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It was a matchup of former champions who could ill afford another loss in the division, and Dricus Du Plessis and Kamaru Usman fought like it.
Former middleweight titleholder Du Plessis (24-3; 10-1 UFC) and welterweight counterpart Usman (21-5; 16-4 UFC) met in the main event of UFC Oklahoma City on Saturday at Paycom Center, and while du Plessis showed his resourcefulness and champion’s grit, Usman made him work for every bit of it. The early action was characterized by tense, awkward pocket exchanges as the ex-champs tried to figure one another out, but the balance of things appeared to be going towards du Plessis, who caught Usman with several powerful flush right hands to the head in the first few minutes. Usman weathered them well, however, and never stopped throwing back, leading to a competitive but clear first frame for the South African. After a first round that was nearly all boxing, “Stillknocks” came out kicking in Round 2, pelting “The Nigerian Nightmare” to the legs and head, but it was an intercepting knee that wobbled him badly. Usman recovered quickly, only to duck into another knee strike moments later. Again, he regrouped with a speed that belied his age and long career, but he appeared to be not entirely back when du Plessis crushed him with a left hook. The punch impacted Usman’s eye and he backed off, pawing at the eye. Referee Kerry Hatley paused the action, but when replay showed the damage to have been done by a closed fist, he sent them back to work. Usman made it to the horn, but the momentum looked to be very much with the younger man.
After all the artillery exchanged in the first two rounds, the middle frame was a more measured affair, with both contenders cautious, fatigued or both, but du Plessis again appeared to have the advantage, as Usman came up short on his biggest swings. Usman changed things up with a nice takedown in the final minute, but du Plessis sprang back to his feet immediately. Perhaps sensing that he was too far behind to win on points, Usman was aggressive to open Round 4, alternating long, lunging punches and kicks with sneaky snatch single-leg attempts, looking for a burst of offense that might turn the fight on its head. When the fight did turn, however, it was in the other direction. Du Plessis launched a left high kick that landed on Usman’s raised guard but put him on wobbly legs nonetheless. Usman recovered and tried to play off the impact of the strike, but du Plessis kept up the pressure, staggering the former welterweight champ with punches several more times. Usman never wilted, and managed to hurt “DDP” with a right hand late in the round, but at best that might have convinced the judges not to consider a 10-8 score for a round in which he had been rocked a half-dozen times.
As befitted two proud former champions who are no strangers to five-round fights, Du Plessis and Usman did not let up a bit in the final frame. Du Plessis landed yet another head kick that hurt Usman despite being blocked, and Usman never stopped coming forward and throwing his hardest punches, hoping against hope to salvage victory from defeat. There was a moment, as he hurt du Plessis and flurried until the horn, but ultimately he succeeded only in making the final round the closest one. The judges saw it that way, scoring the fight for du Plessis by 50-45, 49-46 and 49-46 scores. The win put du Plessis back in the win column after his title loss to Khamzat Chimaev last year, and positioned him well for a rematch with current champ Sean Strickland. Usman was valiant in defeat, but now stands at 0-2 at 185 pounds.
In the co-main event, Christian Leroy Duncan (15-2; 8-2 UFC) took on the biggest name and biggest test of his career and passed, taking a three-round decision over longtime middleweight contender Jared Cannonier (18-10; 11-10 UFC). Facing a fellow kickboxer a dozen years old than himself and visibly smaller, “CLD” enjoyed the expected advantages in speed and reach, and it looked early on as if the fight was going to be a rout. Duncan missed on quite a few spinning strike attempts, but his conventional kicks and punches hurt Cannonier badly, to the point that the veteran contender had to turn his back and flee to regroup. Regroup he did, however, and one of the stories of the fight was Cannonier’s success on the feet and especially on the ground. Leaning on the sneaky-effective takedown game he has developed over the last few years, Cannonier grounded Duncan repeatedly and while the Englishman was generally able to return to his feet without suffering too much damage, it prevented him from truly getting into a groove on the feet. The surprisingly competitive fight made it to the final horn, with the judges scoring it for Duncan by 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 tallies. The win ran Duncan’s streak to five straight and all but guarantees him a marquee matchup his next time out—possibly even a title eliminator—while Cannonier’s fourth loss in his last five outings leaves the 42-year-old facing some serious questions.
Tasked with snapping the first losing streak of his career, Chase Hooper (17-5-1; 9-5 UFC) wasted no time and left nothing to chance, needing just 2 minutes, 15 seconds to draw Mitch Ramirez (8-4; 0-3 UFC) into his world and close things out. It was not an unqualified redemption story for “The Dream,” as he missed the lightweight limit, forcing a catchweight bout at 158 pounds, but once the cage door closed, it would be difficult to find fault with Hooper’s performance. He moved laterally to open the fight, forcing the shorter man to pursue him, and seized the first opportunity to shoot for a takedown. Ramirez managed to scramble back up, but Hooper moved smoothly to take his back, dragged him down to the floor and locked up a textbook rear-naked choke. From there, the tap was a foregone conclusion. The win put Hooper back in the win column after his back-to-back knockout losses to Alexander Hernandez and Lance Gibson Jr., while Ramirez fell to 0-4 in eight-sided cages, including his unsuccessful bid on Dana White’s Contender Series.
Rising strawweight contender Fatima Kline (10-1; 4-1 UFC) put on an absolute clinic, handling Tabatha Ricci (12-5; 7-5 UFC) in increasingly dominant fashion across three rounds and outclassing her in every phase of their fightAn. Ricci’s fast hands, forward motion and generally kinetic style gave the “Archangel” pause in the early going, but Kline’s superiority was on display from the first time the fight hit the canvas. An ill-advised headlock throw attempt by “Baby Shark” ended with Kline taking top position, and she returned the action there with a high-amplitude double-leg takedown late in the round, scooping the Brazilian up and carrying her halfway across the cage for a slam finish. The lesson continued in Round 2, as Ricci turned a double-leg attempt by Ricci into another sweep and dominant grappling sequence. Ricci may have been saved by the horn, gutting out a deep rear-naked choke attempt as time expired. With her physical and technical advantages thoroughly established, Kline spent Round 3 racking up style points: first piecing Ricci up with quick combinations on the feet, then amping up the crowd with a trio of huge mat returns that approached the Suplex City limits. The judges rewarded the 26-year-old New Yorker’s efforts with unanimous 30-27 scores, putting her on a five-fight win streak and leaving her perfect at strawweight, with the lone loss on her ledger coming in her promotional debut against flyweight contender Jasmine Jasudavicius; Ricci will need to regroup after suffering consecutive losses for the first time in her career.
Tommy McMillen (11-0; 2-0 UFC) kept his professional record spotless, burying fellow featherweight prospect Alberto Montes (12-2; 1-1 UFC) under an avalanche of punches in the UFC Oklahoma main card opener. It was evident within half a round that Alberto Montes had little or no answer for the frenetic pace and pressure; the main question was whether he could survive it for 15 minutes. McMillen employed his customary go-for-broke style, coming forward with long chains of punches and forcing his foe to retreat in disarray. Montes showed little inclination to try and bring the fight to the canvas, and on the occasions that he stood his ground and threw back, McMillen simply answered his single-shot counters with another torrent of strikes. The gap between the two gradually widened—McMillen did answer the question of whether he could maintain his furious output for more than a round—and the fight seemed headed towards a clear, dominant decision for the American, but his relentless attack and Montes’ waning endurance reached a turning point in the middle of the final stanza. McMillen, sensing his foe was flagging, turned up the volume, began digging shots to the body and left referee Nick Berens no option but to rescue the Venezuelan at 3 minutes, 29 seconds of Round 3.
Jose Delgado and Austin Bashi are two of the more promising up-and-comers in the featherweight division and their fight played out that way, a competitive, tense affair. A close first round appeared to be slightly tilted in Bashi’s favor thanks to a frenetic opening exchange in which he stung Delgado, but everything turned on a dime late in the round when Delgado leveled Bashi with a huge right hook. He pounced and swarmed on his fallen foe, landing some follow-up ground shots and taking Bashi’s back, but couldn’t secure a finish before the horn. Bashi was bloodied and hurt, but recovered sufficiently between rounds that he was again the busier, more aggressive fighter to open the middle frame. He remained the aggressor, but Delgado’s sharper, more measured counters in the face of his volume made it a very close round. The same dynamic played out across the third round as well, leading to a predictably difficult bout to score, but the three cageside judges were unanimous in awarding the fight to Delgado (30-27, 29-28, 29-28).
Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani (11-2; 2-0 UFC) showed off sharp strikes and some very nimble ground work in springing the upset over Seok Hyeon Ko (13-3; 2-1 UFC) in their welterweight matchup. The first round was very competitive, as both men landed their share of clean shots on the feet and Lebosnoyani scored a takedown that forced the Korean to scramble out of danger. The action in Round 2 pivoted on a mid-round sequence in which Ko scooped and slammed Lebosnoyani, only for the American to sweep him directly into a mounted guillotine. A few tense moments later, Ko extricated his head from the choke, but the American’s ground superiority had been established. Lebosnoyani took Ko down again late in the round, and transitioned smoothly between mount and back control while hunting for a choke. Lebosnoyani’s positive momentum carried over to the final frame, as Ko, either due to fatigue or wariness of his opponent’s grappling, was uncharacteristically trigger-shy. Even so, Ko’s power kept things close, but Lebosnoyani hoisted “The Korean Tyson” for a slam with under a minute left and spent the balance of the fight in the driver’s seat. The official judges saw it that way, and awarded “Mufasa” the win by unanimous 29-28 scores.
In a matchup of Brazilian light heavyweights looking for their first UFC win, Felipe Franco (11-2; 1-1 UFC) weathered some early punishment to pound out Levi Rodrigues (5-1, 1 NC; 0-1, 1 NC UFC) with a ground-and-pound assault that would have done his teammate Jailton Almeida proud. The first round was a wild affair, with both men having their moments: “Baby Monster” rocked Franco badly with a punch combination in the early going, but “Negao” recovered, took Rodrigues down and was pounding him with ground strikes right up to the horn. When the second round began, Franco picked up right where he left off, hurting Rodrigues with a left hand, grounding him and dropping an uninterrupted stream of heavy lefts and rights until referee Blake Grice jumped in to stop the beating at 1:40 of Round 2. The definitive win put the 25-year-old back on track after his unsuccessful short-notice debut at heavyweight in March, while Rodrigues, who was signed by the UFC despite his Dana White’s Contender Series win being overturned due to a positive test for nandrolone, will need to regroup after his first career loss.
In a featherweight matchup thrown together less than a week from fight night and bumped up to a catchweight when one of the participants missed the divisional limit, Ezra Elliott (8-0; 1-0 UFC) repeatedly grounded Damien Anderson (5-1; 0-1 UFC) en route to a unanimous decision win. Elliott, who weighed in at 147.5 pounds, enjoyed a visible size advantage over Anderson, who habitually competes at bantamweight, and parlayed his advantages in size and strength into a rinse-and-repeat wrestling attack. The first frame was a competitive affair, as Elliott landed numerous takedowns but inflicted next to no damage or submission danger, and Anderson’s punches while hopping on one foot were the most notable offense of the round. The fight became less competitive as the takedown assault continued, however, and while BJJ standout Anderson managed a few nifty sweeps and scrambles across the final 10 minutes, Elliott was clearly the superior fighter, forcing Anderson to escape from perilous positions, fight off chokes and otherwise dig deep in order to hear the final horn. The judges scored the fight for the Californian by 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28 tallies, keeping his record spotless and garnering interest for his proper featherweight debut; Anderson will presumably have the opportunity to show he is a different animal at 135 pounds in his next outing.
Flyweight up-and-comer Alden Coria continued his spotless Octagon run and extended Stewart Nicoll’s streak of misery, though it was a more competitive affair than the -1000 betting line might have implied. Coria (13-3; 3-0 UFC) established his superiority on the feet right away, peppering the shorter Aussie with punch combinations at range, stinging him repeatedly. Nicoll (8-4; 0-4 UFC) kept things from turning into a rout by leaning on his wrestling and grappling; he grounded the native Texan in each round, forced Coria to defend himself from positional advances, and even his failed takedown attempts served to slow the momentum of the superior striker. As the fight progressed, however, Coria’s pace on the feet and scrambling ability on the ground allowed him to pull away, and he appeared to win each successive round in more definitive fashion. The cageside judges agreed, awarding the 4oz Fight Team product a unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28). The win put the “Cobra” in good position to call for a Top 15 opponent in his next outing, while Nicoll is at the mercy of the UFC’s matchmakers after going winless in his first contract.
In the lone heavyweight bout at UFC Oklahoma City, R.J. Harris (6-0; 1-0 UFC) made a successful Octagon debut, blasting Alvin Hines (7-2; 0-2 UFC) with a first-round uppercut and follow-up ground strikes. The massive Midwesterners spent the first few exchanges feeling out one another’s defenses—or lack thereof. The most significant offense in the first minute of the fight came courtesy of Hines’ calf kicks, which had begun to have a visible effect on Harris’ lead leg. Before Harris could absorb enough damage to truly alter the fight, however, he caught Hines in an unguarded moment in the pocket and launched a right uppercut that lifted the shorter man completely off his feet. Hines went down in a heap and after several standing-to-ground bombs, referee Nick Berens stepped in for the stoppage at 1:40 of Round 1. The win kept the 27-year-old Harris’ professional record spotless and made him an immediate person of interest in a heavyweight division constantly desperate for new faces, while Hines, who arrived in the Octagon last year as an undefeated prospect himself, is still in search of his first UFC win.
In the strawweight opener, Dione Barbosa (10-4; 4-2 UFC) needed less than a round to introduce Anna Melisano (6-2, 0-1 UFC) to the realities of her new promotion, grounding her and choking her out in just 4 minutes, 4 seconds. There was little surprise when the bout began and Barbosa, a multiple-time Brazilian judo champ and national team member, quickly closed the distance and dragged the fight to the floor. Melisano, who jumped to the UFC as a short-notice replacement for the injured Veronica Hardy after being eliminated on Season 34 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” did well to defend herself from the elite grappler for several minutes, regaining guard and blunting the worst of the Brazilian’s ground-and-pound. Late in the round, however, she tried to return to her feet and “The Witch” was all over it, taking her back, applying a rear-naked choke and cinching it up as they went tumbling back to the canvas. Melisano was forced to tap out with less than a minute left in the round, giving Barbosa her first win streak on the UFC.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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