By:  | September 12, 2023 10:21 am

Red Dela Cruz might have been born in Manila but these days she calls Sydney home. So it was no surprise to see the Filipina stunner on octagon girl duties at UFC 293 last weekend.

The 30 year old flies all over the world to work at UFC events so she wasn’t going to miss a fight card in her hometown. The main event was one of the biggest upsets in the recent history of the sport and it sounds like Dela Cruz was stunned.

She described it to her 422,000 Instagram followers as ‘a crazy card’,

“What a crazy card.”

Stunning upset

Israel Adesanya was a +650 favourite against Sean Strickland, who was only handed a title shot because of an injury to Dricus du Plessis. Meanwhile the American was +450 meaning that anyone who backed him would have received a handsome payout.

Strickland beat Adesanya by unanimous decision in a stunning upset. In the process he became the new UFC middleweight champion and is just the third fighter to ever beat the New Zealand based Nigerian.

It was a better night for the Australian fighters. Jamie Mullarkey was first up and he beat Canadian veteran John Makdessi by unanimous decision.

Highlight reel

The crowd was quieter when Jack Jenkins had to withdraw from his featherweight fight with Chepe Mariscal due to an arm injury. But the decibel levels at the Qudos Bank Arena increased when two Australian fighters cored highlight reel knockouts.

In the first fight on the main card Australian Tyson Pedro needed less than three minutes to finish Swedish light heavyweight Anton Turkalj. The crowd was already hyped up and the excitement levels would get even higher.

Australian Justin Tafa would finish the next fight even faster. The Rizin veteran put away Austen Lane barely 90 seconds into their heavyweight fight.

Unfortunately Tai Tuivasa couldn’t maintain the winning streak. The Australian heavyweight was submitted by Alexander Volkov in the opening round but it sounds like a crazy night in Sydney and Dela Cruz definitely enjoyed herself at UFC 293.