Francis Carmont brought an end to Costa Philippou’s unbeaten run tonight at UFC 165 and extended his own to six fights with a dominant display of grappling.
Round One
Philippou starts with a quick leg kick. Carmont tries to keep his range with a push kick, then soon after lands a hard leg kick.
Carmont presses in and gets a takedown. He’s having to work hard to keep his opponent down though as Philippou scrambles to the cage.
Carmont manages to keep him down though and moves around towards his back against the cage with Philippou on his knees. carmont lands a few punches and wraps an arm under his neck. He’s looking for the choke, but gives it up as Philippou turns.
With Philippou flat on his back now Carmont gets some control. Philippou’s thinking about a submission, but Carmont avoids it and moves to side control.
Philippou attempting an omaplata, but it’s a bit akwardly executed and Carmont shrugs it off and stays on top.
With 10 seconds remining Philippou’s attempting an armbar from the bottom, but there’s not enough time to find out if he really had it or not. Good round for Carmont overall.
Round Two
Carmont pumps out the jab to keep his distance then swiftly ducks down and lands a very nice takedown. Bad news for Philippou here as he finds himself flat on his back again very early in the round so he really needs to do something to change the course of this fight.
He’s certainly trying to get up from under Carmont, but it’s easier said than done. He gets to the cage and like the first round is up on his knees, but can’t get away from his opponent and ends up on his back again.
Carmont’s just smothering Philippou here and there’s not a great deal happening so the ref opts to stand them up with two minutes of the round remaining.
Carmont’s staying long and Philippou’s having trouble getting in to land his punches here. He over-commits to a punch and Carmont uses that to land another takedown.
And so it’s deja vu again with Carmont controlling Philippou cramped up against the cage. He postures up and stands over Philippou, lands a few punches and then goes down again, soon after moving into the mount briefly. Carmont rides out the remaining seconds of the round on top.
Round Three
Carmont’s grappling completely nullified Philippou in the first two rounds, but in the opening minute of the third he was happy to just stand and throw a few kicks at his opponent from range.
Then came a big takedown and Philippou just seems unable to deal with him in this aspect of the game. Carmont’s now landing some solid shots on the mat.
Philippou seizes a moment’s lull in the assault to try to get back up, but Carmont just grabs his legs and dumps him back down. Philippou tries a guillotine choke, but it’s not happening.
Carmont’s making gutteral noises as he lands more ground and pound. In the final seconds he even throws in a few double hammer-fists to end the contest with a flourish.
Decision
No doubt about who won this fight, it was one-way traffic for Carmont and he gets a clean sweep on the judges scorecards (30-27 x2, 30-26).
