The prelims for UFC Fight Night 82 are in the books, and they were all over the place. Crazy knockouts, fun scrambling, slick striking, and a snoozer. Here’s how it went down.
Josh Burkman defeated K.J. Noons by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Not a lot happened here. Noons was fighting at archery range for the entire first half of the fight, landing exactly zero strikes in the first and halfway through the second. He finally opened up a bit in the second half of the bout, but his output was still alarmingly low due to the takedown threat from Burkman. Noons scored with a few shots in the third, but was outgrappled and beat up against the cage down the stretch. The win was Burkman’s first at lightweight.
Here’s the one highlight from the a fight – a good slam by Burkman.
OUCH! #UFCVegas https://t.co/2ckakTeraK
— #UFCVegas (@ufc) February 7, 2016
Derrick Lewis defeated Damian Grabowski by TKO (strikes), 2:17 of round 1
This was a one-sided mauling. After Lewis stuffed and reversed a takedown attempt from Grabowski, he beat the tar out of him on the ground. Grabowski suffered a big cut on the top of his head from Lewis elbows, and he just kept dropping bombs until the referee mercifully brought the fight to a close.
Justin Scoggins defeated Ray Borg by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26)
Scoggins looked excellent for the entire fight, totally negating Borg’s ground game and beating him up on the feet. The first and second were dominant for him with a wide variety of kicks and straight shots. The third was still clearly Scoggins, but he had slowed down a bit. Nonetheless, he got the important win. After the fight, he called out the UFC for having him on the shelf for so long (even though he was allegedly injured) and wants to fight again ASAP.
Diego Rivas defeated Noad Lahat by knockout (flying knee), :23 of round 2
This was a tale of two fights. Lahat totally styled on Rivas in the first round on the ground, attempting a ton of submission and looking close to finishing the fight multiple times. It was a clear 10-8 round. But just a few seconds into round two, Rivas landed a perfect flying knee that absolutely wrecking Lahat. He was out cold for multiple minutes, legs involuntarily twitching and everything. He turned out to be okay, but the KO is an early candidate for KO of the Year.
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