Home fighters didn’t get the results they were hoping for on Saturday’s preliminary card as the UFC returned to Winnipeg for the first time since 2017.
Canadians went 1-4 on the early portion of a UFC Fight Night event at Canada Life Centre.
Calgary’s Melissa Croden was the lone Canadian victorious on the prelims, edging out Russia’s Darya Zheleznyakova in a tightly contested women’s bantamweight matchup.
It was the first career decision win for Croden, who improved to 8-3 in professional mixed martial arts and 2-1 at the UFC level.
Croden won two out of the three rounds on all three scorecards en route to a unanimous decision.
-
Get the skills to pay the bills
Skilled Trades College is where hands-on training meets real-world opportunity, helping students build in-demand skills and take the next step toward lasting careers in the trades.
Croden is a strong 135-pounder who tends to come on stronger the later the fight goes.
The 35-year-old debuted in the UFC in October with a third-round TKO win but lost a decision two months later to end an up-and-down 2025.
The other four Canadians didn’t have a positive result like Croden.
Jamey-Lyn Horth couldn’t build off the recent momentum she had built up after losing a razor-thin decision to No. 14-ranked women’s flyweight contender JJ Aldrich. The decision was not received fondly since Horth had out-struck Aldrich in all three rounds and defended all of Aldrich’s takedown attempts.
Squamish, B.C.’s Horth, 36, had won two in a row and showed off her power in December in a two-minute knockout win against Tereza Bleda. It was Horth’s first stoppage win in four years and it earned her a step-up in competition in Aldrich. Even though Horth proved she can compete with ranked contenders at 125 pounds.
Gatineau, Que.’s Julien Leblanc didn’t make it out of the opening round of his UFC debut. He was submitted by fellow middleweight Robert Valentin in under three minutes. It was the first UFC win for Valentin, a finalist on The Ultimate Fighter 32 who had lost three in a row in UFC bouts.
Tanner Boser’s return to the UFC didn’t go as planned. The Alberta heavyweight went toe-to-toe with Turkey’s Gokhan Saricam and went out on his shield in the second round.
Saricam, who was making his UFC debut, countered a low leg kick by firing a straight right down the pipe that connected with Boser’s chin and Saricam’s finishing instinct kicked in as he immediately pounced on his rocked opponent with heavy follow-up strikes.
Jamie Siraj was in a coma earlier in the decade after a brain infection and subsequent autoimmune disease, but after overcoming those life-threatening ailments, the bantamweight did the improbable and made his UFC debut on Saturday in Winnipeg. Unfortunately for the native of Lower Mainland in B.C., American John Yannis got the better of him in the opening fight of the prelims.
Siraj was dropped early in the first round by a short right hand from his southpaw opponent and, later in the round, was rocked by a series of ground-and-pound elbow strikes that led to a referee stoppage. Yannis, 31, was coming off a loss in his UFC debut last August when he was submitted by Austin Bashi in the opening round.
In other preliminary action, featherweight Marcio Barbosa put himself on the map with a highlight-reel knockout of Dennis Buzukja.
The 27-year-old from Brazil extended his winning streak to five with a blistering 80-second stoppage that showed Barbosa is a name to watch at 145 pounds this year.
Mark Vologdin celebrated his 26th birthday by making his UFC debut and fighting to a memorable majority draw that he’ll be feeling for at least the next few days.
The Russian newcomer was on the receiving end of multiple damaging low blows by opponent John Castaneda, who was deducted a point in the second round for the inadvertent fouls. The pair ended up trading 256 total strikes and swung to the final horn, much to the delight of the Manitoba crowd. Castaneda won the final two rounds on all three scorecards yet the fight ended in a majority draw because of Castaneda’s point deduction.
This matchup was announced as a catchweight contest on Friday despite originally being agreed to as a bantamweight bout. No official reason was given for the change, however, Castaneda, who has consistently struggled to make the bantamweight limit during his fighting career and has missed weight on multiple occasions since 2019, was the final athlete to step on the scale at the weigh-ins. It was Castaneda’s third catchweight bout in the UFC in the past four years.
Vologdin earned a UFC contract through Dana White’s Contender Series last year despite the fact he lost on the show. White described his three-round slugfest with Adrian Luna Martinetti in October as “one of the greatest fights I’ve ever seen in Contender Series history.” Despite now being on a two-fight winless streak, the youngster is developing a reputation for his durability and willingness to throw down with reckless abandon.
A flyweight matchup between Mitch Raposo and Allan Nascimento originally scheduled for this event was postponed and moved to a June 20 Fight Night event at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas after the UFC announced Thursday Raposo was dealing with an illness and unable to compete.
Saturday’s card was the organization’s third event held in Winnipeg and first since 2017. It was the sixth UFC event located in Canada since 2023 and the 37th all-time.