Grading UFC 299 overall: Did the card live up to the hype?

On Saturday night the UFC hosted a huge pay-per-view event in Miami. The card, UFC 299 was being touted as a better card than UFC 300, which is set for next month.

It's undeniable that UFC 299 on paper looked like an incredible card. Not UFC 300 level, IMO, but just by a smidge. Now that the event is over though, did it live up to the hype?

I think it did. Though not in the way we thought it would.

The good, the bad and the ugly of UFC 299

The bad: There's not a lot of bad that can be said about UFC 299. Many of the issues were outside of fights themselves and shouldn't be held against the card as a whole. For example, during the prelims, there was an obscene of commercials promoting the UFC 298 PPV instead of the UFC 299 PPV. Also, the broadcast misidentified NFL player Sam Hubbard as UFC fighter Michael Chandler.

Bt in terms of the actual card, there were just a few things. One being the last of finishes. Overall, there were nine fights that went to the decision, three being on the main card alone. Normally I'm not one to discredit a fight just for going to the scorecards but most of those nine decisions were not all that great.

Fans had expected a slugfest from Michael "Venom" Page and Kevin Holland, but we got a whole lot of nothing for three rounds. But that's it. There's nothing really left to complain about and trust me, I love to complain.

The good: There were so many incredibly good moments at UFC 299, many of them unexpected. On the prelims we saw an 18 second knockout from UFC debut fighter Robelis Despaigne. We all thought he'd preform well but no one thought he'd do what he did.

Michel Pereira also had a heck of night when he secured a nasty submission of Michal Oleksiejczuk proving he's a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention his TikTok dane before walking out. What a joy that was.

Both of those fights were just on the early prelims. On the televised prelims Curtis Blaydes put himself back into title contention by knocking out Jailton Almeida in the second round.

The main card delivered as well when Dustin Poirier, who was the underdog for some ungodly reason knockout out Benoit Saint-Denis in round two. The main event went to decision but it was a slug fest and proved that reigning champion Sean O'Malley is here to stay.

Overall, it was a success.

Grade: B+

We'll see how this stacks up with the post-fight grade for UFC 300 next month.