"That is just insane," commentator Joe Rogan said. "That might be one of the first flying sidekicks ever in a big heavyweight fight."
The weirdness followed after Browne asked the referee to stop the contest after appearing to dislocate a finger. Werdum landed another shot before the referee obliged and allowed Browne to realign the joint, which UFC vice president of regulatory affairs Marc Ratner confirmed was against the rules during the broadcast.
"There's no time-outs in fighting, so no, he can't do that," Ratner said.
Werdum won via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-27, 30-27) and then proceeded to taunt the crowd with a fake-crying gesture which led to Edmond Tarverdyan - who coaches Browne and his partner Ronda Rousey - shouting "shut the f*** up".
Werdum retaliated to the call with a hefty kick to Tarverdyan's chest which almost unleashed another round chaos in the Octagon.
The crowd erupted after the bizarre encounter which had security staff scrambling to diffuse the ugly situation.
"He came first," Werdum said. "He said a lot of bad things, you know? My mom says never say bad things about nobody, I said OK, but he started it.
"I don't know. I never start. I never started saying a lot of things, but he started, I don't stay quiet. The guy says something, I just say be quiet. I just respond. When he said something, I respond that's it.
"I think he had too much confidence for this fight and he said a lot of things. I beat him again. I did my job."
Naturally, the MMA world had a lot to say about the weirdest fight at UFC 203.
Australia's own heavyweight Mark Hunt simply tweeted: "WTF was that about?"
To add to the wackiness, Werdum later revealed he had fought with a fractured foot in a post-match interview - and then went on to ask for more time at the press conference.
