Adrian
Yanez was genuinely concerned for Vinicius
Salvador after securing a technical knockout victory over the
Brazilian at UFC
Fight Night 241.
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Yanez sat Salvador down with a massive right hand midway through
the opening round and followed it up with vicious ground-and-pound
to secure the finish. The amount of strikes that referee Chris
Tognoni allowed Salvador to absorb before stepping in became a
topic of debate among observers after the fight.
While some commended Tognoni for giving “Fenomeno” a chance to
recover, others believed the referee could have stopped some of the
devastating shots from Yanez by stepping in a little earlier. Yanez
also admits that Salvador was making enough defensive moments
initially for Tognoni to let the fight go on.
“Honestly, I don’t know. Because he was moving, he was doing all
the right things,” Yanez said during the post-fight press
conference. “I think when he pulled my base down from my hip, he
did cause a disruption in me punching. But I was landing solid
shots, and I was hearing Chris Tognoni and waiting for him to be
like, ‘Fight back.’ And then five seconds later, whenever he yelled
‘Fight back.’ I was like, ‘All right cool, I just gotta continue
punching.’”
The brutal ground-and-pound left Salvador on the canvas for several
minutes after the fight was stopped. Yanez revealed that he was
initially worried about his opponent’s health. However, the
30-year-old has since seen Salvador and his opponent seemed to be
doing fine.
“And I was like, ‘Oh s—t!. Once the fight was stopped he was good,
because he was still kind of moving but then whenever I walked off,
I saw him still on the ground,” Yanez said. “I was like, ‘Oh s-t.’
It kind of settled in, I was looking and I was like, ‘Oh, damn.’ He
was still down and honestly all the thoughts in my head were just
like, ‘Oh s—t, I thought I killed a guy.’ And I started feeling
really really bad, and I had to sit down and had to sit back and
make sure he was good. But yeah, thankfully I saw him, he’s good,
he’s all right. But yeah, I feel like it could have been stopped a
little bit earlier.”