Fall River’s Mitch Raposo wins biggest fight of career in dominating fashion at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi

A Fall River man’s dream of fighting in the UFC became a reality last year. Today, he secured the biggest win of his career.

26-year-old Durfee grad Mitch Raposo (10-3) took on Azat Maksum (15-3) of Kazakhstan at UFC 321 this morning in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Maksum was coming off his only 2 losses. Both by unanimous decision.

Raposo was also coming off two losses. Both by split decision.

Dominating total strikes (53 to 30) and significant strikes (30 to 19), Raposo won by unanimous decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-27) despite being a significant underdog according to oddsmakers. Maksum was also deducted one point for a fence grab.

Maksum missed weight which has been a pattern for Raposo’s opponents.

At the press conference after the fight, Raposo noted that “now that I’ve got this monkey off my back, people should be scared now.”

In Raposo’s previous bout, the flyweight took on 17-7 Su Mudaerji at UFC 314 in Miami at the Kaseya Center on April 12th.

The fight was close with all three judges scoring 29-28. Two for Mudaerji and one for Raposo.

On June 1st, 2024, Raposo, who fights out of the Regiment Training Center, made his UFC debut at UFC 302 at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on less than two weeks’ notice.

Raposo, who replaced Nyamjargal Tumendemberel who had to withdraw from the fight, took on fellow flyweight 8-0 Andre Lima.

Lima took the split decision over Raposo (30-27, 28-29, 30-27) with damaging legs kicks through all three rounds, however, Lima also grabbed the fence, poked Raposo’s eye and was fined 30% of his purse for missing weight by 4 pounds.