January 17, 2023 11:00 am ET
LAS VEGAS – Javid Basharat beat Mateus Mendonca with a unanimous decision Saturday to close out the preliminary card at UFC Fight Night 217 in Las Vegas.
Take a look inside the fight with Basharat, who stayed unbeaten and handed Mendonca the first loss of his career.
Basharat on the fight’s key moment
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – JANUARY 14: (R-L) Javid Basharat of Afghanistan battles Mateus Mendonca of Brazil in a bantamweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 14, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
“It was a high-paced kind of fight, the first round especially. But I predicted that, so it was easy to recover from. … It pretty much went how I planned it, but it wasn’t as clean as I would’ve liked it to have been.”
Basharat on his gun motion in the fight
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – JANUARY 14: (R-L) Mateus Mendonca of Brazil punches Javid Basharat of Afghanistan in a bantamweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 14, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
“I hope people don’t take that out of context. He did it to me at the weigh-ins, and I’m like, ‘Alll right. You do your talking at the weigh-ins. I’ll do my talking in the fight.’ After Round 2, I thought I was going to finish him in Round 3, and that’s when I did the gun thing – you’re dead.”
Basharat on what he wants next
“It’s been hard (to get fights). That’s why I took this Mateus fight. On paper, he was a step down. … Not that this guy wasn’t good, but on paper, this was his (UFC) debut. … Now we’ll start getting serious. If I’m not ranked after this fight, let me get a ranked guy so I can show.”
To hear more from Basharat, check out the video of the full post-fight interview above.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 217.
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