In the penultimate fight of the night Curtis Stout knocked out fellow UFC veteran Mark "The Wizard" Weir in the first round. Weir started well, as he usually does, but found himself unable to land any serious shots in the opening moments of the first round before Stout took the Englishman down with a nice suplex.
The knockout came mere moments after the restart. As Weir went for a high kick, Stout threw a looping left hand that sent Weir sprawling to the canvas. Two more left hands followed, putting Weir out for the count. Stout takes the victory by TKO after 1.45 of the first round.
In the match that some said could be "like seeing Carlos Newton against Kazushi Sakuraba all over again", Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos wind milled his arms in a more effective manner than Mark "The Beast" Epstein, knocking out the latter in the first round.
This was as technical a fight as you'd expect to see down the pub after a few pints. The punches were wild and flailing, but the action was unrelenting. There were a few moments when the fighters were crowded up against the fence but the main thing is that Cyborg was the first to land properly and Epstein went down. The Brazilian therefore took the victory by TKO 2:16 of the first round.
Antony Rea showed that his victory over Cyborg at Cage Rage 10 was no fluke by pounding out a convincing win over Pierre Guillet. The first round was much more even than I'd expected, with Guillet opening by shooting straight across the ring and taking Rea down. The Frenchman remained calm, working back to his feet and turning Guillet against the fence.
The rest of the round was a story of restraint on Rea's part as Guillet effectively shut his opponent down by shooting for the takedown at every opportunity. Rea, clearly wanting to stay off the floor, was therefore hesitant to commit himself and settled for landing the odd shot here and there.
The second round saw Rea pick up the pace, closing the distance quickly and launching a series of punches that hurt Guillet. A blocked shot gave Rea the opportunity to crash a huge left uppercut through Guillet's guard and into his face, following that up with a series of knees that caused Guillet to stagger back against the fence, covering up.
This was a cue for Rea to unload and he did up until the point where Waterman pulled him off. Rea takes the victory by TKO 45 seconds of the second round.
Ross "The Boss" Mason overcame his overly obvious nickname to cut Damien Riccio open en route to a doctor's stoppage. This was an excellent, well-matched fight and both men did themselves proud.
Riccio was aiming to take the fight to the floor, whereas Mason was clearly much happier to stay on his feet. The first round was a story of Riccio looking for the takedown as Mason slowly sapped his opponent's energy through some vicious low kicks.
Towards the end of the round the angry welts on Riccio's legs were already visible, especially around the inside of his left leg, just above the knee. Nevertheless, I had the round as even with Mason taking the stand up damage, but Riccio controlling a significant portion of the fight on the ground.
The second round was more of the same, but with evidence of Riccio coming back into the game in terms of the stand-up. Mason was still bossing it on the feet, but Riccio did not seem too bothered by any of the shots he was taking, and managed to return a few good rights and lefts of his own.
Mason opened round three looking for the finish, his corner spurring him on for a strong final period. The stand-up exchange was pretty even, as was the round itself, right up until the point where Riccio inexplicably pulled guard.
Riccio had been doing fine up until that point, but as soon as he went down Mason was all over him like a rash, dropping increasingly big and confident shots. One of the many elbows that rained down on the Frenchman managed to cut him and as the blood began to flow, Waterman stepped in. The doctor took one glance at Riccio's cut and pronounced him unable to continue. Mason takes the victory by doctor's stoppage 4:37 of the third round.
In the battle of Paul against Paul, I am glad to announce that Paul didn't win. Neither did Paul, actually, because it was a draw. One of the highlights of the match came before the bout had even begun as Jenkins made his way to the cage in a ludicrous yellow ostrich costume. It's hard to explain this without pictures — it was one of those costumes where your legs become the ostrich legs and a pair of little hanging legs form part of the costume, in this case inducing the image of a half-sized Welshman riding Big Bird.
The fight itself was action-packed but incredibly even. Daley seemed to have the advantage striking, but did not manage to land any of his trademark heavy punches.
Daley's dominance on the feet was more of an attitudinal thing as he was the one pushing the pace of the fight throughout all three rounds. Whatever Daley dished out, though, Jenkins dealt with. Twice Daley took Jenkins' back on the floor and twice the wily Welshman escaped. On the ground Jenkins was mostly in charge. Although Daley had some good positions, he never did much with them, neither in terms of doing any damage or going for any submissions. Neither did Jenkins, to be fair, but the Welshman scored a couple of good reversals that gave him the slight edge in that arena.
As for the result itself, most observers agreed that it was the fair one. As Jenkins himself noted, Daley was the aggressor, but many felt that despite the latter probably edging it, the performance was nowhere near clear-cut enough to warrant a title change.
After three rounds the decision was announced as a majority draw, and a rematch looms in the future. For now, however, Jenkins keeps his welterweight title.