Mario
Pinto entered the Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight
division with a bang.
The undefeated Dana White’s Contender Series graduate punched out
Austen
Lane in the second round of their featured
UFC Fight Night 253 prelim on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las
Vegas. A former Levels Fight League titleholder,
Pinto (10-0, 1-0 UFC) drew the curtain 39 seconds into Round
2.
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Lane (13-6, 1-3 UFC) dropped his adversary with a straight right in
the first round, but his inability to finish came back to bite him
mere minutes later. Early in Round 2, Pinto tagged the American Top
Team representative with a left hook and followed it with a
devastating overhand right. Lane was unconscious before he hit the
canvas.
Meanwhile, Elevation Fight Team standout Jose
Mariscal climbed another rung on the 145-pound ladder with a
unanimous decision over Ricardo
Ramos in a three-round featherweight scrap. The surging
Mariscal (18-6, 5-0 UFC) swept the cards with 30-27 scores across
the board. Ramos (17-7, 8-6 UFC) mustered only sporadic offense, his patented
spinning back elbow included, but lacked the necessary output to
keep pace with the former Hoosier Fight Club titleholder. Mariscal
did his best work in the middle stanza, where he overwhelmed the
Brazilian with volume and even managed to land a flying side kick
to the face in the closing seconds. While he dialed back the
violence in the third round, “Chepe” held on to his lead without
much issue.
Mariscal, 32, will enter his next assignment on the strength of
seven straight victories.
Deeper into the preliminary draw, Cub Swanson
protégé Danny Silva
withstood a late surge and eked out a split decision against
onetime Jungle Fight champion Lucas
Almeida in their three-round featherweight duel. All three
cageside judges turned in 29-28 scorecards: Michael Bell and Ron
McCarthy for Silva, Anthony Maness for Almeida.
The 28-year-old Silva (10-1, 2-0 UFC) forced the Brazilian onto the
back foot with consistent pressure and crisp combination punching
through two rounds. Almeida, who missed weight for the match by two
pounds, answered in the third, where he battered the inside and
outside of his opponent’s lead leg with kicks, unleashed a few
flying knees and cut loose with sweeping hooks from both hands. His
rally ultimately fell short.
Silva now finds himself on a four-fight winning streak.
Elsewhere, J.J. Aldrich
leaned on basic one-twos and effective counterattacks, as she
outstruck Karate Mafia rep Andrea Lee
to a unanimous decision in their three-round women’s flyweight
clash. Aldrich (14-7, 10-6 UFC) swept the scorecards with 30-27,
30-27 and 29-28 marks from the assigned judiciary.
Lee (13-11, 5-9 UFC) stayed competitive from start to finish, but
her lack of dimension proved costly. Aldrich showed little regard
for her counterpart’s arsenal—it consisted mostly of kicks to the
head and body—and never strayed far from the game plan her team set
forth, throwing in intermittent jabs and standing elbows to keep
“KGB” off-guard. Lee made a desperation pass at a guillotine choke
in the third round, but once those efforts proved futile, her fate
was sealed.
The 36-year-old Lee has suffered six consecutive defeats.
Finally, Muravov Fight Team export Ramazonbek
Temirov rode multi-punch body-head combinations and the
occasional spinning attack to a unanimous decision over former
Legacy Fighting Alliance champion Charles
Johnson in a three-round flyweight tilt. All three cageside
judges scored it the same: 29-28 for Temirov (19-3, 2-0 UFC), who
has rattled off 11 straight victories.
Johnson (17-7, 6-5 UFC) did not get himself in gear soon enough.
Temirov built a lead through the first 10 minutes, then managed to
stay out of harm’s way in the third round. Johnson upped his
aggression and output down the stretch, as he often closed the
distance, pinned the Uzbekistan native to the fence and racked up
points with close-range punches. By then, however, he had dug too
deep a hole on the scorecards.
The setback snapped a four-fight winning streak for Johnson.