UFC269: Julianna Peña Beats Amanda Nunes; Charles Oliveira Beats Dustin Poirier

In one of the biggest upsets in Ultimate Fighting Championship history, Peña stopped Nunes by submission with a rear naked choke in the second round Saturday night, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Nunes largely dominated the first round with two knockdowns, before Peña came in feisty, at the start of the second round, hurting the long-reigning two-division champion with punches in a slugfest.

Peña got Nunes to the ground, got on her back and forced the champion to tap out with a choke around her neck with 1:38 left.

Apparently Peña(11-4) didn’t even realize Nunes had tapped out of her chokehold until somebody told her in the cage moments after the referee pulled her off the long-reigning champion.

“Everybody was sleeping on me, and I shook up the world and did exactly what I said I was going to do,” Peña said after the fight. “But I’m not surprised. I have a big heart and determination. ....Amanda has been such a great champion, and she’s done a ton for the sport. For me to be able to take out arguably the greatest of all time is something that’s still sinking in right now.”

Nunes had won 12 consecutive fights since 2014 and reigned simultaneously atop the 135-pound bantamweight and 145-pound featherweight divisions for three years.

Peña on her part, had won just two of her four fights over the past 5 1/2 years, and got the title shot as one of the few legitimate 135-pound fighters that Nunes hadn’t already beaten.

The Spokane native who trains in Chicago is eager to grant a rematch to Nunes. “We can do it next week," Peña said. "I’m free next week. I’m free next month.”

“Julianna is a person who always believed in herself and believed that she could win this fight if she got it,” UFC President Dana White said. “You heard her for months leading up to this fight, and she did it. It’s one of the things that makes this sport so incredible. An upset like this, where you can’t believe it, it happens all the time here.”

Oliveira also defended his lightweight title for the first time with a third-round stoppage victory over Poirier by standing rear naked choke in the main event of the night.

Oliveira was battered by Poirier in the first round and was knocked down twice, before taking control on the ground in the second round with a series of vicious elbows. He finished the fight with 3:58 left in the third round, by attaching himself to Poirier’s back and forcing him to tap out while standing up.

“We respect each other a lot,” Oliveira said through a translator. “But I was going to have my arm raised, and that’s what happened. … I want to make history. I want to leave a legacy, and I plan to show people that I can.”

Oliveira finally claimed the belt last May in his 28th UFC fight -- the longest wait for a title in the promotion’s history and the culmination of an epic journey by the Brazilian veteran who overcame poverty and childhood illness to become an elite jiu-jitsu practitioner and mixed martial artist.

Poirier was disappointed. “It ruins the dream outcome that I had planned, to forever be a world champion after tonight,” he said. “But the year isn’t ruined. An opportunity I had is ruined, and that’s all right. It is what it is. I’ll look in the mirror like a man.”

Oliveira's next fight is likely against Justin Gaethje, the entertaining brawler who held the interim title in 2020.