Rewritten and restored, 7 October 2026: This historical guide replaces the earlier account with sourced results and a clear distinction between the two title outcomes.
UFC 253 paired a middleweight title defence with a contest for a vacant light heavyweight championship. Israel Adesanya retained his belt against Paulo Costa; Jan Błachowicz won the vacant belt against Dominick Reyes. Those are different achievements, even though both main-card title fights ended in round two.
Date and location
UFC’s event listing uses 26 September 2020 and a 10pm EDT main-card start, with the event on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi. That start was already 27 September in Abu Dhabi. The two calendar dates therefore need a timezone explanation rather than treating either as an unexplained error. UFC’s post-event retrospective identifies the venue as Flash Forum.
All eleven results
The table follows UFC’s official scorecards summary. “Unanimous” and “split” describe the judges’ agreement; they do not describe a knockout or submission.
| Winner | Opponent | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Israel Adesanya | Paulo Costa | TKO, round 2 |
| Jan Błachowicz | Dominick Reyes | TKO, round 2 |
| Brandon Royval | Kai Kara-France | Guillotine submission, round 2 |
| Ketlen Vieira | Sijara Eubanks | Unanimous decision |
| Hakeem Dawodu | Zubaira Tukhugov | Split decision |
| Brad Riddell | Alex da Silva | Unanimous decision |
| Jake Matthews | Diego Sanchez | Unanimous decision |
| Ludovít Klein | Shane Young | KO, round 1 |
| William Knight | Aleksa Camur | Unanimous decision |
| Juan Espino | Jeff Hughes | Arm-triangle submission, round 1 |
| Danilo Marques | Khadis Ibragimov | Unanimous decision |
What the title results changed
UFC’s contemporaneous results report records Adesanya stopping Costa and retaining the middleweight title. In the co-main event, Błachowicz stopped Reyes to take the vacant light heavyweight title. Calling this two newly crowned champions would misdescribe Adesanya’s defence.
The summary and current event widget differ by seconds on some stoppage times. This table gives rounds rather than combining incompatible timestamps; use the linked contemporaneous report and official summary when checking those exact times. A result guide should show its source choice instead of silently turning a difference between records into a fabricated consensus.
Read the card with a clear question
For the title fights, ask whether a championship was retained or vacant. For a decision, compare all three judges’ totals rather than inferring agreement from who won. For a finish, record the round and method separately. These distinctions let you compare events without relying on unsupported claims about popularity, pay-per-view sales or a fight’s historical ranking.
Continue with our weight-class guide, scoring exercises and history guides. This article is an account of a past event, not a current viewing or ticket listing.