Colby Thicknesse defied the odds to win at UFC 333 as the biggest underdog on the entire card.The 27-year-old bantamweight claimed a split decision over debutant Asaf Chopurov in Abu Dhabi on Saturday after a thrilling 15-minute fight.The two bantamweight fighters went to war over three rounds at UFC 333GettyChopurov entered UFC 333 as a former UAE Warriors champion and undefeated in 11 professional fights.How the fight unfoldedThe Russian then found himself up on the judges’ scorecards after an impressive opening round and oozed confidence as he controlled Thicknesse for most of the first five minutes.However, Thicknesse, who has trained with UFC 333 main event star Alexander Volkanovski since he was 18, had a clear game plan and utilised it to perfection.He was dangerous with his grappling and used every ounce of his four-fight UFC experience to put it on Chopurov, who is a teammate of another one of this weekend’s stars, Petr Yan.View Tweet: https://x.com/hashtag/UFC333?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwView Tweet: https://x.com/VisitAbuDhabi?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThicknesse mixed it up beautifully with knees and elbows in round two, testing out Chopurov’s cardio to the max.It was anyone’s fight going into the third and final round as Thicknesse quickly sustained a nasty cut under his right eye.But the New South Wales native had Chopurov exactly where he wanted him, in a dogfight.To Chopurov’s credit, the 24-year-old showed impressive cardio as he continued to put Thicknesse on the back foot.However, it seemed as if Thicknesse had landed the more damaging blows throughout the three-round contest.And two judges agreed, scoring the bout 29-28 in favour of Thicknesse to hand him a split decision win.Thicknesse has trained with featherweight champion Volkanovski since he was 18 and UFC 333 was the first time the pair had shared a cardGettyWhat is Thicknesse’s MMA record?Thicknesse, who started wrestling with his twin brother when he was 6 years old, is now on a three-fight winning streak in the UFC and 10-1 in his MMA career.He made his promotional debut last year at UFC 312, dropping a unanimous decision to Aleksandre Topuria, the older brother of two-division champion Ilia Topuria.UFC 333 was the first time he had ever competed on the same card as Volkanovski.Featherweight king Volkanovski put his title on the line in the main event of UFC 333 against undefeated Russian Movsar Evloev.‘The Great’ will doubtless have gained confidence seeing his teammate’s remarkable victory.The co-main event of UFC 333 featured a bantamweight title trilogy between Chopurov’s champion teammate Yan, who defended his belt against Merab Dvalishvili.talkSPORT's UFC pound-for-pound rankingstalkSPORT.com has collectively voted on the best fighters to form a regularly updated UFC pound-for-pound (P4P) rankings system for the rest of 2026 and beyond.Our P4P list will be updated regularly based on performances in the Octagon — with wins, records, title wins and defences, calibre of opponents, methods of victory and much more all determining who makes it.UFC champions Islam Makhachev, Joshua Van and Sean Strickland feature – but big stars such as Alex Pereira and Tom Aspinall miss out.