UFC 319 takeaways: Can anybody beat Chimaev?

Khamzat Chimaev captured the UFC middleweight championship Saturday night, annihilating Dricus Du Plessis en route to a unanimous decision victory in the UFC 319 main event in Chicago.

In the co-headliner, Lerone Murphy spoiled former Bellator star Aaron Pico's Octagon debut, knocking him out in the first round with a spinning back elbow.

Here are four takeaways from the pay-per-view event.

Stopping Chimaev might be impossible

Chimaev was favored to beat Du Plessis - and we've known for a long time that he's a special talent - but I don't think anyone could've imagined a dominant performance like this.

Chimaev put on a grappling showcase for the ages. It took him no longer than 30 seconds to get on top of Du Plessis in each round. He completed 12 takedowns, compiled 21:40 of control time, and shattered the record for most strikes landed in a UFC fight (529). And he did all of this against the reigning, defending middleweight champion.

Du Plessis was never in the driver's seat, except for maybe 10 seconds in the fifth round when he went for a Hail Mary rear-naked choke that Chimaev easily fended off. It was the definition of one-way traffic.

It was also the kind of performance that made you feel bad for every other middleweight vying for a title shot, from Nassourdine Imavov and Caio Borralho to Reinier de Ridder and Anthony "Fluffy" Hernandez, because their chances of becoming a UFC champion in the foreseeable future just plummeted. It truly feels like Chimaev might be unbeatable in this weight class. The mix of relentless grappling and solid striking makes him a nightmare matchup for literally everybody. A title shot might be more of a punishment now than it is a reward.

The nice thing is that there are a bunch of fresh matchups out there for Chimaev, since he's fought just two people in the top 15. Now it's on the rest of the division to prove Chimaev is, in fact, human.

Massive KO exactly what Murphy needed

Murphy has struggled to gain popularity for his entire career despite his success in the Octagon. He's always been one of those talented, unsung fighters. A dark horse. Murphy has never lost a fight and is solid everywhere, but he doesn't have many highlights. He's not particularly great on the mic. He's never been someone the UFC has rushed to give a title shot.

But all of that may change after his Knockout of the Year candidate against Pico.

This win was exactly what Murphy needed to get his flowers. All eyes were on Pico, a former Bellator contender who was making his long-awaited UFC debut, and Murphy stole his thunder with a vicious spinning back elbow to the head.

He even had featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski calling him out for a fight later this year:

Murphy pulled out all the stops on the biggest stage of his career so far, and there's a good chance it was enough to lock up an unlikely, but deserved, crack at the belt.

Free-agent signings continue to underdeliver

Pico's UFC debut couldn't have gone much worse.

He started fast and aggressive, but that ended up being his kryptonite. Murphy caught him coming in, and that was all she wrote.

On his best night, Pico is a supremely skilled, athletically gifted fighter who can beat most of the division. He's faced adversity and has bounced back before, so I have no doubt he'll do the same here. But it's also fair to at least wonder what this loss means for his future.

Pico isn't the only recent free-agent signing who took a bad loss Saturday. Former Rizin FF bantamweight champion Kai Asakura fell to 0-2 in the UFC after Tim Elliott choked him out in a big upset. The ground game was once again Asakura's weakness, just like in his debut loss to flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 310 last December. The Japanese fighter was supposed to be a huge addition to the UFC's 125-pound division, and now he's one loss away from being a complete bust.

Pico's and Asakura's losses are part of a wider trend this year of free agents failing to deliver in the UFC. Former Bellator champions Patricio "Pitbull" Freire and Patchy Mix also lost their UFC debuts. (Freire has since won a fight, moving to 1-1.) The only recent addition from Bellator who has lived up to the hype is Michael "Venom" Page, who defeated Jared Cannonier at UFC 319 to lift his Octagon record to 3-1.

Prates back on track in a big way

If your goal is to make people forget about a disappointing loss (in this case, to Ian Machado Garry at UFC Kansas City in April), crushing your next opponent with a spinning back elbow is a damn good way to do it.

Carlos Prates filed his own entry for Knockout of the Year at Geoff Neal's expense, sending "Handz of Steel" to the shadow realm with one second left in the first round. Prates is now 5-1 in the UFC, and just like that, momentum is back on his side.