On the undercard, Manchester’s Lerone Murphy battled to a unanimous decision win over American Dan Ige for the biggest win of his career.
Murphy, 33, was dropped by a counter left hook in the first round but recovered brilliantly, showing all corners of his skillset to win the featherweight contest.
The undefeated Briton came into the bout after outpointing veteran Brazilian Edson Barboza in May, moving up to 12th in the UFC’s featherweight rankings.
Ranked two spots below Murphy, Ige, 33, was competing four months after stepping into a fight on only four hours’ notice and going down to a unanimous decision defeat by Diego Lopes.
Murphy started Saturday’s fight well, cutting Ige at the top of his nose with an elbow as the American applied early pressure.
Ige then wrestled the momentum away by taking Murphy down, before dropping him with a counter left hook after the fight returned to the feet.
Murphy recovered well to survive until the end of the round, however, which was the turning point of the contest.
Perhaps still feeling the effects of the knockdown, Murphy adopted a more conservative approach, using his movement to land jabs, leg kicks and spinning back kicks on Ige, while avoiding returning shots.
Murphy ended the round in control on the ground, before the pair tussled for position in the final five minutes with an exciting round seeing a number of reversals.
In the remaining few seconds, Murphy emptied what energy he had left, landing a bruising left hook and a couple of knee strikes on Ige, before the pair embraced as the bell rang.
After extending the unbeaten start to his career to 15 outings, Murphy called for a match-up with American Josh Emmett, who is eighth in the UFC featherweight rankings.
