The
Ultimate Fighting Championship‘s first event of the year saw
Sean
Strickland getting his hand raised against Nassourdine
Imavov in the
UFC Fight Night 217 main event.
Both men came out looking to strike, with Strickland (25-5)
throwing more kicks than usual, slapping the body and legs of
Imavov (12-3) with his shin. The pressure and forward movement of “Tarzan” worked well as the French fighter repeatedly got caught by
punches in the first round. The second frame would see Imavov
finding more success on the feet, which caused Strickland to switch
up his attack by incorporating takedown attempts and clinch work.
The American would frustrate his opponent with body kicks in the
third round and wind up having a lot of success at the close boxing
range he imposed.
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The fourth round saw Strickland continue his onslaught as Imavov
struggled to deal with the overall pressure of the attack. Imavov
would show urgency in the fifth round but never came close to doing
much damage as “Tarzan” remained the fresher fighter. After five
rounds of actions, the judges awarded Strickland a unanimous
decision win with scores of 49-46, 49-46 and 48-47 in his
favor.
Strickland breaks a two-fight losing streak with the victory.
Ige Shatters Jackson
The featherweight co-main event between Dan Ige and
Damon
Jackson delivered plenty of action, just like fans
expected.
Showing off his intelligent striking, Ige (16-6) managed to wobble
Jackson (22-5-1, 1 NC) several times in Round 1 but stayed patient
waiting for the right moment to pounce. “50K” lived up to his
nickname
as he landed a devastating left hand to knock out Jackson. Ige
simply walked away, leaving a crumpled “Action” on the floor as the
fight was stopped at 4:13 of Round 2.
Ige has put together a five-fight win streak inside the
Octagon.
Kopylov Breaks Down Soriano
Punahele
Soriano and Roman
Kopylov came into their middleweight fight with identical 9-2
records showing how well-matched the two fighters were.
A strong jab helped Kopylov edge out Soriano early on in the tight
striking exchanges. Some strong body work from the Russian would
hurt the Hawaiian in Round 2, although Soriano refused to quit and
pushed through the pain as much as he could.
However, Kopylov kept the pressure on and threw punches until the
referee had seen enough.
Kopylov improves to 10-2 with the victory.
Pennington Edges Vieira
The lone women’s bout on the card saw Ketlen
Vieira take on Raquel
Pennington at bantamweight.
It was Vieira (13-3) that looked to be the slightly sharper striker
as she was able to land the cleaner strikes against the brawling
style of Pennington (15-8) in the first round. “Rocky” would vary
up her attack in Round 2 by going for takedowns and clinching
against the fence, evening up the back-and-forth fight. The close
contest continued in the third, with neither woman able to break
away from the other.
The split decision nod went to Pennington with scores of 29-28,
28-29 and 29-28.
Nurmagomedov Destroys Barcelos
The main card kicked off with a bantamweight bout between Umar
Nurmagomedov and Raoni
Barcelos.
The pace of Nurmagomedov (16-0) was apparent early and the fighter
kept moving forward throughout while staying patient. This patience
paid off as Nurmagomedov caught Barcelos (17-4)
with a perfect left hook coming off a body kick that completely
took out the Brazilian. An unneeded hammerfist would further cement
the victory as the fight was stopped.
The stoppage officially came at 4:40 of Round 1.
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