The UFC Fight Night 59 preliminary card might not have a ton of viewers due to a couple of NFL football games, but the early action was pretty good. The first bout went to a decision, but might stand up as the fight of the night when all is said and done. And the next three bouts all finished late finishes.
In the opener, Joby Sanchez used power punched and some slick grappling to get by Tateki Matsuda in their flyweight bout. Matsuda hurt Sanchez with punches early, but got dropped by a hard shot later in the round. The second was very close, but Sanchez took over in the third. He hurt Matsuda multiple times and controlled most of the stanza. In the end the scores were 29-28, 28-29, and 30-27 for Sanchez.
In the final Fight Pass bout, Matt Van Buren’s gappy defense ended up costing him against Sean O’Connell despite a good start. Van Buren landed a ton of knees and leg kicks early and managed to keep O’Connell off of him. O’Connell got to his chin in the second though, despite landing less punches than his opponent. Finally in the third, O’Connell clubbed him a ton of times. Van Buren went down once but got back up. He wasn’t defending himself at all though, so the referee stopped the bout on the feet. The finish came at 2:11 of the final round.
The broadcast moved over to Fox Sports 1 for a bout between Sean Soriano and Charles Rosa. Rosa, the hometown favorite, engaged in a good grappling battle with Soriano that was back and forth early. Rosa took over in the second though, almost finishing the fight late in the round with a peruvian necktie. He was all over Soriano in the third, and finally secured a D’Arce choke that forced a single tap at 4:43. The tap was hard to see, but it was definitely a tap.
The next bout was a lightweight scrap between Johnny Case and Frankie Perez. The bout was all Case, minus one heel hook attempt from Perez. Case controlled on the ground and on the feet, and he finally got a TKO win at the 1:54 mark of the third round.
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