Tom
Nolan did not disappoint.
The undefeated Team Compton Training Centre prospect was one of
five hopefuls to book spots on the
Ultimate Fighting Championship roster during
Week 1 of Dana White’s Contender Series, as he put away
Bogdan
Grad with punches in the first round of their lightweight
showcase on Tuesday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Grad (11-2, 0-1
DWCS) succumbed to blows 1:23 into Round 1, suffering his first
loss since Sept. 25, 2020.
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Nolan (6-0, 1-0 DWCS) offered the Ettl Brothers MMA export no
opportunity to operate. The 6-foot-3 Australian floored Grad with a
surgical straight left, jumped in top position, shed an attempted
armbar and applied his ground-and-pound before he returned to his
feet.
Nolan flurried again soon after and slammed a concussive left hook
into his opponent’s jaw. Grad crashed to the canvas in a dazed
state and ate a follow-up standing-to-ground left before referee
Kerry Hatley could arrive on the scene.
Middleweight Cesar
Almeida, heavyweight Caio
Machado, bantamweight Payton
Talbott and flyweight Kevin
Borjas rounded out the latest wave of UFC signees. Almeida took a unanimous decision from Legacy Fighting Alliance
titleholder Lucas
Fernando in their three-round battle at 185 pounds. Scores were
30-27, 29-28 and 29-27. Almeida (4-0, 1-0 DWCS), who weathered some
minor adversity in the first and third rounds, did his best work in
the middle stanza. There, the Brazilian kickboxer sprawled into top
position, buried elbows into Fernando’s face, climbed to full mount
and appeared to be within reach of a finish; Almeida even moved to
a mounted reverse triangle at point. Fernando (9-2, 0-1 DWCS) never
fully rebounded, his run of four straight victories at an end.
Meanwhile, Machado outstruck a woefully inept and inactive Kevin
Szaflarski to a unanimous decision in a three-round heavyweight
affair. All three cageside judges scored it the same: 30-27 for
Machado (8-1-1, 1-0 DWCS), who won for the seventh time in as many
outings.
Szaflarski (11-2, 0-1 DWCS) offered almost nothing of note from an
offensive standpoint. Machado connected with kicks to the inside
and outside of the Pole’s lead leg, winging hooks and close-range
knee strikes. Perhaps most importantly, the Battlefield Fight
League champion shut down all of Szaflarski’s takedown attempts. On
the feet, the Akademia Sportow Walki Wilanow product looked
uncomfortable and out of sorts. With virtually no threat of return
fire, Machado scored in the standup throughout the third round,
mixing in a front kick to the body at one point.
The defeat closed the book on an 11-fight winning streak for
Szaflarski.
Further down the card, Talbott kept his perfect professional record
intact with a unanimous decision over Fight Ready standout Reyes
Cortez Jr. in their three-round bantamweight tilt. Talbott
(6-0, 1-0 DWCS) swept the scorecards with 29-28 marks from all
three members of the judiciary.
Cortez (7-3, 0-2 DWCS)—the older brother of UFC women’s flyweight
Tracy
Cortez—started strong with sturdy leg kicks and well-timed
clinches. Success was short-lived. Talbott found his rhythm in the
second round, called upon overwhelming forward pressure and
unleashed his considerable weaponry, from wicked left hooks to the
body and snappy one-twos to punishing jabs and sneaky knees up the
middle. His handiwork resulted in a horizontal gash above Cortez’s
left eye that was significant enough to warrant an examination from
the cageside physician. Talbott picked up where he left off in the
third, continued to pile up points and never looked back.
The setback was the first for Cortez in nearly two years.
Finally, crisp combination punching and a superior gas tank carried
Borjas to a unanimous decision over American Top Team’s Victor Dias
in a three-round flyweight pairing. All three cageside judges
struck 29-28 scorecards for Borjas (9-1, 1-0 DWCS), who has rattled
off four consecutive victories.
Dias (11-3, 0-1 DWCS) executed multiple takedowns in the first
round, applied some mild ground-and-pound and floated between full
mount in the back. However, he lost his way from there. Borjas tore
into him with clean one-twos—his work resulted in two grotesque
hematomas, one on the Brazilian’s forehead and another underneath
the left eye—and savage left hooks to the body. Dias was a spent
force for much of Round 3, where he failed to corral the Pitbull
Martial Arts Center-trained Peruvian on the ground and was reduced
to flailing punches, the vast majority of them catching only
air.
The loss snapped Dias’ five-fight winning streak.