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It wasn’t a good night at the office of Australian MMA as all but one Australian fighters on the main card were defeated in emphatic fashion.
The main card, consisting of six fights, contained five fighters with home field advantage. The card got under way with Australian Jim Crute making his official UFC debut, having come through Dana White’s Contender series, taking on Scotland’s Paul Craig.
22-year-old Crute looked impressive in the Octagon and showed the championship potential that earned him a UFC contract.
Crute took the best shots Craig had to offer while maintaining control during the three rounds. He seemed to be heading for a decision victory before submitting Craig with nine seconds left in the final round via a kimura hold.
Next up was Adelaide’s own and Australian Top Team owner, Suman Mokhtarian, taking on American up-and-comer “Super” Sodiq Yusuff. Y
usuff entered the fight known for his power and in his own words his “blackplosivness”. Both were on full display in the first round as Yusuff came out of trap quickly with Mokhtarian struggling to cope with the powerful shots landing.
The referee stepped in with some protests from Mokhtarian, ending the bout in an impressive first-round TKO for “Super” Sodiq. Yusuff revealed in the post-fight interview that his older brother had died a week ago and dedicated the win to him.
The welterweight division took centre stage in the next bout as Victorian-based Jake “The Celtic Kid” Matthews took on Anthony Rocco Martin. Both fighters landed and ate some hard shots. However, it was the low calf kicks that undid Matthews. Matthews eventually fell to a third round submission, being choked unconscious via an Anaconda choke.
In what is likely Mark Hunt’s final UFC appearance, if not final fight, it was a sad performance from the super samoan which led to an unanimous decision win for Justin Willis. Known for his one-punch power, Hunt was forced to chase Willis and looked sluggish and uninterested as the fight came to a drawn-out conclusion.
In the co-main event, rising star Tyson Pedro took on MMA royalty in Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. In what was Pedro’s most high profile opponent, he had the UFC legend on the ropes in the first round.
Shogun used all his experience and recovered in the second round, shutting out Pedro’s offence completely. The third round began with Pedro picking up an unfortunate knee injury which saw him crash to the canvas before Rua finished the job via TKO.
Rounding out UFC Adelaide was Tai Tuivasa facing his biggest challenge to date in former UFC light heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos in the main event.
Both fighters are known for their heavy hands and Dos Santos made sure Tuivasa knew he was in for a long night quickly, landing some of his best shots. Tuivasa seemed up it though and landed some heavy shots of his own, rocking the former world champion.
It was his own eagerness that got the best of “Bam Bam” as he over committed and was rocked and dropped with dos Santos capitalising on Tuivasa’s lack of ground defence before referee Herb Dean stepping in and handed the young Australian his first professional loss via TKO.
In his post-fight interview, Tuivasa acknowledged the ground weakness is his typical laid back style and called out Justin Willis who had beaten Hunt earlier and caused some backstage issues earlier in the week.
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