By Jared Merkley, Real Combat Media MMA Correspondent
Belo, Brazil(September 5th, 2013)– UFC Fight Night 28 featured some highly anticipated bouts, two of which could determine future title contenders. The co-main event featured top 10 ranked middleweights Ronaldo “Jacre” Souza (19-3-0) and Yushin Okami (29-8-0) which had the making to be a great fight. Despite any anticipation, Souza, 33, ended the fight in round 1 with a nasty 2 piece combo that dropped Okami, 32, and swarmed him with punches causing the ref to stop the fight, giving Souza a TKO at 2:47 in the very first round. With a victory over a higher ranked fighter, “Jacre”, has possibly earned a spot into title contention and is making it known that he’s a force to be reckoned with in the middleweight division.
The main event of the night was the highly anticipated bout between Ryan “Darth” Bader (15-4-0) and Glover Teixeira(22-2-0). Glover, unbeaten in the UFC was heavily favored over the Ultimate Fighter winner, Bader. Bader, 30, had a great start applying pressure in the beginning and at one point in the fight, had the upper hand over Teixeira, 33, landing heavy shots. Then, from nowhere, Teixeira came out with a two-punch combo and dropped Bader to the canvas and swarmed him with more shots, causing the ref to call the fight off and was yet, another first round TKO. Glover is now the current number 1 contender to face off with the winner of Jon “Bones” Jones vs. Alexander “The Mauler” Gustafsson.
UFC Fight Night 28 Main Card on Fox Sports 1 (7 p.m. ET)
- Glover Teixeira def. Ryan Bader, TKO (Round 1, 2:55)
- Ronaldo Souza def. Yushin Okami, TKO (Round 1, 2:47)
- Joseph Benavidez def. Jussier da Silva, TKO (Round 1, 3:07)
- Piotr Hallmann def. Francisco Trinaldo, submission (Round 2, 3:50)
- Rafael Natal def. Tor Troeng, unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 30-27)
- Ali Bagautinov def. Marcos Vinicius, knockout (Round 3, 3:28)
Fox Sports 1 Prelims (5 p.m. ET)
- Edimilson Souza def. Felipe Arantes, split-decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
- Lucas Martins def. Ramiro Hernandez, submission (Round 1, 1:10)
- Elias Silverio def. Joao Zeferino, unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
- Ivan Jorge def. Keith Wisniewski, unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
Facebook Prelims (4:30 p.m. ET)
- Sean Spencer def. Yuri Villefort, split-decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)Spencer
COMMENTS
English