On Saturday night, the UFC invited back American audiences for their first live game in over a year, and three of their best fighters — Kamaru Usman, Rose Namajunas, and Valentina Shevchenko — rose to the challenge with dazzling knockouts at UFC 261 in Jacksonville, Florida.

Usman, the Nigerian-American welterweight champion, knocked out American challenger Jorge Masvidal cold with a deafening straight right to the jaw at 1.02 of the second round in the title match and alerted the crowd and other fighters that "I'm improving."

“Jacksonville, Florida,” says the narrator. Did you want bloodshed? You're welcome,” Usman said afterward, extending his undefeated streak to 18 fights.

“I told everyone, I am the best boxer in the world right now, pound for pound.”

The pair had fought in July of last year, with Usman, 33, dominating his 36-year-old rival in the grip and on the ground and punching away at will over five rounds. This time, he got right to the point with such a blow that made Masvidal tumble to a knockout for the first time in his 50-fight career.

Until the magical moment, the night had been all about Namajunas.

The 28-year-old American strawweight contender reclaimed the belt with a breathtaking head-kick overthrow of Zhang Weili with 1 minute and 18 seconds remaining in the first round, ending the Chinese fighter's 21-fight winning streak in a flash of pure, composing expertise.

“I'm the best,” Namajunas said afterward in the center of the ring. I did it once more. I didn't see her move, and I wasn't sure if she'd be able to recover from it. So it was out like a pair of hammer fists.”

Namajunas claimed the strawweight title in 2017 but losing it in 2019 after battling with personal demons and motivation. And though the fight only lasted a little more than a minute, she was at her dazzling best on Sunday. Namajunas was a swirl of action, leaving Zhang, 30, aiming for a low kick when she went high. And then it was over. The first of three title fights on the card saw Kyrgyzstan's Shevchenko use incredible strength and a nine-centimeter height advantage to defeat Brazilian contender Jessica Andrade.

The champion had five knockdowns in the first round and one early in the second, giving her the upper hand, and she hammered away to grab the TKO with 3.12 seconds remaining. That rendered seven straight victories for Shevchenko, a 33-year-old fighter who, like Usman and Namajunas, on his way to the UFC Hall of Fame.

“I like to surprise people,” she explained later, her exaggeration of the night. Saturday's fight card within the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena invited American fans to a live UFC game for the first time since March of last year in Las Vegas.

Due to constraints on public meetings imposed by the global pandemic, the UFC was required to either hold fan-free activities in the U. S. or take up refuge within a limited “sports hub” in Abu Dhabi. Despite the United States' ongoing fight with Covid-19, an estimated 15,000 people gathered on Saturday. On Saturday, local authorities confirmed 7,411 new infections of the coronavirus and 53 deaths, hours before the event.

In the run-up to the case, Namajunas pointed to the American Cold War anti-communist phrase "better dead than red" while expressing how she inspired herself before confronting the Chinese champion. Zhang discounted the possibility that she had taken the lessons to heart and Namajunas managed to clear the air soon after victory.

“It was never my intention to publicly target her, as evidenced by all in the media. It's just my roots and my background,” Namajunas, whose parents fled to the US from Soviet-era Lithuania, said.