Seven finishes… Not too shabby.
We weren’t holding out much hope for an international card chock full of raw talent but we were pleasantly surprised by the display put on in the UFC’s second trip to Goiania.
We saw four KOs/TKOs, three submissions, dominant performances and promising young fighters so were spoiled for choice in our third weekly Monday Morning Awards, or MMAs if you will. (See what we did there?)
Knockout of the night – Darren Till
Octagon jitters eh? Darren Till clearly carries his anxiety in his elbows and was doing the best to shake it loose as he unloaded on the dangerous KO artist Wendell Oliveira.
Liverpool’s Till was touted as a crafty range fighter with excellent kicks but he showed that his ground-and-pound isn’t exactly terrible as he pulled off the rare elbow KO on Saturday night.
Submission of the night – Rony Jason
This was a pick ’em between Jason and Charles Oliveira as both submissions were a sight to behold. We opted for the former just because we think it was just the more spectacular.
He had arguably been losing the first round to Damon Jackson but threw up a gorgeous triangle and displayed mature patience as he adjusted his foot position and allowed his hips to follow any escape attempt from Jackson before eventually getting the tap.
Performance of the night – Carlos Condit
We could have given this honour to Charles Oliveira but the Brazilian looked a little bit tired in the second round so Carlos Condit gets the nod.
The returning Natural Born Killer looked like he had somehow improved since his last outing in March 2014 as he tore through dangerous Muay Thai practitioner Thiago Alves.
Condit’s step-in elbows shattered the nose of Pitbull to the point that the fight had to be called after the second round but the veteran looked excellent in every area – the grappling, striking and cardio of Condit seemed better than ever and he could very well have set himself up for the next shot at the welterweight title.
One to watch – Mirsad Bektic
It’s not like we hadn’t heard of Bektic before tonight because it was he who welcomed Ireland’s own Paul Redmond to the UFC in unceremonious circumstances, but Saturday night’s showing made us sit up and take notice.
The featherweight has been compared to Georges St-Pierre and he didn’t shy away from such lofty comparisons as he executed the quite perfect gameplan against Lucas Martins.
Bektic took the Brazilian down at will, showed maturity in terms of ground positioning and got the finish after just 30 seconds of the second round. We like the look of this lad.
