WOW WOW WOW! 🤯
Gegard Mousasi finishes Austin Vanderford in less than 90
seconds!That’s why he’s the champion!
That’s why he’s the Dreamcatcher!#Bellator275
| @mousasi_mma
pic.twitter.com/x1ZQFFXUuR
— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE)
February 25, 2022
Gegard
Mousasi retained the Bellator
MMA middleweight championship in the
Bellator 275 main event.
Challenger Austin
Vanderford looked to strike with Mousasi (49-7-2) and that
quickly was his undoing. “The Dreamcatcher” quickly found his range
and hurt Vanderford (11-1) with a slick three-punch combination.
Mousasi never gave his opponent a chance to recover and landed a
series of damaging blows on the ground to get the stoppage. The end
came just 1:25 into Round 1.
Sinead
Kavanagh bounced back from her loss to Cristiane
Justino by defeating fellow women’s featherweight contender
Leah
McCourt. McCourt (6-2) started the fight off strong by getting
top position on the ground but was eventually reversed with a
kimura lock. Kavanagh (8-5) kept it locked in and cranked it for
nearly the rest of the round. While McCourt survived, it was
Kavanagh that was eventually wounded as she suffered a knee injury
and was having issues supporting her weight. Despite the injury,
Kavanagh kept pressing forward and was able to escape from
McCourt’s dangerous grappling to a unanimous decision win (29-28,
29-28, 30-27).
The featherweight bout between Ciaran
Clarke and Aboubakar
Tounkara did not end in a satisfying manner. Despite Tounkara
(7-3) winning the first round, the fight was stopped in between
frames after Tounkara suffered a shoulder injury at the end of
Round 1. Unable to continue, Clarke (5-0) picked up
a TKO win due to doctor stoppage.
Khasan
Magomedsharipov managed to stay undefeated against fellow
featherweight Jose
Sanchez. Magomedsharipov easily controlled the fight in the
clinch and on the ground with Sanchez (10-2) having little to offer
at any point during the bout. The Russian took all three judges’
scorecards (30-26, 30-27, 30-27) and improves to 7-0.
The first bout of the night pitted bantamweights Brian Moore
and Jornel Lugo
against each other. It was a back-and-forth affair but Lugo (8-0)
was typically a step ahead on the feet. Moore (14-9) would get
dropped early in Round 3 and never quite fought his way back into
the bout. After three rounds, “A1” took a clear-cut unanimous
decision win with scores of 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.
In preliminary action, Brett Johns
(18-3) outlasted Khurshed
Kakhorov (8-1) and
picked up a TKO victory at the 3:00 mark of Round 3; Davy Gallon
(20-7) clobbered Charlie
Leary (17-12) with
a big right hand to win at 3:01 of the second frame via TKO;
Stephanie
Ielo Page (6-3) shocked Danni
McCormack (5-1) and
picked up a TKO victory in just 1:46 of Round 1; Darragh
Kelly (1-0) needed just 1:47 to submit Junior
Morgan (3-1)
with a guillotine choke; Vladimir
Tokov (7-1) took a clear-cut unanimous decision over Daniele
Scatizzi (11-6) with scores of 29-28 across the board; Gokhan
Saricam (7-1) picked up a dominant decision win (30-27, 30-27
and 30-27) over Kirill
Sidelnikov (13-7); Nathan
Kelly (4-2) picked up a unanimous decision win over Scott
Pederson (1-3) with scores of 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28; and in
the first fight of the night, Lee Hammond
(2-0) hammered Jamie Hay
(2-1) with
punches to force a stoppage at 3:32 of Round 1.