Getty Images/UFC
Charles
Johnson sent a message to
Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweights: Count him out at
your own peril.
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Johnson (16-6, 4-4 UFC), who took the fight on 11 days’ notice,
capped off the UFC on ESPN 59 undercard with a rousing knockout of
red-hot phenom Joshua Van
(10-2, 3-1 UFC), handing Van his first Octagon loss and snatching
victory from the jaws of probable defeat. “InnerG” got off to a
solid start, taking advantage of Van’s penchant for starting slowly
and hacking away at his lead leg. However, Van gradually took over
as the round wore on, exploding out of his compact stance with his
patented body punch flurries and a couple of right hands upstairs
that hurt Johnson. Van kept building momentum in the middle frame,
marching down the taller fighter and continuing to catch him with
clean punches. Johnson was game, weathering Van’s offense and
landing some solid blows of his own, but the fight was clearly
trending in the direction of the 22-year-old Burmese-born
Houstonian. That changed in a flash once Round 3 started, however.
Johnson came out on fire, catching Van with an overhand right, then
an impossibly long right uppercut that detonated on Van’s chin,
dropping him to the canvas senseless. Referee Joe Coca was
there in a flash, marking the TKO win at 20 seconds of the third
round. It was the third win of 2024 for Johnson, a stunning
turnaround after he closed out last year on three straight
losses.
Jasudavicius Outmuscles Kline
Jasmine
Jasudavicius (11-3, 5-2 UFC) walked into a high-risk,
low-reward scenario and made the best of it, turning aside
short-notice foe Fatima
Kline (6-1, 0-1 UFC) with superior strength and wrestling.
Kline, a habitual strawweight who stepped in for Viviane
Araujo, took the fight to Jasudavicius right away, taking the
wrestler down with a well-timed double-leg takedown. Jasudavicius
quickly swept her and escaped back to her feet, whereupon she
hoisted Kline and dragged her back to the mat. From there,
Jasudavicius’ size and grappling acumen made themselves felt, and
she briefly essayed a face crank before she ended the round by
dropping elbows on Kline from top position. The second round
offered more of the same, as Kline willingly engaged with
Jasudavicius and had a measure of success before the bigger woman
took over with deliberate, powerful ground work, once again closing
out the round by pounding on Kline at the base of the fence.
Clearly down two rounds to none, Kline went for broke in Round 3
and managed to put Jasudavicius on her heels with an aggressive
charge and several clean punches to the head. However, Jasudavicius
once again took over around the midpoint of the round, taking
Kline’s back standing as she had done in the first two rounds,
dragging her to the canvas and going to work. A big mat return and
a rear-naked choke attempt later, the final horn sounded, the trio
of 30-27 scores a formality. The win for Jasudavicius is her second
straight since losing to “UFC Denver” headliner Tracy
Cortez last fall, while Kline’s spirited showing in defeat
marked her as someone who might have staying power in the UFC
115-pound division.
Jackson Makes “Quik” Work of Blackshear
Montel
Jackson lived up to his nickname and lodged a candidate for
“Knockout of the Year,” flattening Da’Mon
Blackshear with a blistering left hand just seconds into their
bantamweight prelim feature. “Quik” (14-2, 8-2 UFC) and “Da
Monster” (14-7-1, 2-3-1 UFC) exhibited some of the expected
awkwardness of a clash between lanky kickboxers in opposite
stances, but it was southpaw Jackson who reaped the benefit,
as he caught the oncoming Blackshear with a huge left that knocked
him completely off his feet. Blackshear’s head rebounded from the
canvas as he fell, and referee Nick Berens jumped in seconds later,
forestalling any unnecessary follow-up shots. The
knockout came at 0:18 of Round 1, one of the speediest this year in
the UFC, and extends Jackson’s win streak to five straight.
Santos Strangles Agapova
Luana
Santos continued her ascent up the flyweight ranks and spoiled
Mariya
Agapova’s Octagon return in definitive fashion, tossing “Money
Mashka” on her head and subjecting her to a constant stream of
submission techniques before solving the puzzle with a first-round
choke. Agapova (10-5, 2-4 UFC), fighting for the first time since
September of 2022, looked tentative early on, throwing single jabs
and kicks that came up short by several feet, but Santos (8-1, 3-0
UFC) did not extend her the luxury of shaking off the rust, as she
stepped into the pocket and leveled Agapova with a right hand. When
Agapova stood back up, Santos launched her with a judo throw, then
spent the next minute working for an arm-triangle choke from mount.
Agapova survived that sequence and managed to get to her knees,
where Santos moved to the back, sank in the hooks and applied a
rear-naked choke. Agapova, caught completely unprepared by the
speed of the transition, spat out her mouthpiece instantly and was
tapping frantically with both hands a second later. Referee
Joe
Coca stepped in for the save at 3 minutes, 27 seconds of Round
1, finalizing Santos’ third straight win to open her UFC
tenure.
Petroski Smothers Fremd
Andre
Petroski’s wrestling and top control proved to be much too much
for Josh
Fremd, as the Renzo Gracie
Philly standout rode takedowns, measured ground-and-pound, and
sporadic submission attempts to a one-sided decision victory in
their middleweight undercard feature. Petroski (11-3, 6-2 UFC) sat
Fremd (11-6, 2-4 UFC) down early in the first round with a big
right hand. Fremd popped right back up, not hurt so much as knocked
off-balance, but Petroski immediately grounded him with an emphatic
double-leg. That set the pattern for the remainder of the fight, as
Fremd simply had no answer for Petroski’s relentless takedown
assault. He acquitted himself well on the ground, avoiding the
heaviest of Petroski’s punches and elbows, and staying busy enough
to avoid a complete rout, but he had almost no opportunities to get
his own offense going. Once the final horn sounded, the judges did
not take long to turn in matching 30-27 scores in favor of
Petroski, who put the first losing streak of his career in the
rearview with the win.
Elder Wilts Flowers with Round 2 Arm-Triangle
In the welterweight opener, Evan Elder
(9-2, 2-2 UFC) was a step ahead of Darrius
Flowers (12-8-1, 0-3 UFC), getting the better of the striking
and wrestling exchanges on his way to a second-round submission
finish. In a first round contested nearly entirely on the feet,
Flowers displayed an impressive array of antics intended to
distract Elder, including exaggerated wobbling in place, mock
basketball dribbling and a steady stream of chatter, but Elder
declined to engage. The bout came on relatively short notice for
both men, but it appeared to take a greater toll on Flowers, who
was visibly fatigued at the end of Round 1. There was a brief
reprieve when Elder landed a kick to the groin early in the second
round, but once Flowers recovered, the end was not long in coming.
Elder grounded Flowers with a nicely timed double-leg takedown,
fought through a leglock setup, punched Flowers to the body, and
then slid into full mount.
From there, Elder applied an arm-triangle choke that had Flowers
tapping at 1:46 of Round 2.