Alexandre Pantoja vs Steve Erceg – UFC 301 LIVE: Start time, undercard results and round-by-round updates as the flyweight world championship is on the line in the main event plus Jose Aldo returns

Big first round for the Brazilian who swarms like an angry hornets nest. He pushes the pace and lands a number of heavy leg kicks. Shore does well to avoid the big strikes and ties up his man but definitely drops the opener on the score cards. Has he drained energy from the muscle-bound Brazilian?

Iasmin Lucindo has the home fans back on their feet, winning a decision over Kowalkiewicz to move to 3-1 in the UFC.

Now we have Jack Shore and no doubt plenty of his Welsh compatriots have stayed up for this one.

He has been so impressive in his career so far but moved up to featherweight after losing to Ricky Simon. He won his first battle at 145-lbs and faces a tough one in Brito tonight, who is a hell of an athlete. His father has now beaten the cancer that was an understandable distraction last year and is in his corner as always.

Ruffy was one of the Brazilian winners tonight on the early pre-lims and snuck in this cheeky manouvre –

I will always love how seriously Bruce Buffer takes his job – part of the fabric of the UFC and clearly needs to make sure his hamstrings are firing before he can do his thing. Not sure why. But who am I to question the master.

An impressive win for the man from Kyrgyzstan (and yes I did have to look up the spelling), he rounded off the third with a massive right hand in the last second to send Brener flying and rubber stamp his display, which at times was messy and lethargic but good enough to get the job done.

Gomis weirdly cut too much weight, looked awful wobbling to the scales and then his fight was pulled from the card. Hopefully the Frenchman doesn’t suffer ill effects and it will be interesting to hear the full story when it comes out.

Matt Brown has called it a day in a fitting way, no fuss, no nonsense, just as he fought. The UFC veteran has decided to hang up the gloves with the most KOs in welterweight history and we’ll forever remember his ‘hellbows’. Well played.

One of the away fighters in the lion’s den tonight earns a decision win. Drakkar Klose scores 29-28s across the board to beat Joaquim Silva, who finished well and threatened with a couple of late guillotines. There was too much sweat by then to make it stick and he dropped the decision.

I can’t wait to see Jack Shore and Paul Craig step into enemy territory tonight and do their thing.

Shore is a much happier man at featherweight but faces a stern challenge at the top of the pre-lims against Joanderson Brito, before Scotland’s Paul Craig is a big underdog against Caio Borralho on the main card later.

Two KO wins and two on the scorecards among the early action tonight.

Alessandro Costa defeated Kevin Borges to kick things off with a second-round finish before Ismael Bonfim enhanced his burgeoning reputation by overcoming Vinc Pichel.

Dione Barbosa then claimed a decision before Mauricio Ruffy beat Jamie Mullarkey with a first round knockout.

We’re off to Rio de Janeiro tonight, one of the great fight cities of the world. UFC 300 preceeded this card and it was always going to be a tough act to follow, but let’s hope the Brazilians can light it up to get the always febrile crowd on their feet. Keep it here for all the action on the pre-lims and then main card before we have the flyweight title on the line a little later.