Miles
Johns had more horsepower when it mattered most.
The Marathon MMA rep took another step forward in the
Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight division with a
unanimous decision over fellow former
Legacy Fighting Alliance titleholder Dan Argueta
in the featured
UFC Fight Night 228 prelim on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las
Vegas. Scores were 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.
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Argueta (9-2, 1-2 UFC) had his moments, including a first-round
exchange that saw him climb to the back and threaten with a
rear-naked choke. Even so, Johns (14-2, 5-2 UFC) stayed calm under
fire and slowly but surely turned the tide with concussive
multi-punch bursts and savage inside kicks to the lower leg.
Argueta never stopped moving forward but increasingly wandered into
his opponent’s heavy hands. By the time it was over, he had
suffered considerable damage to his eye and was bleeding heavily
from the nose.
Johns has won four of his past five bouts.
Meanwhile, former King of
the Cage champion Tim Means put
away Andre
Fialho with a knee strike and follow-up punches in the third
round of their welterweight confrontation.
Fialho (16-8, 2-5 UFC) succumbed to blows 1:15 into Round
3, suffering his fourth consecutive defeat.
Means (33-15-1, 15-12 UFC) buried the
Kill Cliff Fight Club product with overwhelming output. He
attacked the legs, body and head with equal aplomb and eventually
wore down Fialho. Means had him reeling in the first and second
rounds, then closed the deal in the third. There, he landed a
brutal two-punch combination to the head, pressed Fialho to the
fence and let the punches fly until Fialho folded at his feet.
The victory was Means’ first since June 26, 2021.
Elsewhere, Jacob
Malkoun was disqualified for an illegal elbow strike in the
first round of his middleweight encounter with Factory
X rep Cody
Brundage.
The anticlimactic conclusion came 4:15 into Round
1.
A late replacement for Robert
Bryczek, Brundage (9-5, 3-4 UFC) was the aggressor from the
outset but soon ran into trouble. Malkoun (7-3, 3-3 UFC) wheeled
behind him after a completed takedown, kept him in a kneeling
position and cut loose with his ground-and-pound. However, an
errant elbow connected behind the head, resulted in an immediate
pause to the action and ultimately led to the stoppage.
The win snapped a three-fight losing streak for Brundage.
Further down the card, “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 30 winner
Mohammed
Usman rode a damaging jab to a unanimous decision over onetime
Resurrection Fighting Alliance champion Jake
Collier in a three-round heavyweight tilt. A short-notice
substitution for Valter
Walker, Usman (10-2, 3-0 UFC) swept the scorecards with 30-27,
29-28, 29-28 nods from the cageside judiciary.
Collier (13-10, 5-9 UFC) staggered his counterpart with a left hook
in the first round and followed it with a right uppercut at close
range. However, his progress was interrupted by an inadvertent eye
poke early in the middle stanza. After the restart, Usman opened a
cut near the St. Louis native’s left eye with a jab and continued
to target the wound to great effect. He executed a high-amplitude
takedown in Round 3, settled in half guard and applied his
ground-and-pound. Collier made a pass at a late kimura, only to
have time run out.
Usman, 34, has rattled off three straight victories.
In other action, former Deep Jewels champion Mizuki
Inoue (15-6, 2-1 UFC) returned from a three-year layoff to
claim a unanimous decision over Hannah
Goldy (6-4, 1-4 UFC) in a three-round women’s strawweight
affair, drawing 29-28 marks from all three judges; and Montserrat
Rendon (6-0, 1-0 UFC) kept her perfect professional record
intact and made a successful organizational debut, as she took a
split decision—29-28, 28-29, 29-28—from Tamires
Vidal (7-2, 0-2) in a three-round women’s bantamweight pairing.