Paulo Borrachinha found himself in a hard-hitting battle with Oluwale Bamgbose tonight at UFC 212 and proved to be the better man with a TKO stoppage early in the second round.
Round One:
Bamgbose wades forward with a winging strike that doesn’t find the target. However, soon after he does land with the first punch of the fight.
Bamgbose definitely the busier of the two to start and now he’s into a takedown attempt, getting his opponent to the cage. It doesn’t work out so he goes for a punch upstairs, then back to the takedown and gets it this time, though BOrrachinha is straight back up.
Wild kick from Bamgbose. Very high tempo from Bamgbose here. However, Borrachinha then lands a couple of solid body kicks and Bamgbose starts to slow a little.
Right hand for Bamgbose. Very hard body kick from Borrachinha hurt his opponent. He smeels blood now and starts to let loose with bigger strikes. Bamgbose up against the cage and Borrachinha is blasting him with left and right hands. A hard kick in there too. More punches, working nicely to the body but Bamgbose is hanging on in there for now and tries to fire back.
Bamgbose goes for a takedown to change the momentum and eventually manages to bring Borrachinha down. Both fighters have used up a lot of energy here and are used to getting early finishes, but they are heading to the second round here so it’ll be interesting to see who can bring it in the next five minutes.
Round Two:
Borrachinha stalking Bamgbose here. Bamgbose with an occasional wild strike including a two-handed downward strike.
Suddenly Borrachinha lands a leg kick as Bamgbose was going for a high kick and knocks him off his feet.
Borrachinha now landing heavy ground and pound and Bamgbose doesn’t have enough energy left to fend off this onslaught, and that’s it, the referee steps in to give the Brazilian a TKO victory with 1.06mins of the second round.
This fight always looked like being entertaining for as long as it lasted and that proved to the be the case, and Borrachinha did well to stay calm during the early storm and then take over as his opponent began to fade.