It wasn’t quite “Holm neck kick” levels of shock but the finale of The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America 2 definitely served up a surprise in the main event.
Kelvin Gastelum was a 3/10 favourite to make his return to welterweight a successful one but he simply couldn’t get going quickly enough against a massively underestimated Neil Magny in the main event of Saturday night’s card.
All barns remained completely unburned on an event that very few people were interested in but we’ve got two more Ultimate Fighter winners to add to the UFC roster, Neil Magny proved that he could well earn a title shot in 2016 and Demetrious Johnson’s next challenger has likely been decided.
Here are the UFC warriors who earned our appreciation on Saturday night.
Knockout of the Night – Polo Reyes
It looked no more than a pawing left hook to keep his opponent at bay but, when it landed, gravity deserted Cesar Arzamendia.
UFC debutant Polo Reyes announced himself in some style and showed the wherewithal to pounce on his rocked opponent on the mat to make sure that referee Mario Yamasaki had no option but to call the fight.
It was clean, it was pretty. We loved it.
Submission of the Night – Alejandro Perez
Scott tapped, did he not?
This is a bit of a technicality because UFC Monterrey didn’t actually produce any out-and-out submissions but referee Gary Copeland should have registered Alejandro Perez’s second round “TKO” victory over Scott Jorgensen as a submission because the losing fighter tapped out before the official jumped in to stop the fight. That’s a submission where we come from.
Copeland actually had a bit of a nightmare with this fight and should have called an end to proceedings much earlier as Perez was just going to town on Jorgensen’s already injured legs throughout their bantamweight clash which resulted in serious damage to Young Guns.
It’s never the way you want to see a fight end, with a fighter just collapsing to his back in agony, but the cumulative leg kicks certainly were impressive.
Performance of the Night – Neil Magny
Lump on Jorge Masvidal!
If the past fortnight is anything to go by, favourites are not enjoying main events in the octagon and Neil Magny provided the latest upset as he came in with the perfect gameplan to counteract considerable favourite Kelvin Gastelum on Saturday night.
If there was a flaw in his performance, it was the fact that Magny let Gastelum back into the bout in the latter rounds and I personally believe it should have been a draw but the first three rounds proved that Magny is going to cause problems for plenty of welterweights in the coming years.
He outstruck Gastelum with his rangy stand-up before somewhat surprisingly dominating on the mat against the accomplished wrestler.
Just based on the fact that he was a late replacement and did so well, Magny deserves our POTN honour.
One to Watch – Alvaro Herrera
The main reason that Herrera gets our vote for “One to Watch” is because we’ve only seen 30 seconds of him in UFC action and that half a minute was something special.
The Mexican welterweight needed just two perfectly placed short right hooks to the jawline of opponent Vernon Ramos to get his first win in the octagon.
He’s 25, has twelve fights under his belt and has never been the distance in his pro career, excluding the unanimous decision loss experienced on TUF Latin America 2 which won’t be attached to his pro record anyway.
Alvaro Herrera has got the potential to deliver some exciting fights at 170 lbs.
