Cigano celebrates. Photo: UFC.
It wasn’t Frank Mir’s day. At UFC 146 this Saturday in Las Vegas, Junior Cigano was in fine form and successfully defended his belt for the first time after taking it from Cain Velasquez.
Cigano took the upper hand in round one, nearly coming up with the knockout as the round drew to a close. The second saw the Brazilian doing much of the same, landing solid punches throughout. Realizing Mir was in dire straights as he crumpled to the ground, he flurried with further punches, wrapping up the affair with 3:04 minutes on the clock. The triumph brings Cigano’s win tally to 15 and knockout count to 11 in his 16-fight career. What was the big lesson from Cigano? He knew how to steer clear of Mir’s greatest weapon, his Jiu-Jitsu, doing a fine job of defending takedowns.
Now Cain Velasquez returned to the cage on fire following his first-ever loss. Following up a takedown with a pinpoint elbow, he achieved the knockout while still in the first round. Meanwhile, Roy Nelson threw a haymaker that put Dave Herman out of commission right away after just 51 seconds of combat. Another sterling knockout came from Stipe Miocic, who remains unbeaten in his nine-fight career, putting an end to Shane Del Rosario’s 11-fight win streak.
But there was no lack of quality grappling on display by the heavyweights on the card. The lumbering Stefan Struve ended his encounter with Lavar Johnson via a sightly armbar just 1:05 minutes into their tilt, marking the Dutchman’s 16th submission win.
Among the standout performances, former WEC champ Jamie Varner TKO’d the until-then-undefeated Edson Barbosa in the first round, TUF season 14 winner Diego Brandão dropped a decision to Darren Elkins, and Glover Teixeira kicked off his UFC career on the right foot with a first-round arm-triangle win over Kyle Kingsbury.
Check out the complete results:
UFC 146
Las Vegas, USA
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Junior Cigano defeated Frank Mir via TKO in R2;
Cain Velasquez defeated Antônio “Bigfoot” Silva via TKO in R1;
Roy Nelson defeated Dave Herman via KO in R1;
Stipe Miocic defeated Shane Del Rosario via TKO in R2;
Stefan Struve defeated Lavar Johnson via armbar in R1;
Darren Elkins defeated Diego Brandão via unanimous decision;
Jamie Varner defeated Edson Barboza via TKO in R1;
C.B. Dolloway defeated Jason Miller via unanimous decision;
Dan Hardy defeated Duane Ludwig via TKO in R1;
Paul Sass tapped out Jacob Volkmann via triangle in R1;
Glover Teixeira defeated Kyle Kingsbury via arm-triangle in R1;
Mike Brown defeated Daniel Pineda via unanimous decision.