PHOENIX — Light-weight Charles Oliveira shook off two large punches from Justin Gaethje and choked him out to win through submission within the first spherical at UFC 274 on Saturday night time.
Oliveira (33-6, 1 no-contest) needed to vacate the identify after lacking the 155-pound prohibit through a half-pound at Friday’s weigh-in, leaving Gaethje (24-4) as the one fighter who may just take the championship belt.
It won’t had been a identify battle, but it surely indisputably had quite a lot of motion, together with two knockdowns and a takedown through Gaethje. The Arizona local allowed Oliveira up every time and it backfired when the jiu-jitsu specialist knocked him to the bottom and took his again, filing him at 3:22 of the hole spherical.
Carla Esparza (20-6) took the strawweight identify 8 years after dropping it within the co-main tournament, operating a affected person battle to overcome Rose Namajunas (12-5) in a break up choice.
A fan favourite from jap Arizona, Gaethje promised a couple of “automobile crashes” in a bid to make Oliveira go into reverse.
He smashed into Oliveira early and continuously, shedding the Brazilian with punches two times within the first spherical, letting him up each instances so he may just stay punching. Gaethje added in a takedown and once more let Oliveira get again up.
Like he did upon getting wobbled through Michael Chandler and Dustin Poirier the former two fights, Oliveira rebounded and attacked.
His face bloodied, Oliveira knocked Gaethje down with a troublesome proper and took his again. Gaethje in brief gave the impression as though he would break out, however Oliveira were given a arm beneath his chin and compelled him to faucet out with a rear-naked choke cling.
Namajunas needed to wait 8 years for a rematch in opposition to Esparza, who beat her within the UFC’s inaugural strawweight battle in in 2014.
Esparza misplaced the identify to Joanna JÄdrzejczyk in her first protection and spent the following 8 years operating her as far back as the highest, rounding out the remainder of her assault to head along with her elite wrestling.
Namanjunas beat JÄdrzejczyk in 2018 to take the strawweight identify, misplaced it to Jessica Andrade, then beat her within the rematch. “Thug Rose” reclaimed the identify through beating Zhang Weili and gained the rematch remaining November.
Cautious of Esparza’s wrestling talents, Namajunas spent lots of the night time within the desolate tract at a distance, ducking in from time to time to throw punches sooner than taking flight. Namajunas sloughed off a takedown try in the second one spherical and escaped every other early within the 3rd.
Esparza had Namajunas down in brief two times within the fourth spherical, however she wriggled out each instances — the second one on a snappy turn reversal. Namajunas saved up the similar techniques for the 5th spherical, completing the battle with a takedown of her personal within the last seconds.
It wasn’t sufficient. Esparza gained on two playing cards, Namajunas the opposite.
After two opening leading card bouts that had the fanatics booing from time to time, light-weight Michael Chandler (23-7) despatched roars echoing off the rafters through shedding Tony Ferguson (26-8) with a entrance kick to the pinnacle in the second one spherical. Ferguson lay at the canvas for a number of mins whilst being attended to through scientific team of workers sooner than slowly emerging to his stool.
Donald Cerrone needed to bow out of his light-weight bout in opposition to Joe Lauzon upon getting meals poisoning. The battle has been rescheduled for subsequent month in Austin, Texas.
