Dustin Poirier’s retirement fight at UFC 318 was long in the making. The buildup began with Poirier’s emotional retirement announcement during the 2025 NFL Draft, where he revealed his final fight would take place in his home state of Louisiana,

"I was sure I won this fight," Veretennikov explained. "I punched him hard. I did knock him down twice, and he was dizzy. He took me down twice, that was good, but I'm sure I won this fight. That's for sure."

Paulo Costa was in the headlines for a strange reason ahead of his UFC 318 fight this past Saturday. While most of the attention surrounded Dustin Poirier and Max Holloway this past Saturday at UFC 318, former UFC middleweight title challenger Paulo Costa was heading into a huge fight to save his career.

En route to the victory, Johnson scored a knockdown of Zellhuber (15-3 MMA, 3-3 UFC), which joined Melvin Guillard for the most knockdowns in UFC lightweight history with 13.

Crute (13-4-2 MMA, 5-4-2 UFC) submitted Marcin Prachnio (17-9 MMA, 4-7 UFC) with a first-round armbar in Saturday's prelims at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. After the win, Crute called out Dustin Jacoby (21-9-1 MMA, 9-6-1 UFC) for the upcoming UFC Fight Night on Sept. 27 from RAC Arena in Perth.

Vinicius Oliveira quite literally dropped the mic after his UFC 318 win. "LokDog" isn't just a fighter. He's a rapper, too. One day after his victory over Kyler Phillips in New Orleans, Oliveira (23-3 MMA, 4-0 UFC) dropped a new single "Fenomenal" featuring Brazilian rapper B-Dynamitze.

Spann (23-11 MMA, 9-6 UFC) submitted Lukasz Brzeski (9-7-1 MMA, 1-6 UFC) with a guillotine choke in the first round of Saturday's UFC 318 prelims at Smoothie King Center. Spann is relieved after his heavyweight debut didn't go his way, where he was knocked out by Waldo Cortes-Acosta in March.

Alexander Volkanovski was full of praise for his three-time rival after watching him win at UFC 318. Max Holloway outpointed Dustin Poirier over five rounds to retain his BMF belt on Saturday night. The judges’ scorecards were unanimous and lopsided in his favor, but ‘Blessed’ did endure a scary moment at the end of round two.

Max Holloway was the first to admit he didn't exactly relish the idea of spoiling Dustin Poirier's final fight.

The UFC event broke records, with over 18,000 fans packed the arena where they watched, heckled and cheered as two fighters clashed in a cage. Theo Von, Lil Wayne and other celebrities were in attendance.