Marcos Rogerio de Lima took full advantage of Maurice Greene’s inability to get back to his feet when taken down tonight at UFC On ESPN 24, enabling him to comfortably ride out the majority of the fight in top control and claim an easy decision victory.
Round One:
Hard left hand from Greene. Frantic exchange in close, but no clean connection. De Lima with an elbow strike. Now de Lima works into the clinch against the cage.
De Lima works Greene to the canvas. He lands some punches to the body from inside Greene’s closed guard. Now a few to the head.
Greene opening up his guard to try to get out from under de Lima now as more punches land. Greene soon closes his guard again and stays tight to de Lima to stop him from getting real leverage into his punches.
Greene not doing much from his back and he’s got a small contusion above his right eyebrow as more punches land to end the round.
Round Two:
Greene overcommits to a punch that misses and de Lima then quickly takes his off-balance opponent to the mat, and before long he’s again crushed uncomfortably into the cage as de Lima goes back to work on his ground and pound.
Greene trying to escape, but de Lima gets to half-guard and continues to pepper him with punches.
De Lima traps an arm momentarily and blasts some hard punches to the head. Greene gets his arm free, but he still seems to be out of ideas as to how to get back to his feet.
Greene just trying to lock down his opponent here and hope for a stand-up. Greene is warned not to put his fingers in de Lima’s eye. Greene insists he isn’t doing that. Final seconds of the round. De Lima lands a final punch just after the horn sounds and Greene has a few angry words to say about that. De Lima complains about the finger in the eye.
Round Three:
Ref Herb Dean pauses the action before the final round and gives both men a warning – Greene for the fingers in the eye, de Lima for the punch after the bell.
The action gets back underway and Greene lands a kick. However, de Lima then gets him quickly back to the mat in the same position as they were for pretty much the previous 10 minutes.
More punches from de Lima in half-guard, nothing too heavy, but enough to ensure the fight will stay down.
De Lima gets to side control. Greene starts to wall walk and de Lima just happy to continue to control the action from north-south position.
Greene finally trying to escape, but is unsuccessful and de Lima remains on top as the fight draws to a close.
Decision:
So, de Lima controlled the fight from start to finish on the mat and walks away with a unanimous decision victory (30-26 x2, 30-27).
