Michael Chiesa’s purple belt in BJJ almost became brown last night… and not in a good way.
The UFC lightweight made a big statement on UFC Tampa’s preliminary card with a second-round submission of Beneil Dariush.
After being outstruck in the opening stanza, Chiesa took Dariush’s back after getting the takedown. Chiesa went hunting for the choke and Dariush defended well until Chiesa managed to lock it in and squeeze the life out of his opponent until he tapped at the 1:20 mark.
https://twitter.com/OctogonoVirtual/status/721485716866342912
Aside from being arguably the biggest scalp of Chiesa’s career, the victory was impressive for another reason.
Chiesa revealed to Fox Sports MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani after the fight that he was touching cloth in a bad way throughout the fight. He explained that Dariush had the better of the early striking exchanges because he was unable to walk him down with forward pressure because he was afraid of what might happen with the pressure inside his shorts.
“We’re talking stage four, emergency, about to blow a gasket… I tried to run-off and they’re like ‘no, get back here.’ and they pulled me back.”
“Before the fight started I told (Joe) Rogan, ‘Dude, something bad might happen.’ Number two, like, number four. So the fight starts and in my head I’m trying to, I don’t know, keep my guts together?”
“I was about to pull a Yoel Romero on a whole other level.”
