Another weekend of fights is in the books, and there’s a lot to sort through. Derrick Lewis put himself back on the UFC heavyweight contender shortlist with a KO win over submission machine Alexey Oleinik on Saturday, while Bellator’s Michael Chandler boosted his free agent stock by putting former UFC champ Benson Henderson to sleep with a right hand in the first round on Friday.

I’ll be writing about some of the big moments over the next few days. But for now, let’s highlight some of the less heralded fighters who also made statements this weekend:

Beneil Dariush

I already wrote about Dariush on Friday, when I profiled his fight with Scott Holtzman on UFC’s Saturday night card from the Apex in Las Vegas. The Iranian-born lightweight entered the weekend on a four-fight win streak, the last three of them finishes, and my hope was a strong showing against a tough veteran like Holtzman – himself on a good run, having won five of six – could set Dariush up for a nice opportunity against a bigger name.

But I didn’t expect Dariush to absolutely obliterate Holtzman with a ridiculous spinning backfist late in the first round, scoring a major Knockout of the Year candidate.

Dariush first wobbled Holtzman midway through the round with a crunching knee from the clinch, and threatened to finish with a series of rights and lefts that forced Holtzman into emergency wrestling mode. Dariush stayed patient, briefly took Holtzman’s back, then separated back to the standup, where he pieced up “Hot Sauce” with some more heavy shots before putting his lights out with the spinning backfist.

I’m calling it a spinning backfist, and I think Dariush intended it to be a backfist, but it was really more of a spinning back-forearm. No matter what part of his body technically knocked Holtzman out, it was incredibly impressive – Holtzman has a really strong chin, and notably had never been finished in his pro career.

Heavyweight Derrick Lewis came away with the biggest accolades on Saturday night for his KO win over Alexey Oleinik, which will set the big guy up perhaps one fight away from a title shot. But I don’t think anyone fighting on that card did more to elevate their stock as a contender than Dariush. His last two fights have resulted in highlight-reel knockouts, and the veteran has officially announced himself as a significant player at 155.

So yeah, I was thinking that Dariush could go in there, look good and make me look smart for talking him up. Much appreciated, my guy.

Kevin Holland

Still just 27 years old, middleweight Kevin Holland has a surprising amount of names on his record already. Holland got on the UFC radar after a win on Dana White’s Contender Series in June 2018 – by that time, he had already fought guys like still-undefeated former Bellator champ Rafael Lovato Jr., current UFC welterweight contender Geoff Neal, and Curtis Millender, who has some sparkling UFC KOs of his own.

And in his first official UFC appearance, Holland was handed a fight with Thiago Santos, who less than a year later would become the first fighter in history to win a judge’s scorecard against Jon Jones. So yeah, Holland’s been in there with some killers. Perhaps that experience is starting to pay off: Holland has now won five of six since his decision loss to Santos, including a knockout win over Joaquin Buckley on Saturday.

At 6-foot-3, Holland is one of the lankier and rangier guys that you’ll find at middleweight, and he showed off some high-level counter-striking acumen against Buckley, a strong, fast and aggressive fighter with real knockout power.

Fighting for the second time in just eight days – he avenged a 2016 loss to Jackie Gosh with a TKO win on an LFA card last weekend – Buckley proved to be no slouch. Heavily muscular and built like a fire hydrant, Buckley was swinging hard from the beginning and never really seemed to tire, which made for an entertaining fight.

But Holland was able to avoid Buckley’s biggest swings, making him pay in tight with some sharp elbows and counter rights. You never got the feeling that Holland wasn’t in control of every exchange, and once Holland really settled in, he started sniping Buckley with some perfectly placed shots through his guard.

Holland first dropped Buckley with a straight right late in the first round, and after again controlling the second with his striking, he destroyed Buckley with an absolute laser right hand in the opening seconds of the third to claim the knockout win.

Holland’s fun. His combination of length and good head movement makes it really hard to score big punches, and when he establishes his range he mixes in body kicks and elbows well along with accurate hands. Plus, he projects a ton of outward confidence: he’s constantly smiling and talking trash as he blasts your head off.

He’s probably another win or two away from an opponent with a real name: Buckley was making his UFC debut, after all, and on a very quick turnaround. But Holland looked sharp on Saturday, and his frame and skillset makes him very interesting moving forward.

Valerie Loureda

Bellator flyweight Valerie Loureda is now 3-0 in a promising-looking pro MMA career. She’s also a very attractive woman, and she appears to know it – her Instagram account, where she frequently posts pictures of herself in bikinis, has over 400,000 followers as of this writing, jumping by the tens of thousands after she knocked out Tara Graff and twerked in the ring on Friday.

And I’m not here to say there’s absolutely anything wrong with that. Fighting is a brutal business which doesn’t pay nearly enough, and I respect anyone who can find a way to get ahead. But if history is any indication, you’re probably going to be hearing Valerie Loureda’s name a heck of a lot more, for reasons that most likely have to do as much with appearance as they do ability.

Gina Carano was the first big money star in women’s MMA partially because she was a good fighter, but also because she has movie-star good looks. (I enjoyed her in The Mandalorian.) It was exhilarating to watch Ronda Rousey tear through the UFC women’s bantamweight division, but it’s foolish to think that her rise as a major pay-per-view draw had nothing to do with the fact that she’s beautiful. Other fighters like Paige VanZant and Maycee Barber have been pushed perhaps too fast, too soon, because the UFC sees physically attractive female fighters as potentially marketable.

Mixed martial arts is seen as a traditionally masculine sport, and the overwhelming majority of MMA fans are male. As such, women’s MMA has generally been promoted with the male gaze in mind. Even when Weili Zhang and Joanna Jedrzejczyk threw down in an all-time war for the UFC strawweight title back in March, much of the social media conversation afterward was about how pretty Joanna is when she hasn’t just been punched in the face for a half hour.

So with that in mind, back to Valerie Loureda. Loureda has a base in taekwondo and showcased some solid counter-striking against the aggressive Graff, staying out of her range and tagging her throughout the first two rounds. Graff didn’t have the experience or the fight IQ to really change the equation of the fight – for two rounds, the fight was mainly Loureda circling to her right, piecing Graff with one or two shots here and there and occasionally stuffing a takedown attempt against the fence. This continued until Loureda zapped Graff with a counter right in the closing moments of the second round and put her out with several follow-up punches on the ground.

Bellator’s women’s flyweight division has been ruled for several years by the excellent Ilima-Lei Macfarlane, who I don’t doubt would handle Loureda at this point in time. But I don’t think anyone should see surprised if we see Loureda, with one or two more wins against non-threatening opponents – so far, her three pro fights have come against fighters with a combined 2-7 pro record – get a title push in the near future.

After all, a physically attractive woman who can win a few fights is still seen as a very, very marketable property in mixed martial arts. So far, at least, Valerie Loureda has been that.