Some cards are about the headliners. Others highlight the depth of the roster.

Fans can safely file Saturday's 11-bout Fight Night show from the Apex in Las Vegas as a case of the latter. Though three pairs of UFC-ranked fighters were matched up against one another in three separate weight classes, none of the half dozen were ranked higher than seventh.

Middleweights Anthony Hernandez and Michel Pereira headlined a show that aired opposite playoff baseball and significant college football, and, ironically, also while former octagonal heavyweight menace Francis Ngannou made his debut with a rival company.

The 31-year-old Hernandez had won five straight and six of eight since arriving to the promotion following a Season 2 appearance on Dana White's Contender Series in 2018. Pereira, meanwhile, is also 31 and also arrived with a hot hand, having won eight in a row since a two-fight skid that following a successful UFC debut in 2019.

The B/R combat team was in position to take it all in and deliver a definitive, real-time list of the show's winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought in the comments.

Winner: Perpetual Violence

Officially, the gap between Anthony Hernandez and Michel Pereira was one ranking spot.

But by the time they'd finished 22 minutes of competitive middleweight combat in Saturday's main event, it somehow seemed so, so much wider.

The California-based 185-pounder showed that No. 13 is far superior to No. 14 and established a slew of personal records along the way, running up watermark totals in takedown attempts, significant strikes and significant strike differential on the way to a brutal fifth-round TKO.

The official time was 2:22 of Round 5.

It was Hernandez's first main event fight in the UFC and he looked like a star once he recovered from a brief series of body shots from Pereira in the fight's first minute. He got things into his wheelhouse, a fence-side tie-up, by the 90-second mark, however, and it was never close once the constant pressure began draining the Brazilian's gas tank.

Hernandez finished with nearly a 200-strike differential, a 10-0 edge in takedowns and better than 15 minutes in control time in extending his win streak to six fights since May 2020.

Pereira, meanwhile, saw an eight-fight run end with his first loss since February 2020.

"I had to be smart and use my technique and sh-t," Hernandez said. "It's just what I expected. I had no nerves all week. I'm ready for that belt. Gimme somebody who'll get me a title shot and I'll show you."

Winner: Turning It Around

What a difference a round makes.

Twelfth-ranked bantamweight Kyler Phillips took his 10th-ranked foe, Rob Font, to the mat with ease in the first round and kept him there for more than half the session while making it look like their co-main event would be a younger man's–Phillips is 29 to Font's 37–game.

Until it wasn't.

Instead, Font took advantage of his rival's apparently compromised gas tank from the moment the second round began, stalking a retreating Phillips and strafing him with punches while either stuffing or quickly recovering from whatever takedown attempts Phillips could muster.

The script repeated in the third round and the grizzled veteran emerged with the clear upset victory, earning a 29-28 margin on the B/R card that matched the scores offered by all three official judges, too.

It was a first win since UFC 287 in April 2023 for Font, who defeated another streaking prospect, Adrian Yanez, on that show before losing consecutive decisions to fellow veterans Cory Sandhagen and Deiveson Figueiredo later that year and staying out of the cage for 10 months.

Still, he said positive self-talk got him through the difficult first against Phillips.

"(I told myself) I'm not losing a decision like this," he said. "I'm getting up I'm going forward and I'm winning this fight."

It was a done deal from then on and he wound up with a 65-50 edge in total strikes and a 61-38 edge in significant blows over Phillips, whose three-fight UFC run ended.

"There was a lot of defense and a lot of sprawling," he said, "but mainly coming forward and keeping it simple and small."

Winner: Staying Busy

This, without a doubt, has been Charles Johnson's MMA year.

The frenetic 33-year-old flyweight climbed the steps for the fourth time this year and ultimately exited the same way with a four-fight win streak after a competitive but clear unanimous decision win over Chinese rival Sumudaerji in a spirited main-card scrap.

It's the 17th win in a 23-fight career that began in 2016 and included a prolonged run in the LFA promotion that included a two-defense title reign. He arrived to the UFC in 2022 and is now 6-4 in octagonal action while pining away for a fifth appearance in this calendar year.

He was consistently faster and more active in Saturday's fight and dropped Sumudaerji in the second round before following up with a flurry that drew the attention of referee Mark Smith, but never drew a stoppage. Sumudaerji recovered and rallied and had Johnson in some trouble as he made efforts to secure both a d'arce choke and an arm triangle.

All three judges gave him the edge by a 29-28 margin.

"I'm the most active mixed martial artist in the world," Johnson said. "I want the UFC to know I'm a five-round fighter. I'm the best in the mother f—ing world."

Winner: Short-Notice Statement

Upon being finished in Round 1 of a Contender Series fight last year, Texas-based bantamweight Cameron Smotherman was asked by the UFC boss what he was going to do in the aftermath to get himself back to the sport's biggest stage.

Consider the question answered. Definitively.

The lanky 27-year-old, aptly billed as the "Baby-Faced Killa," came in on short notice to face veteran foe Jake Hadley and cashed in on the opportunity with a surprising but well-deserved decision in their main-card matchup.

Smotherman, who'd won three straight bouts in other promotions since the early loss, was the biggest underdog on the card but earned scores of 30-26, 29-27 and 29-27 from the judges.

The B/R card also had it 29-27 for Smotherman, who was struck by a low kick in the first round and poked in the right eye in the second, leading to a four-minute delay and a one-point penalty to Hadley from referee Chris Tognoni.

The enormity of the accomplishment seemed to hit Smotherman in his post-fight chat with analyst Paul Felder.

"It's not ideal. But f–k, dude, I won. I'm in the UFC bro. They didn't want me, bro, but I'm here now," he said. "I wanted to quit so many times and I tried to quit so many times.

"But this is about a journey. I want to do better. I want to provide for my family. And I want to keep growing as a fighter and a person. I'm in the f—ing UFC bro."

Loser: Painless Exits

Daniel Pineda's face, or at least what you could see of it, told the tale.

The 39-year-old was already wearing a mask of blood from a gory cut alongside his left eyebrow and was reduced to a slit on the right side when he looked up at the clock with a minute left in Round 3, sighed and resigned himself to the fact that the end was near.

He'd just tried and failed, again, to get rid of opponent Darren Elkins with a guillotine choke, and as he was wedged against the fence in the aftermath with no gas left to get himself up, the reality was clear–his 17-year career was over.

The Texas-based featherweight stood in the center as a unanimous decision was awarded to Elkins, then laid his gloves down to signal that a 48-fight run, including 11 in the UFC, was over.

"Guys, that was my last one," he said. "We're some dogs in here. Thank you to Darren Elkins for this badass fight, but f–k it, I'm done."

Elkins landed 102 strikes, converted three takedown tries and evaded two submission attempts to score his 19th UFC win in what was his 27th featherweight appearance, a company record.

"If you're fighting me, it's gonna be hell," he said. "You've got to outclass me cause I'm gonna be coming every time. Everyone in the world thinks that they're gonna be the one to guillotine me. I hope they keep trying."

Winner: Calling a Shot

Apparently just making the top 10 isn't enough.

Asu Almabayev won his 17th straight fight overall and fourth straight in the UFC in Saturday's featured prelim, dropping seventh-ranked flyweight Matheus Nicolau early in the third round and keeping him on the mat for the rest of the session to eke out a tight unanimous decision.

All three judges gave the Kazakhstan-based fighter, who'd arrived ranked 14th at 125 pounds, a 29-28 edge on the scorecards.

But just entering the big room in the weight class wasn't sufficient.

The 30-year-old wants a try at the penthouse.

"Dana (White) and (matchmaker) Mick (Maynard," he said, "give me one chance to fight for the belt. That's all I want and all I need."

The verdict was in doubt through the first two rounds of the hyper-tactical battle, in which neither man seemed willing to commit for fear of leaving himself vulnerable. Nicolau defended a takedown try in the second with a guillotine attempt, but Almabayev was able to escape and decided to start fast in the third–yielding the knockdown with a hard right hand.

He immediately covered Nicolau like a blanket and the Brazilian never got up, which led to his fall to 19-6-1 overall and 7-4 with the company.

Winner: Moving the Needle

It was bound to happen eventually.

After three moderately violent undercard bouts and another that got within 27 seconds of a final horn, bantamweights Brad Katona and Jean Matsumoto finally gave the crowd a rise.

The 32-year-old Canadian and 25-year-old Brazilian mixed technical striking with tactical grappling and left each other the worse for wear with Katona sporting a reddened, scraped face while Matsumoto bled profusely from a jagged cut over his right eye.

Ultimately, it was the younger man whose injuries were not in vain after he emerged from the spirited 15-minute scrap with a narrow unanimous decision in which each of the three judges gave him two of three rounds.

"This is what I'm doing here," Matsumoto, the only unbeaten fighter on the card, said. "They give me tough fights and I knew this guy was going to be difficult."

The winner improved to 16-0 in his career and 2-0 in the UFC despite a slim 98-96 disadvantage in total strikes, a 3-1 deficit in takedowns and a 3:35-2:04 chasm in positional control time.

In fact, the B/R card saw it the other way, giving Katona the first and third rounds for a 29-28 edge. All three judges had it even after two rounds but all three gave Matsumoto the final round to shade the final verdict in his direction.

Loser: Letting Them Go

It rarely fails. An unusual occurrence happens in an otherwise forgettable fight.

Mexican strawweight Melissa Martinez was well on her way to a pedestrian decision victory over Alice Ardelean when she launched a kick midway through Round 3.

Her left foot connected cleanly with Ardelean's body, a few inches above the beltline, and Ardelean immediately bent forward at the waist as Martinez landed a hard left to the head.

But the sequence was interrupted as Ardelean sank to her knees and referee Keith Peterson leapt in and signaled the blow was low, offering the stricken fighter a chance to recover.

The stoppage clicked to 45 seconds before Peterson took in a replay and reversed course and ordered the fighters to re-engage.

"I just wish there'd been a little bit more urgency to see it and start it again," analyst Brendan Fitzgerald correctly said, before a UFC official said the options for Peterson after the delay were to stop the fight and go to the scorecards or restart it, as he did.

And while Martinez maintained control for the balance of the round, she was essentially cheated out of what might have been her sixth career finish. Ultimately, she won all three rounds on all three scorecards to get to 8-1 as a pro.

"I wanted to finish the fight, but unfortunately we couldn't," she said. "My team told me, 'Whatever happens, don't lose your focus. Focus on your work.'"

Loser: High-End Heavyweight Dreams

This will not be a hot UFC take.

Neither Austen Lane nor Robelis Despaigne will ever be a champion.

Both the former NFL player and the Olympic taekwondo medalist lack the overall athleticism and skill set that are needed to reach lofty heights on the company ladder.

Lane won a desultory unanimous decision–sweeping the scorecards with 29-28 nods–in Saturday's curtain-raiser, a fight that was expected to be a one-round banger but instead turned into a 15-minute snore in which Lane's objective was simply to get his man, who'd been ground into mulch by Waldo Cortes-Acosta in his last fight, to the floor.

Once there, it was academic.

Because Despaigne, for all his striking acumen, couldn't get up.

Takedowns in the first and third led to nearly nine minutes of control time for Lane, who'd gone 0-2 with a no contest in his first two appearances since a Dana White's Contender Series win in 2022.

"I had to be prepared," he said. "It was the last fight of my contract."

Full Card Results

Main Card

Anthony Hernandez def. Michel Pereira by TKO (strikes), 2:22, Round 5

Rob Font def. Kyler Phillips by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Charles Johnson def. Sumudaerji by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Cameron Smotherman def. Jake Hadley by unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-27)

Darren Elkins def. Daniel Pineda by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Preliminary Card

Asu Almabayev def. Matheus Nicolau by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Jean Matsumoto def. Brad Katona by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Joselyne Edwards def. Tamires Vidal by submission (rear-naked choke), 4:33, Round 3

Elise Reed def. Jessica Penne by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Melissa Martinez def. Alice Ardelean by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Austen Lane def. Robelis Despaigne by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)