One of the biggest UFC cards of 2019 went down Saturday from Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

The top of this card was a long time coming. It was more than a year-and-a-half ago that UFC matchmakers first booked Max Holloway and Frankie Edgar. Everyone got excited. The quickness and level-changing of Edgar, the former lightweight champ, versus the pressure and striking brilliance of the featherweight titleholder. Plenty of cage craft on display in both corners.

But then Edgar got injured. So they rescheduled it for March 2018 at UFC 222. Injuries to Holloway scuttled that one.

Fast-forward to UFC 240, where it finally happened.

Let's be clear: This was a good, intriguing fight, and one that featured two surefire Hall of Famers. But it wasn't a great one—at least not on paper—as evidenced by Holloway's -335 favorite status as the bout began.

But Edgar's been an underdog since he was in short pants. Could he pull it off again? At age 37, was Edgar's lightning quickness still intact? What about the iron chin that kept him knockout resistant until that very same UFC 222, where he famously fell to Brian Ortega? And what about Holloway, himself coming off his first loss in nearly six years following an interim lightweight title bout and Fight of the Year candidate against Dustin Poirier? 

This one was for Holloway's featherweight strap. But it wasn't the only UFC 240 bout with big stakes. How about the co-main event, where Cris "Cyborg" Justino returned to action after that loss to champ-champ Amanda Nunes—and did so with one last fight left on her contract to prove her future worth?

There was plenty of intrigue up and down this 11-fight card, and as always the final stat lines did not reveal all. These are the real winners and losers from UFC 240.

For the literal-minded, full card results appear at the end.

Winner: Max Holloway

Check off the box. Cross it off the list. Add the notch to the belt and the name to the resume. Max "Blessed" Holloway finally fought Frankie Edgar and used all his familiar tools to outclass a gold-standard opponent once again.

And still.

It wasn't always exciting—a charge Edgar has faced throughout his career—but Holloway used his length and the best jab in the game to handle the challenger by unanimous decision.

"Everybody said I wasn't gonna be able to wrestle with this guy," Holloway told broadcaster Joe Rogan in the cage after the fight. "Everybody said I wasn't gonna be able to stay with his pace. I wanted to prove a point and go five rounds with him, so I could let the world know that I'm here to stay and the 'Blessed' express is still on the move, baby. Choo choo!"

Who could say it any better? Choo choo indeed, sir. Holloway controlled distance and used his jab to turn back the smaller man's takedown attempts over and over. (Holloway stands 5'11" with a 69-inch reach, while Edgar stands 5'8" with a 68-inch reach.) When Edgar did manage to get inside, takedowns still didn't tend to convert, and when they did, they didn't result in much damage. Meanwhile, Holloway's counters made a mark whenever they found a home; a crisp uppercut, landed more than once, was my favorite on the night.

Afterward, with his little son standing next to him, Edgar seemed downtrodden but pledged to return.

"I've got a lot of fight left in me, man," he told Rogan. It's hard not to cheer for that.

Could now be the time for Edgar to try his hand down at 135 pounds? That could be interesting, though at age 37 it's not the typical time for such a move. At a minimum, Edgar could fight for a while yet on the legends tour. How about Renato Moicano in his next bout? 

As for the champ, the UFC apparently flew in Australian and top contender Alex Volkanovski for a special call-out. After the fight, Volkanovski went on air with Rogan and play-by-play man Jon Anik to personally challenge Holloway. The blockbuster UFC 243 card scheduled for October in Melbourne, Australia, might be a logical landing spot for these two, even more so now that the UFC has dedicated air time to the idea.

"I want to be a part of it," Volkanovski said of the card. "Hopefully Max does too. Let's make it happen."

I do too. He didn't ask me, but I do.

Winner: Cris Cyborg

Felicia Spencer was as game as they come and as promising as advertised, but don't let Spencer bury the lead: Cris Cyborg is back in the win column and sitting pretty heading into contract negotiations.

Spencer opened an early cut on Cyborg—the first of her career, Cyborg noted post-fight—and acquitted herself well early as Cyborg operated in efficiency mode. Throughout the contest, Spencer worked to get the action to the clinch or the ground, where she could try out her submission game, but never controlled Cyborg long enough to take charge of the wider fight.

As the bout wore on, Cyborg brushed off fatigue to continue pressing forward and won going away with heavy flurries of kicks and punches. Her tried-and-true leg kicks were in evidence throughout. Spencer's chin held up, but it was clear who held the scorecard edge. Cyborg swept the cards with 30-27s across the board.

Simple as that. Afterward, Rogan predictably didn't ask Cyborg about her potential new contract, which was the talk of the MMA community throughout fight week. Will she return to the UFC for a rematch with Nunes? Will she go to a UFC competitor like Bellator, or how about PFL, where a bona fide blockbuster with Olympic double gold medal winner Kayla Harrison could await?

"I'm going to let UFC talk to my manager, but I just wanted to get this victory," Cyborg told Rogan. "For sure, I want Amanda. I want [the] rematch."

No one knows the plan for now, but thanks to this win, one of the icons of women's MMA has options. And don't let the UFC spin fool you: She may stay to face Nunes, but if she leaves, it won't be out of fear. It will be because she was able to do whatever she thought was best for her career. It's refreshing when MMA fighters have a chance to do that.

Winners: Geoff Neal and Niko Price

Niko Price is a whirling electrical storm of a fighter. On Saturday, Geoff Neal was the lightning rod.

A good portion of the MMA media (including your extremely humble narrator) envisioned this as the Fight of the Night. After a wild and woolly brawl, the predictions converted into $50,000 for Neal, who overwhelmed chaos demon Price for a ground-and-pound TKO.

At certain moments, you could hear Neal's corner begging: Don't brawl with him! But he did anyway, and at first it didn't go his way. Don't forget Price earned recent notoriety with a string of vicious, creative knockouts, including that time he finished Randy Brown with hammerfists on the ground—from bottom position. 

In this one, Price poured it on from the jump, felling Neal at one point in the first with a lunging, almost diving left hook. Punches put Neal down again in the second, but Price the human dervish rushed in for a hasty guillotine choke—one Neal easily swept out of. In fact, Neal presently rolled into top position, and as he found his posture the punches came progressively harder and faster until they prompted the stoppage.

"It was a wild one," Neal said on the broadcast after the fight. "I really kind of expected it, fighting a guy like Niko. He's hard to hit without getting one back ... I think he dropped me twice, but I was able to get my wits together and put the fight where I wanted it."

The two men embraced after, which made sense, as there was reason to smile in both camps. Price continues to make hay as a plug-and-play bonus contender (this was the fourth bout in his nine UFC contests to yield some kind of post-fight accolade). Meanwhile, Neal, now 5-0 in the UFC, solidly established himself as a true problem in this division.

Loser: Canadian MMA (On the Main Card)

"Canadian MMA is coming back!"

That sentiment, uttered Saturday by featherweight Hakeem Dawodu on the prelims broadcast, may have been a touch ambitious. But the Edmonton audience must have been heartened by its countrypeoples' performances on the preliminary side of the ledger, where the Canadians went 3-of-4 on the evening.

Too bad, then, that the main carders didn't hold up their end of the bargain. All three pay-per-view Canadians lost to make the nation's record 3-4 on the night.

It could have been worse, but it also could have been better.

As discussed, Spencer saw her stock go up against Cyborg, but she still lost. Marc-Andre Barriault and Olivier Aubin-Mercier were less inspiring, both dropping bland decisions. The featured prelim didn't go so well, either, when veteran Alexis Davis hung tough but was seriously mangled by the up-and-coming Viviane Araujo. 

The undercard was the happier place. Dawodu overcame the gimmicky, circle-heavy style of Yoshinori Horie to crack his tough-chinned opponent with a splintered bedpost of a head kick. Farther down the slate, Gavin Tucker won a meaningful fight over Seungwoo Choi, and we'll get to that one momentarily.

On the deep undercard, Ontario native and women's flyweight Gillian Robertson used vicious elbows to dust off Sarah Frota about halfway through the second stanza. Don't look now, but Robertson is 7-3 as a pro, including 4-1 in the UFC, at age 24.

There may not be another Georges St-Pierre on the horizon, but Canada arguably still houses the largest MMA fanbase on this planet. Any interest is good interest, and newer fighters such as Dawodu, Tucker and Robertson generated their fair share on home soil.

Winner: Gavin Tucker

Gavin Tucker had some history to rewrite.

Once one of Canada's top prospects, the native Newfoundlander featherweight won his February 2017 UFC debut to move to 10-0, a record that included eight stoppages. But something bad happened in his second Octagon contest seven months later.

There, credentialed veteran Rick Glenn waited. He dismantled Tucker, and not in a fun way. Tucker broke his jaw early, but on and on the punishment went until Tucker was battered, exhausted and well beyond.

For whatever reason, referee Kyle Cardinal—not to mention Tucker's corner—decided it would be wrong to stop the punishment, even after the outcome was no longer in doubt. Plenty of bystanders said it went on for a full round longer than necessary. A judge awarded the third and final frame to Glenn with the almost Bigfoot-like 10-7 score.

Tucker broke four bones in his face and absorbed 184 strikes that night. He hasn't fought since.

Until Saturday. 

A single-leg takedown set the tone early against Korean Seungwoo Choi. Tucker racked up riding time on Choi's back and against the fence. Tucker is a finisher by instinct, and that's exactly what got him in trouble against Glenn. Choi is an accomplished striker in his own right, with power to burn.

But he was a sitting duck on the ground against Tucker, who stuck to his game plan, stayed within himself and nabbed an impressive submission in the third round. A rear-naked choke earned Tucker the W and helped him, in no small way, to move on with his life. At 11-1 and a favored son of the fight-happy North, Tucker's future is bright again.

UFC 240 Full Card Results

Main Card

Max Holloway def. Frankie Edgar by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 48-47) (retains UFC featherweight championship)

Cris Cyborg def. Felicia Spencer by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Geoff Neal def. Niko Price by TKO, 2:39, Rd. 2

Arman Tsarukyan def. Olivier Aubin-Mercier by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Krzysztof Jotko def. Marc-Andre Barriault by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

Preliminary Card

Viviane Araujo def. Alexis Davis by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

Hakeem Dawodu def. Yoshinori Horie by TKO, 4:09, Rd. 3

Gavin Tucker def. Seungwoo Choi by submission (rear-naked choke), 3:17, Rd. 3

Deiveson Figueiredo def. Alexandre Pantoja by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Gillian Robertson def. Sarah Frota by TKO, 4:13, Rd. 2

Erik Koch def. Kyle Stewart by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)

Scott Harris covers MMA and other sports for Bleacher Report. Odds via OddsShark.