29-28, as UFC News posted on X moments after the result was read, and Degli’s undefeated run ended in his first appearance with the promotion.
Degli arrived with a double-digit win streak and the kind of expectations that tend to follow unbeaten prospects into their debuts. Raposo, according to the UFC’s own account on X, has now won three straight.
The cards were tidy. The fight was not. Aaron Bronsteter had it 20-18 Raposo after two rounds but wrote on X that the first was close enough to go either way. He finished with 30-27 for Raposo and admitted that score didn’t capture how tight the fight was, calling Rounds 1 and 3 thin margins and Round 2 the only clear one.
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Cageside Press described Raposo starting the way he usually does, moving constantly and refusing to give Degli a fixed target. He went to the legs and body with kicks, traded a one-two for a Degli right hand, and kept looking for his overhand right. Around the midpoint of the first, Degli’s hand speed started to show. He changed levels for a takedown, and when Raposo stuffed it, Degli kept driving and pinned him on the fence until Raposo shoved his way free and landed a left hook on the way back to open space.
Raposo controlled the second round. He used feints to make Degli hesitate, threatened the overhand constantly, and split his right hand between the head and the body. Degli eventually chose to press forward and found a clean left hook to the body as Raposo circled out, the first moment in a while where Degli made his opponent react.
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The third round is the one people will remember. Degli opened a cut on the left side of Raposo’s head early, and the blood was obvious on the broadcast while Degli looked comparatively clean. Degli chopped at the legs to slow Raposo’s movement and slipped away from a string of overhand rights. Raposo answered by throwing harder. With about 10 seconds left, Degli shot for one last takedown, and Raposo reversed it before the horn.
My take: this one points in two directions. Degli lost a coin-flip round or two in his debut against a guy on a three-fight run, and nothing I saw suggests he’s in over his head at this level. His speed was real, and he figured out the pressure game by the second half. Raposo deserves more credit than he’ll probably get. Plenty of fighters bleeding like that start chasing one big shot and abandon the movement that won them the first two rounds. He did load up on the overhand in the third, but his feet kept working, and when Degli went for that final takedown with 10 seconds left, Raposo was the one who ended up on top.
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