This was a classic clash of boxing styles, with Font working behind his smooth jab and trying to pressure, while Martinez was constantly launching heaters, whether he was throwing punches or kicks. In all three rounds, the UFC sophomore landed at a much better clip, and towards the end of the fight, “Doctor” sat Font down, sending the crowd into a raucous ovation that made it impossible to hear the final horn.

When the scores were collected and read, it was Martinez that came out on top, earning the biggest win of his career, and giving native-born Mexican athletes a perfect 5-0 record on the evening. This was a massive win for the first-year bantamweight, who stepped in on short notice after originally being scheduled to open the main card, and instantly stamps him as person of interest in the 135-pound weight class.

LONDON — A London march organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson drew more than 110,000 people and became unruly on Saturday as a small group of his supporters clashed with police officers who were separating them from counterprotesters.

Several officers were punched, kicked and struck by bottles tossed by people at the fringes of the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, Metropolitan Police said. Reinforcements with helmets and riot shields were deployed to support the 1,000-plus officers on duty.

Twenty-six police officers were injured — four who were seriously hurt, including broken teeth and a concussion, a possible broken nose and a spinal injury. At least 25 people were arrested for offenses including violent disorder, assaults and criminal damage, and the investigation continues, police said.

“There is no doubt that many came to exercise their lawful right to protest, but there were many who came intent on violence,” Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said. “They confronted officers, engaging in physical and verbal abuse and making a determined effort to breach cordons in place to keep everyone safe.”

The rally drew an estimated crowd of between 110,000 and 150,000 people, far surpassing expectations, police said. The rival “March Against Fascism” protest organized by Stand Up To Racism had about 5,000 marchers.

Tommy Robinson speaks during the Unite the Kingdom march and rally near Westminster, London, on Saturday.

Joanna Chan/AP

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Joanna Chan/AP

Anti-migrant theme

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, founded the nationalist and anti-Islam English Defense League and is one of the most influential far-right figures in Britain.

The march was billed as a demonstration in support of free speech — with much of the rhetoric by influencers and several far-right politicians from across Europe aimed largely at the perils of migration, a problem much of the continent is struggling to control.

“We are both subject to the same process of the great replacement of our European people by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture, you and we are being colonized by our former colonies,” far-right French politician Eric Zemmour said.

Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and owner of the X platform who has waded into British politics several times this year, was beamed in by video and condemned the left-leaning U.K. government.

“There’s something beautiful about being British and what I see happening here is a destruction of Britain, initially a slow erosion, but rapidly increasing erosion of Britain with massive uncontrolled migration,” he said.

Robinson told the crowd in a hoarse voice that migrants now had more rights in court than the “British public, the people that built this nation.”

The marches come at a time when the U.K. has been divided by debate over migrants crossing the English Channel in overcrowded inflatable boats to arrive on shore without authorization.

Numerous anti-migrant protests were held this summer outside hotels housing asylum-seekers following the arrest of an Ethiopian man who was later convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a London suburb. Some of those protests became violent and led to arrests.

Sea of flags

Participants in the “Unite the Kingdom” march carried the St. George’s red-and-white flag of England and the union jack, the state flag of the United Kingdom, and chanted “we want our country back.”

U.K. flags have proliferated this summer across the U.K. — at events and on village lampposts — in what some have said is a show of national pride and others said reflects a tilt toward nationalism.

Supporters held signs saying “stop the boats,” “send them home,” and “enough is enough, save our children.”

At the counterprotest, the crowd held signs saying “refugees welcome” and “smash the far right,” and shouted “stand up, fight back.”

Robinson supporters chanted crude refrains about U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, leader of the center-left Labour Party and also shouted messages of support for slain U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Several speakers paid tribute to Kirk, who was remembered in a moment of silence, followed by a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.”

One demonstrator held a sign saying: “Freedom of speech is dead. RIP Charlie Kirk.”

Crowd covered blocks of London

The crowd at one point stretched from Big Ben across the River Thames and around the corner beyond Waterloo train station, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile (around a kilometer).

The marches had been mostly peaceful, but toward the late afternoon, “Unite the Kingdom” supporters threw items at the rival rally and tried to break through barriers set up to separate the groups, police said. Officers had to use force to keep a crowd-control fence from being breached.

Counterprotesters heckled a man with blood pouring down his face who was being escorted by police from the group of Robinson supporters. It wasn’t immediately clear what happened to him.

While the crowd was large, it fell far short of the one of the biggest recent marches when a pro-Palestinian rally drew an estimated 300,000 people in November 2023.

Robinson had planned a “Unite the Kingdom” rally last October, but couldn’t attend after being jailed for contempt of court for violating a 2021 High Court order barring him from repeating libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee who successfully sued him. He previously served jail time for assault and mortgage fraud.

A federal judge on Saturday accused the Trump administration of trying to do an “end-run” around legal obligations that the U.S. has to protect people fleeing persecution and torture following the deportation of a group of African migrants to Ghana, some of whom are now slated to be returned to their home countries.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the U.S. government to explain, by 9 p.m. EST on Saturday, what steps it was taking to prevent the deportees “from being removed to their countries of origin or other countries where they fear persecution or torture.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. deported more than a dozen non-Ghanaian nationals to Ghana, including deportees from Gambia and Nigeria, making Ghana the latest country to accept these so-called third country deportations at the request of the Trump administration. Ghana’s government confirmed the deportations.

Attorneys have alleged in a lawsuit that the deportees have been held in “squalid conditions and surrounded by armed military guards in an open-air detention facility” in Ghana. 

Lee Gelernt, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, told Chutkan during a hearing Saturday that four of the deportees have been told that Ghana will return them to their native nations as early as Monday, despite the fact that they have orders from U.S. immigration judges that bar their deportation to their home countries due to concerns they could be persecuted or tortured there. One man from Gambia, who attorneys say is bisexual, has already been returned to Gambia, according to the lawsuit.

The deportees’ legal protections — which are rooted in the United Nations Convention Against Torture and a provision of U.S. immigration law known as withholding of removal — prohibit the U.S. from sending foreigners to countries where they would face persecution or torture. But unlike asylum, they still allow the U.S. to send them to other, third-party countries.

The Justice Department lawyer representing the U.S. government during the hearing did not dispute that Ghana plans to return the deportees to their native countries and conceded that the Ghanaian government appears to be violating diplomatic assurances that it allegedly made vowing not to send these migrants to places where they could be harmed. 

But the Justice Department attorney said the U.S. could not tell Ghana what to do at this point.

Chutkan appeared frustrated by that position, suggesting it was “disingenuous.” She grilled the Justice Department attorney about whether the U.S. knew this could happen and suggested the deportations seemed to be an “end-run” to bypass the legal protections the deportees have. She suggested the U.S. can retrieve the deportees and return them to the U.S. or transfer them to another country where they would be safe. Or, she added, it could tell Ghana it is violating its agreement with the U.S.

“How’s this not a violation of your obligation?” she asked the Justice Department attorney.

But Chutkan acknowledged her “hands may be tied” since the deportees are not on American soil nor in U.S. custody. She also implied that the Supreme Court would almost certainly pause any order that required the American government to act to stop the returns.

Representatives for the Departments of State and Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests to comment on the deportations to Ghana and Chutkan’s order.

Gelernt, the ACLU attorney representing the African deportees, hailed Chutkan’s mandate.

“The Court properly recognized that the United States government, with full knowledge that these individuals are going to be sent to danger, cannot simply wash their hands of the matter,” Gelernt told CBS News.

As part of its mass deportation campaign, the Trump administration has sought to convince countries around the globe to receive deportees who are not their citizens, brokering agreements with nations including El Salvador, Kosovo, Panama and South Sudan.