Robert Whittaker proved to be too much, too soon for feared rising contender Ikram Aliskerov as the former UFC middleweight champion earned a massive first-round knockout victory Saturday afternoon in the main event of a Fight Night card at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh for the organization’s debut event in Saudi Arabia.

Whittaker is now 2-0 in 2024, defeating Paulo Costa in February, and moved one step closer to getting another shot at earning back the 185-pound championship after the second-fastest stoppage victory of his impressive UFC career.

When asked by Daniel Cormier following the win if he would be interested in being designated as the official backup fighter for the upcoming UFC 305 title fight between current champion Dricus Du Plessis and former champion Israel Adesanya in Perth, Australia, Whittaker said: “I’m healthy, I’m hearty, let’s go!” 

Whittaker landed multiple jabs and hard low leg kicks within the first 90 seconds, getting Aliskerov to think about oncoming strikes from all levels, before he timed a hard overhand right that put his opponent on skates.

After narrowly missing a head kick, “Bobby Knuckles” found a home for a flush right uppercut that sent his opponent crumpling to the canvas. A couple follow-up shots later and the referee called a stop to the action just 1:48 into the opening round.

“I told everybody, I’m the boogeyman, I’m the best in the world and I’m the most dangerous matchup for anyone in the division,” Whittaker, 33, said in his post-fight interview. “I’m the most dangerous middleweight in the world. I’ll take a fight anywhere, anytime, and I proved it tonight and I proved it again. I’ll fight anyone.”

Whittaker is 14-3 when competing at middleweight in the UFC with his only losses coming to Du Plessis (a TKO at UFC 290 almost 12 months ago) and Adesanya (a KO at UFC 243 in 2019 and a UD at UFC 271 in 2022).

Aliskerov only had roughly four minutes of UFC in-cage experience after picking up a pair of first-round stoppage wins in his first two UFC appearances in 2023, so facing a former champion like Whittaker was a clear step up in competition.

“I told everybody in the lead-up to this fight, I’m going to lean on my experience and that’s exactly what it was,” Whittaker said. “I’ve been in this position a hundred times. I understand what I’m doing. I’m going to be the hunter and that’s exactly what I did.”

Whittaker was initially supposed to face Khamzat Chimaev on this card before the undefeated star withdrew from the event last week due to illness. Chimaev happened to be the only fighter to beat Aliskerov in MMA prior to Saturday. Aliskerov had a fight scheduled in Las Vegas last week but was pulled from that matchup once Chimaev fell ill and the UFC needed a backup plan and he thrust into the main event spotlight for the first time as a replacement for Chimaev.

UFC 305 takes place Aug. 18, so with two full months plus Whittaker emerging from Saturday’s featured contest with a clean bill of health, it only increases the chances he could be involved at UFC 305 in his home country in some capacity. 

Saturday’s co-main event saw Russian heavyweights and former training partners Sergei Pavlovich and Alexander Volkov go the distance, despite the two men having 39 combined knockout victories.

Volkov used his six-foot-seven frame and accurate striking game to pepper Pavlovich from the outside while avoiding his opponent’s notorious power. A frustrated Pavlovich shoved Volkov after the 15 minutes had expired but before the decision had been rendered.

Pavlovich has now lost two in a row after being knocked out by Tom Aspinall this past November in their interim title match.

Volkov, on the other hand, extended his winning streak to four in a row and remains a relevant factor in the heavyweight title picture. The former Bellator and M-1 champion is 12-4 in the UFC with his losses coming exclusively to top competition: Aspinall, Ciryl Gane, Curtis Blaydes and Derrick Lewis. 

Kingdom Arena opened in 2023 and has already become a desired destination for high-profile combat sports events.

The venue has hosted heavyweight boxing matches Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou, Anthony Joshua vs. Otto Wallin, Joshua vs. Ngannou and Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk, plus February’s PFL vs. Bellator event.

Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, and UFC president Dana White said during the post-fight show they plan on returning to Saudi Arabia with another big UFC card in the first quarter of 2024. Alalshikh added that he was impressed by the inaugural event and also randomly mentioned he’d like to see his friend Zack Snyder (300, Man of Steel) one day direct a UFC-related movie.

It took a while for the action to heat up with five of the six bouts on the preliminary card going the distance, but the main card got off to a hot start when Volkan Oezdemir turned out Johnny Walker’s lights with a massive first-round knockout thanks in part to a perfect uppercut.

Oezdemir, 34, had developed a reputation as a knockout artist early in his career but the one-time light-heavyweight title challenger had not earned a KO/TKO win since stopping Ilir Latifi in the summer of 2019.

“The uppercut was key with him,” Oezdemir told Cormier, the fighter he lost to in his lone UFC title fight back in 2018. “I knew I had to watch out (for Walker’s wild style), take my time a little bit.”

Oezdemir said he’d love matchups with former titleholders Jamahal Hill or Jan Blachowicz for his next matchup.

Sharabutdin Magomedov showed again why he’s a name to keep an eye on in the middleweight division, improving to 13-0 in mixed martial arts and 2-0 at the UFC level with a third-round stoppage of Brazil’s Antonio Trocoli. 

Magomedov, 30, implemented a kick-heavy game plan and officially defended all seven of Trocoli’s takedown attempts in the bout, although he did get away with a blatant fence grab late in the second round that prevented what would have been a clean Trocoli takedown, yet referee Marc Goddard did not deduct a point for the foul, instead only dolling out a verbal warning.

Midway through the final round, a well-timed knee up the middle put an already fatigued Trocoli on wobbly legs and a flurry of punches resulted in a technical knockout victory.

Trocoli had been scheduled to face Aliskerov one week ago in Las Vegas but was added to the Saudi Arabia card as a late replacement for Magomedov’s original opponent, Joilton Lutterbach, was pulled from the event after testing positive for a banned substance.

Magomedov has compared his fighting style to fellow Dagestani Zabit Magomedsharipov, who went 6-0 in the UFC with four performance bonuses before retiring from competition in his prime, and you could definitely see shades of Zabit in Magomedov’s second UFC appearance.

Also on the main card, Kelvin Gastelum won a unanimous decision over Daniel Rodriguez in a middleweight bout that was originally scheduled to take place at welterweight. The bout was moved up a weight class on Thursday after Gastelum notified the UFC he was having difficulty cutting the required weight.

Bantamweights Xiao Long and Lee Chang-ho were the first athletes to step into the cage Saturday, competing in the first preliminary bout that also served as the 135-pound final for Road to UFC Season 2. The two went 15 fast-paced minutes with Lee emerging on the positive side of a split decision. Lee, now 10-1 as a pro, joins the touted Rinya Nakamura as the only bantamweight winners of Road to UFC. 

Felipe Lima was the only fighter to pick up a stoppage win on the prelims and had the lone submission of the night for his nifty rear-naked choke against Muhammad Naimov. 

Lima typically competes at bantamweight but took his UFC debut matchup against a natural featherweight that had won six in a row. Lima, 26, is a name to watch at 135 pounds going forward.

There ended up being only four finishes at the event and all four fighters went home with a Performacne of the Night bonus. No Fight of the Night bonus was awarded.