For nearly two hours, the London crowd sat on its hands as the UFC Fight Night preliminary card was falling flat. Then Mason Jones and Axel Sola stepped into the cage and decided to trade jabs for 15 minutes straight, turning the fight into an instant classic. As a result, Jones and Sola ended up saving the prelims with their fight.

Jones (18-2-0, 1 NC) and Sola (11-1-1) met in a lightweight three-round clash. It looked like a promising match, and they didn’t shy away from living up to the expectations. Right from the get-go, both heavily relied on their striking. But it was Jones who visibly cracked Sola in the opening round.

However, that didn’t diminish the French fighter’s morale. While Jones continued to strike through his fast-paced combinations, Sola countered whenever he found an opening. But after three rounds of slugfest, the judges gave their nod to Jones and declared him the winner via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28).

Now, this bout arguably put an exciting end to the prelims, which were seemingly turning out to be lackluster. Although it had two finish outcomes, the rest comparatively lacked the action that an MMA fight demanded. Of course, this excludes the fight between Jones and Sola.

Before their bout, Nathaniel Wood and Losene Keita scrapped for three rounds. Although the bout was relatively close, where Wood won via split decision, it lacked the flair of the Jones vs. Sola fight. As such, it had a major difference where one had over 170 significant strikes, while the other had around 100.

Not only that, even the bout before that, where heavyweights Mario Pinto and Felipe Franco fought, also had similar stats, if not fewer. Pinto, despite having a significant size and weight difference, failed to decisively defeat the debutant. Speaking of their striking stats, the entire three-round fight had only around 60 successful connections in total.

It draws parallels to UFC Fight Night: Bonfim vs. Brown preliminary card, where a bantamweight bout between Raoni Barcelos and Ricky Simon provided some much-needed action to the otherwise slow card.

Talking about UFC London Prelims, was it concerning? Yes, it was. But Mason Jones and Axel Sola surely covered those lackluster performances up with their slugfest. To that end, the community is showering all its love on the rising lightweights.

MMA community lauds Mason Jones and Axel Sola’s UFC London performance

For starters, fellow UFC lightweight fighter and former title challenger, Renato Moicano, chimed in to share his reaction. “GREAT FIGHT!” Moicano wrote on X. Not only him, but the scrap between Mason Jones and Axel Sola also prompted a reaction from former UFC lightweight Dustin Poirier.

“Good Fight! Mason Jones is a savage,” Poirier wrote on X. Surely, ‘The Diamond’ seemed impressed as he himself has been part of some great fights against the likes of Max Holloway and Justin Gaethje. But when it came to the fans, they dropped vivid reactions.

“Give them both a fat bonus, they saved this card,” a netizen commented. This fan typically felt that the UFC London card was turning out to be a lackluster show. Meanwhile, a few others wanted both Jones and Sola to be massively rewarded for their performance.

“Well, there goes 2 people’s POTN bonus because that was definitely a FOTN!!” a fan wrote. And this has been the reaction of the majority of the fans. Amid that, despite suffering a loss, a few also praised Sola’s toughness, which endured several clinical strikes from the Welsh fighter.

“Sola’s chin is something else. He was eating knees and just refused to go down,” a user noted. Apart from that, some netizens also highlighted the significance of the Jones vs. Sola fight. “F**k this card needed that. Great scrap 🔥,” a fan commented.

And lastly, the fans online were seemingly not satisfied with just a three-round fight between the two lightweights. To that end, they called for more of such action. “Rematch at the White House card!!” a netizen noted. So, all these clearly depict how their performance at UFC London has moved both fans and fellow fighters alike.

Mason Jones has just extended his winning streak to three fights with his victory. Meanwhile, Axel Sola is comparatively new to UFC, and it was only his second fight in the leading MMA promotion. And of course, with the performance he showed, the Frenchman has opened up excitement for his future bouts.

That said, who do you want Jones and Sola to fight next? Let us know in the comments below!