A fight of the year, a legend killer, and an incredible debutante: UFC produces a thrill-a-minute in San Diego
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Alan DawsonAug 14, 2022, 18:43 IST
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The UFC returned for a show Saturday, broadcasting a "Fight Night" event from San Diego. The 13-fight card on ESPN had a lot of thrills — from unmissable knockouts, and fighters rearranging each others' faces, to a fight of the year epic.
One of the first notable bouts was a 180-pound catchweight bout between Josh Quinlan and Jason Witt. It was Quinlan's first-ever UFC bout and he made sure it was one to remember as he iced Witt with a one-hitter-quitter — ouch!
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Later in the evening, Priscila Cachoeira's fists put Ariane Lipski away with ease as the women's bantamweight scored a stunning 65-second knockout.
In the very night bout, undefeated light heavyweight Azamat Murzakanov destroyed Devin Clark with a horrific shot to the body.
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Then there was Yazmin Jauregui, a Mexican strawweight who produced a star-making performance against Iasmin Lucindo.
Jauregui earned a unanimous decision win over Lucindo with scores of 30-27, 29-28, and 29-28.
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Then there was the slobberknocker. I mean, forget 'Fight of the Night,' as Nate Landwehr and David Onama's featherweight match was one of the fights of the year.
Landwehr was more impressive statistically speaking as he landed an incredible 133 shots from 253 thrown in 15 minutes while succeeding with three of his four takedown attempts.
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Commentators called it "fight of the summer" — and with good reason, but it was a fight Landwehr won by a narrow margin with winning scores of 29-27 (twice) against a 28-28 tie.
Then came the main event between rising legend killer Chito Vera, against MMA icon Dominick Cruz. If you want to see how good Vera was, just look at this picture:
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Vera finished Cruz in extraordinary fashion — with a fourth-round head kick.
Victory advanced Vera's pro MMA record to 20 wins (eight knockouts, eight submissions, and four decisions) against seven losses, and will surely propel him higher than his No.5 rank in the bantamweight division.