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It was a matchup of former champions who could ill afford another
loss in the division, and Dricus Du
Plessis and Kamaru
Usman fought like it.
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Former middleweight titleholder Du Plessis (24-3; 10-1 UFC) and
welterweight counterpart Usman (21-5; 16-4 UFC) met in the main
event of
UFC Oklahoma City on Saturday at Paycom Center, and while du
Plessis showed his resourcefulness and champion’s grit, Usman made
him work for every bit of it. The early action was characterized by
tense, awkward pocket exchanges as the ex-champs tried to figure
one another out, but the balance of things appeared to be going
towards du Plessis, who caught Usman with several powerful flush
right hands to the head in the first few minutes. Usman weathered
them well, however, and never stopped throwing back, leading to a
competitive but clear first frame for the South African. After a
first round that was nearly all boxing, “Stillknocks” came out
kicking in Round 2, pelting “The Nigerian Nightmare” to the legs
and head, but it was an intercepting knee that wobbled him badly.
Usman recovered quickly, only to duck into another knee strike
moments later. Again, he regrouped with a speed that belied his age
and long career, but he appeared to be not entirely back when du
Plessis crushed him with a left hook. The punch impacted Usman’s
eye and he backed off, pawing at the eye. Referee Kerry Hatley
paused the action, but when replay showed the damage to have been
done by a closed fist, he sent them back to work. Usman made it to
the horn, but the momentum looked to be very much with the younger
man.
After all the artillery exchanged in the first two rounds, the
middle frame was a more measured affair, with both contenders
cautious, fatigued or both, but du Plessis again appeared to have
the advantage, as Usman came up short on his biggest swings. Usman
changed things up with a nice takedown in the final minute, but du
Plessis sprang back to his feet immediately. Perhaps sensing that
he was too far behind to win on points, Usman was aggressive to
open Round 4, alternating long, lunging punches and kicks with
sneaky snatch single-leg attempts, looking for a burst of offense
that might turn the fight on its head. When the fight did turn,
however, it was in the other direction. Du Plessis launched a left
high kick that landed on Usman’s raised guard but put him on wobbly
legs nonetheless. Usman recovered and tried to play off the impact
of the strike, but du Plessis kept up the pressure, staggering the
former welterweight champ with punches several more times. Usman
never wilted, and managed to hurt “DDP” with a right hand late in
the round, but at best that might have convinced the judges not to
consider a 10-8 score for a round in which he had been rocked a
half-dozen times.
As befitted two proud former champions who are no strangers to
five-round fights, Du Plessis and Usman did not let up a bit in the
final frame. Du Plessis landed yet another head kick that hurt
Usman despite being blocked, and Usman never stopped coming forward
and throwing his hardest punches, hoping against hope to salvage
victory from defeat. There was a moment, as he hurt du Plessis and
flurried until the horn, but ultimately he succeeded only in making
the final round the closest one. The judges saw it that way,
scoring the fight for du Plessis by 50-45, 49-46 and 49-46 scores.
The win put du Plessis back in the win column after his title loss
to Khamzat
Chimaev last year, and positioned him well for a rematch with
current champ Sean
Strickland. Usman was valiant in defeat, but now stands at 0-2
at 185 pounds.
In the co-main event, Christian
Leroy Duncan (15-2; 8-2 UFC) took on the biggest name and
biggest test of his career and passed, taking a three-round
decision over longtime middleweight contender Jared
Cannonier (18-10; 11-10 UFC). Facing a fellow kickboxer a dozen
years older than himself and visibly smaller, “CLD” enjoyed the
expected advantages in speed and reach, and it looked early on as
if the fight was going to be a rout. Duncan missed on quite a few
spinning strike attempts, but his conventional kicks and punches
hurt Cannonier badly, to the point that the veteran contender had
to turn his back and flee to regroup. Regroup he did, however, and
one of the stories of the fight was Cannonier’s success on the feet
and especially on the ground. Leaning on the sneaky-effective
takedown game he has developed over the last few years, Cannonier
grounded Duncan repeatedly and while the Englishman was generally
able to return to his feet without suffering too much damage, it
prevented him from truly getting into a groove on the feet. The
surprisingly competitive fight made it to the final horn, with the
judges scoring it for Duncan by 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 tallies. The
win ran Duncan’s streak to five straight and all but guarantees him
a marquee matchup his next time out—possibly even a title
eliminator—while Cannonier’s fourth loss in his last five outings
leaves the 42-year-old facing some serious questions.
Tasked with snapping the first losing streak of his career,
Chase
Hooper (17-5-1; 9-5 UFC) wasted no time and left nothing to
chance, needing just 2 minutes, 15 seconds to draw Mitch
Ramirez (8-4; 0-3 UFC) into his world and close things out. It
was not an unqualified redemption story for “The Dream,” as he
missed the lightweight limit, forcing a catchweight bout at 158
pounds, but once the cage door closed, it would be difficult to
find fault with Hooper’s performance. He moved laterally to open
the fight, forcing the shorter man to pursue him, and seized the
first opportunity to shoot for a takedown. Ramirez managed to
scramble back up,
but Hooper moved smoothly to take his back, dragged him down to the
floor and locked up a textbook rear-naked choke. From there, the
tap was a foregone conclusion. The win put Hooper back
in the win column after his back-to-back knockout losses to
Alexander
Hernandez and Lance
Gibson Jr., while Ramirez fell to 0-4 in eight-sided cages,
including his unsuccessful bid on
Dana White’s Contender Series.
Rising strawweight contender Fatima
Kline (10-1; 4-1 UFC) put on an absolute clinic, handling
Tabatha
Ricci (12-5; 7-5 UFC) in increasingly dominant fashion across
three rounds and outclassing her in every phase of their fight.
Ricci’s fast hands, forward motion and generally kinetic style gave
the “Archangel” pause in the early going, but Kline’s superiority
was on display from the first time the fight hit the canvas. An
ill-advised headlock throw attempt by “Baby Shark” ended with Kline
taking top position, and she returned the action there with a
high-amplitude double-leg takedown late in the round, scooping the
Brazilian up and carrying her halfway across the cage for a slam
finish. The lesson continued in Round 2, as Ricci turned a
double-leg attempt by Ricci into another sweep and dominant
grappling sequence. Ricci may have been saved by the horn, gutting
out a deep rear-naked choke attempt as time expired. With her
physical and technical advantages thoroughly established, Kline
spent Round 3 racking up style points: first piecing Ricci up with
quick combinations on the feet, then amping up the crowd with a
trio of huge mat returns that approached the Suplex City limits.
The judges rewarded the 26-year-old New Yorker’s efforts with
unanimous 30-27 scores, putting her on a five-fight win streak and
leaving her perfect at strawweight, with the lone loss on her
ledger coming in her promotional debut against flyweight contender
Jasmine
Jasudavicius; Ricci will need to regroup after suffering
consecutive losses for the first time in her career.
Tommy
McMillen (11-0; 2-0 UFC) kept his professional record spotless,
burying fellow featherweight prospect Alberto
Montes (12-2; 1-1 UFC) under an avalanche of punches in the UFC
Oklahoma main card opener. It was evident within half a round that
Alberto
Montes had little or no answer for the frenetic pace and
pressure; the main question was whether he could survive it for 15
minutes. McMillen employed his customary go-for-broke style, coming
forward with long chains of punches and forcing his foe to retreat
in disarray. Montes showed little inclination to try and bring the
fight to the canvas, and on the occasions that he stood his ground
and threw back, McMillen simply answered his single-shot counters
with another torrent of strikes. The gap between the two gradually
widened—McMillen did answer the question of whether he could
maintain his furious output for more than a round—and the fight
seemed headed towards a clear, dominant decision for the American,
but his relentless attack and Montes’ waning endurance reached a
turning point in the middle of the final stanza.
McMillen, sensing his foe was flagging, turned up the volume, began
digging shots to the body and left referee Nick Berens no option
but to rescue the Venezuelan at 3 minutes, 29 seconds of Round
3.
Jose
Delgado and Austin
Bashi are two of the more promising up-and-comers in the
featherweight division and their fight played out that way, a
competitive, tense affair. A close first round appeared to be
slightly tilted in Bashi’s favor thanks to a frenetic opening
exchange in which he stung Delgado, but everything turned on a dime
late in the round when Delgado leveled Bashi with a huge right
hook. He pounced and swarmed on his fallen foe, landing some
follow-up ground shots and taking Bashi’s back, but couldn’t secure
a finish before the horn. Bashi was bloodied and hurt, but
recovered sufficiently between rounds that he was again the busier,
more aggressive fighter to open the middle frame. He remained the
aggressor, but Delgado’s sharper, more measured counters in the
face of his volume made it a very close round. The same dynamic
played out across the third round as well, leading to
a predictably difficult bout to score, but the three cageside
judges were unanimous in awarding the fight to Delgado (30-27,
29-28, 29-28).
Jean-Paul
Lebosnoyani (11-2; 2-0 UFC) showed off sharp strikes and some
very nimble ground work in springing the upset over Seok Hyeon
Ko (13-3; 2-1 UFC) in their welterweight matchup. The first
round was very competitive, as both men landed their share of clean
shots on the feet and Lebosnoyani scored a takedown that forced the
Korean to scramble out of danger. The action in Round 2 pivoted on
a mid-round sequence in which Ko scooped and slammed Lebosnoyani,
only for the American to sweep him directly into a mounted
guillotine. A few tense moments later, Ko extricated his head from
the choke, but the American’s ground superiority had been
established. Lebosnoyani took Ko down again late in the round, and
transitioned smoothly between mount and back control while hunting
for a choke. Lebosnoyani’s positive momentum carried over to the
final frame, as Ko, either due to fatigue or wariness of his
opponent’s grappling, was uncharacteristically trigger-shy. Even
so, Ko’s power kept things close, but Lebosnoyani hoisted “The
Korean Tyson” for a slam with under a minute left and spent the
balance of the fight in the driver’s seat. The official judges saw
it that way, and awarded “Mufasa” the win by unanimous 29-28
scores.
In a matchup of Brazilian light heavyweights looking for their
first UFC win, Felipe
Franco (11-2; 1-1 UFC) weathered some early punishment to pound
out Levi
Rodrigues (5-1, 1 NC; 0-1, 1 NC UFC) with a ground-and-pound
assault that would have done his teammate Jailton
Almeida proud. The first round was a wild affair, with both men
having their moments: “Baby Monster” rocked Franco badly with a
punch combination in the early going, but “Negao” recovered, took
Rodrigues down and was pounding him with ground strikes right up to
the horn. When the second round began, Franco picked up right where
he left off, hurting Rodrigues with a left hand,
grounding him and dropping an uninterrupted stream of heavy lefts
and rights until referee Blake Grice jumped in to stop the beating
at 1:40 of Round 2. The definitive win put the
25-year-old back on track after his unsuccessful short-notice debut
at heavyweight in March, while Rodrigues, who was signed by the UFC
despite his
Dana White’s Contender Series win being overturned due to a
positive test for nandrolone, will need to regroup after his first
career loss.
In a featherweight matchup thrown together less than a week from
fight night and bumped up to a catchweight when one of the
participants missed the divisional limit, Ezra
Elliott (8-0; 1-0 UFC) repeatedly grounded Damien
Anderson (5-1; 0-1 UFC) en route to a unanimous decision win.
Elliott, who weighed in at 147.5 pounds, enjoyed a visible size
advantage over Anderson, who habitually competes at bantamweight,
and parlayed his advantages in size and strength into a
rinse-and-repeat wrestling attack. The first frame was a
competitive affair, as Elliott landed numerous takedowns but
inflicted next to no damage or submission danger, and Anderson’s
punches while hopping on one foot were the most notable offense of
the round. The fight became less competitive as the takedown
assault continued, however, and while BJJ standout Anderson managed
a few nifty sweeps and scrambles across the final 10 minutes,
Elliott was clearly the superior fighter, forcing Anderson to
escape from perilous positions, fight off chokes and otherwise dig
deep in order to hear the final horn. The judges scored the fight
for the Californian by 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28 tallies, keeping his
record spotless and garnering interest for his proper featherweight
debut; Anderson will presumably have the opportunity to show he is
a different animal at 135 pounds in his next outing.
Flyweight up-and-comer Alden Coria
continued his spotless Octagon run and extended Stewart
Nicoll’s streak of misery, though it was a more competitive
affair than the -1000 betting line might have implied. Coria (13-3;
3-0 UFC) established his superiority on the feet right away,
peppering the shorter Aussie with punch combinations at range,
stinging him repeatedly. Nicoll (8-4; 0-4 UFC) kept things from
turning into a rout by leaning on his wrestling and grappling; he
grounded the native Texan in each round, forced Coria to defend
himself from positional advances, and even his failed takedown
attempts served to slow the momentum of the superior striker. As
the fight progressed, however, Coria’s pace on the feet and
scrambling ability on the ground allowed him to pull away, and he
appeared to win each successive round in more definitive fashion.
The cageside judges agreed, awarding the 4oz Fight Team product a
unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28). The win put the “Cobra”
in good position to call for a Top 15 opponent in his next outing,
while Nicoll is at the mercy of the UFC’s matchmakers after going
winless in his first contract.
In the lone heavyweight bout at UFC Oklahoma City, R.J. Harris
(6-0; 1-0 UFC) made a successful Octagon debut, blasting Alvin Hines
(7-2; 0-2 UFC) with a first-round uppercut and follow-up ground
strikes. The massive Midwesterners spent the first few exchanges
feeling out one another’s defenses—or lack thereof. The most
significant offense in the first minute of the fight came courtesy
of Hines’ calf kicks, which had begun to have a visible effect on
Harris’ lead leg. Before Harris could absorb enough damage to truly
alter the fight, however,
he caught Hines in an unguarded moment in the pocket and launched a
right uppercut that lifted the shorter man completely off his
feet. Hines went down in a heap and after several
standing-to-ground bombs, referee Nick Berens stepped in for the
stoppage at 1:40 of Round 1. The win kept the 27-year-old Harris’
professional record spotless and made him an immediate person of
interest in a heavyweight division constantly desperate for new
faces, while Hines, who arrived in the Octagon last year as an
undefeated prospect himself, is still in search of his first UFC
win.
In the strawweight opener, Dione
Barbosa (10-4; 4-2 UFC) needed less than a round to introduce
Anna
Melisano (6-2, 0-1 UFC) to the realities of her new promotion,
grounding her and choking her out in just 4 minutes, 4 seconds.
There was little surprise when the bout began and Barbosa, a
multiple-time Brazilian judo champ and national team member,
quickly closed the distance and dragged the fight to the floor.
Melisano, who jumped to the UFC as a short-notice replacement for
the injured Veronica
Hardy after being eliminated on Season 34 of “The Ultimate
Fighter,” did well to defend herself from the elite grappler for
several minutes, regaining guard and blunting the worst of the
Brazilian’s ground-and-pound. Late in the round, however, she tried
to return to her feet and “The Witch” was all over it,
taking her back, applying a rear-naked choke and cinching it up as
they went tumbling back to the canvas. Melisano was
forced to tap out with less than a minute left in the round, giving
Barbosa her first win streak on the UFC.