Manny Gamburyan dropped down to bantamweight for the first time in his career to take on Cody Gibson in the UFC 178 curtain jerker.
Gibson caught Gamburyan early on with a left that got his attention. It then became Gibson looking to work off of movement while Gamburyan threw some body and leg kicks and tried to launch wild right hands. But it was the right hands of Gibson that opened a cut near the eye of Gamburyan. As Gibson hurt him with a right hand, he tried to follow up with a flurry before Gamburyan to him down against the cage. But, the first round seemed clearly to tilt in Gibson’s favor.
Round two started off with a huge low blow by Gibson that left Gamburyan badly hurt. He took several minutes to recover and was pounced on with big strikes the second the bout resumed.
Gibson was controlling the second round with seeming ease before Gamburyan found space to get a takedown and then pulled guard with a guillotine seemingly out of nowhere for the win.
Gamburyan runs his record to 14-8 with the win while Gibson drops to 12-5.
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Jon Tuck and Kevin Lee were up next for their lightweight fight.
The second fight in a row saw a very solid low blow as Lee drove a knee into the cup of Tuck. It took Tuck a lot of time to recover but they got back to it only to see another low blow in the second round, this time with Tuck hitting Lee low. This time, the referee had seen enough and deducted a point from Tuck.
Tuck spent a good portion of the fight being very aggressive off his back after being taken down by Lee, but Lee avoided armbar and triangle attacks while working some ground and pound. It seemed that Lee was up after two rounds, especially after Tuck suffered the point deduction.
Lee came out in round three and landed a flurry of shots that knocked out Tuck’s mouthpiece and opened a cut on the bridge of his nose. Lee really dominated the final round, setting him up for a clear decision victory.
The judges saw the fight the same, all scoring it a shutout at 30-26.
Fight Pass prelim results:
Kevin Lee defeats Jon Tuck by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-26)
Manny Gamburyan defeats Cody Gibson by submission (guillotine choke) – 4:56 of round 2.