This Day in MMA History: May 16

On May 16, 2015, UFC Fight Night 66 marked the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s first trip to the Philippines. The promotion did its best to stir up local interest by bringing virtually all of its Filipino talent, including Mark Eddiva and Roldan Sangcha-an, as well as some of its most prominent Filipino-American fighters, such as Mark Munoz and Phillipe Nover, whom it actually re-signed specifically for the event.

The main event featured two former champions whose careers were in flux. Former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar was four fights into a featherweight run that had begun with a tough loss to 145-pound G.O.A.T. Jose Aldo but had been otherwise utterly dominant. Meanwhile, former World Series of Fighting featherweight champ and general promotional poster boy Urijah Faber, who had dropped to bantamweight for three unsuccessful title shots in the UFC, was moving back up to featherweight for the fight, without a clear plan to stay there or move back down to 135 pounds afterwards. The fight was not explicitly a title eliminator, but the winner was clearly not far from another shot at UFC gold.

On fight night, it was all Edgar, as he showed once again just how wide the gulf was between himself and every other fighter at 145 pounds not named Aldo. “The Answer” swept all five cards on all three judges’ scorecards. From there, Edgar would go on to destroy Chad Mendes in a No. 1 contender match before rematching Aldo at UFC 200, where he was turned away once again. Faber, meanwhile, dropped promptly back to 135 pounds, where he would earn one final title shot. At UFC 199, he faced Dominick Cruz in a rubber match, with Cruz’s bantamweight belt on the line, and lost a one-sided decision.

UFC Fight Night 66 is historically important today mostly for the “lasts.” It remains the last event the UFC has staged in the Philippines, and served as the retirement bout for Munoz, the promotion’s most accomplished fighter of Filipino descent.