It wasn’t the first choice for today’s UFC Live event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, hell it wasn’t even the second choice ,but the battle between heavyweight strikers Cheick Kongo and Pat Barry definitely delivered.
In one of the greatest comebacks in UFC history, Kongo rebounded from being dropped twice to return to his feet and land a last chance uppercut on the exposed chin of Barry, turning his lights out for good.
It was an amazing sequence of events that saw Kongo being so close to being stopped that referee Dan Miragliotta even put his hand on Barry’s shoulder.
The referee immediately removed it as he saw that Kongo was still defending himself.
As mentioned, the bout wasn’t the intended main event.
It was promoted to top billing yesterday when it was made clear that former middleweight title contender, Nate Marquardt had been removed from his UFC welterweight debut against the surging Ricky Story and fired from the organisation.
Details are still sketchy on the full reasoning behind the decision, but at the start of today’s broadcast, UFC commentator Joe Rogan stated that it was due to Marquardt not being medically cleared to fight.
Zuffa president Dana White went on further to announced that Marquardt had been given a life ban from UFC.
The man he was meant to be facing in Story was taking the fight on four weeks notice and found himself facing a completely different opponent in Charlie Brenneman on just a days notice.
Brenneman had originally been set to fight on the card against T.J. Grant but that fight was pulled three days ago when Grant fell ill.
It was clear from early on in the bout that the complexion of Story’s task had completely changed.
Where as before he was taking on a big-name opponent with momentum on his side from a victory over Thiago Alves four weeks ago, he was now facing a virtually unknown fighter with a superior wrestling base without adequate preparation.
The pattern of the fight was established early as “The Spaniard” Brenneman scored an easy takedown and controlled Story on the mat.
Story rallied in the third round but it was too little too late and he exited the Octagon with his six fight winning streak broken.
Matt Mitrione continued his rise up the heavyweight ranks as he blitzed Christian Morecraft via second round strikes to kick off the night’s televised portion.
Mitrione dropped his opponent in the first round and disposed of him the second with a fight ending combination.
Matt Brown kept his UFC dreams alive in the other main card fight as he eked out a unanimous decision win over John Howard.
In preliminary action, Tyson Griffin snapped his three fight losing streak as well as notching a successful UFC featherweight debut when he scored a majority decision over former title contender and The Ultimate Fighter 5 runner-up, Manny Gamburyan.
Joe Stevenson wasn’t as successful as he made it four straight defeats when he was easily outpointed by Javier Vasquez.
In the best action of the preliminary bouts, Joe Lauzon re-entered the winning column with a brutal kimura submission win over Brit Curt Warburton and Charles Oliveira controversially submitted Nik Lentz.
Lauzon impressed by first knocking down his opponent and after landing some savage ground and pound, seized an arm and rolled to the vicious looking shoulder lock.
Oliveira was all over Lentz in both the stand up and the groundwork. He was well on his way to a clear-cut victory but landed an illegal knee that the ref did not see and seized on the opportunity to take Lentz’s back and submit him.
It was announced that the decision would be looked at by the Pennsylvanian Athletic Commission.
In the rest of the night’s action, Ultimate Fighter alumni, Rich Attonito and Michael Johnson notched impressive victories over Daniel Roberts and Edward Faalototo respectively which Ricardo Lamas disposed of Matt Grice via first round TKO in a featherweight bout.
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