Lone’er Kavanagh let Ramazan Temirov swing for almost five minutes Saturday at UFC 333, and then he answered with one punch. A counter left uppercut rocked Temirov late in the opening round of their flyweight main card bout at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. Kavanagh followed it with a flurry that put Temirov on the canvas, kept punching on the way down, and referee Mike Beltran stepped in at 4:28 of Round 1.
The fight looked like Temirov’s for long stretches. He opened with a spinning back kick to the body, threw a spinning heel kick upstairs later on, and loaded up on overhands and left hooks with the kind of commitment that has made him one of the scarier punchers at 125 pounds. Cageside Press described Kavanagh’s head movement as the reason most of those shots found air. Kavanagh worked a teep and a jab to the body and chipped at the lead leg, though he wasn’t doing much else. Temirov did land a hard right hand with about two minutes left, according to MMA Fighting, and Kavanagh took it and came back with a jab. The uppercut arrived shortly after, slipped inside as Temirov came forward throwing.
Aaron Bronsteter pointed out on X that Kavanagh, Aaron Pico and Dominick Reyes, all of whom had faced questions about their chins against heavy hitters on this card, each won by first-round finish.
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Where both men stand
Kavanagh, 27, moves to 11-2 overall and 4-2 in the UFC. He came up through Cage Warriors and has spent his UFC run being fed tough veterans. He suffered a knockout loss to Charles Johnson, then beat two-time champion Brandon Moreno by five-round decision, then tapped to Brandon Royval earlier this year in a fight Yahoo Sports called a Fight of the Year candidate. He entered Saturday at No. 8 in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings, fighting to keep his top-10 spot.
Temirov, 29, came in at 20-3 and 3-0 in the UFC, ranked No. 12, with a 12-fight winning streak. His octagon run included a first-round finish of C.J. Vergara, a decision over Johnson and a first-round knockout of former title challenger Steve Erceg in July. A fourth straight UFC win might have put him in title conversation.
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Kavanagh credited his camp after the fight. “I have an amazing team behind me and we work day in and day out to get these results,” he said. “We’ve learned from previous mistakes. Obviously, I’m here for that belt and respectfully anyone can get it.” He also offered a line the UFC posted on X: “I’m learning on the fly.”
No next fight has been announced.
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The learning shows. Against Johnson, Kavanagh got caught. Against Royval, he got caught in a different way. Here he sat inside the range of a man who throws everything to hurt, kept his head moving, and waited for Temirov’s own aggression to open the door. That kind of patience gets taught in a gym over months of bad sparring days, and I’d like to hear more about whoever in his corner drilled it. Temirov loses nothing by falling short tonight. He walked forward for 4:28 and got countered by someone younger who has already shared a cage with Moreno and Royval. Kavanagh says he’s here for the belt, and with a win over Moreno and now this one, he has earned a fight against someone from the top five next.
