What an entertaining heavyweight scrap we were treated too here as Andrei Arlovski and Travis Browne slugged it out for the best part of a round with ‘The Pitbull’ enjoying the lion’s share of it before finishing by TKO.
Round One:
Leg kick from Arlovski. He steps in again with a couple of straight punches. Browne lands a right to the body. Again he goes to the body.
Arlovski catches Browne with an uppercut and he’s clearly wobbled! Browne backs up hurt and Arlovski marches forward with strikes. Browne with his back to the cage now and just in defensive mode with his hands up for protection as Arlovski unleashes a barrage of blows.
Browne moves away and looks a bit unsteady and Arlovski is homing in again with more strikes, landing to the body now.
The action slows a bit now and that gives Browne a welcome breather. Arlovski starts to land again though and with every connection Browne’s legs seem to buckle a little. He’s struggling here, but hanging in there for now.
Browne trying to bounce on the spot a little and get the life back into his legs. Arlovski with more forward pressure, throwing punches that don’t connect this time.
Arlovski with a backfist and another punch behind it that sends Browne to the mat though he scrambles back up. Arlovski looking to finish his opponent against the cage, but suddenly it’s his turn to hit the deck as he gets clobbered by a big right hook from Browne!
Browne follows him down and tries to finish with punches, but he’s still a bit woozy himself and doesn’t really have control of the situation. Arlovski tries to move away, Browne attempts to keep him down, but is unsuccessful.
Arlovski up and immediately lands a knee. Left hand and an overhand from Arlovski and Browne’s legs buckle yet again almost comically, but he still remains standing with just pure will and heart keeping him there.
An uppercut and a right hook connect and with Browne wilting again, but refusing to go down the ref has to come in and save him from further punishment with 4.41mins of the first round gone.
What a crazy fight – so much action that it was hard to keep up which is rare for a heavyweight scrap. Selfishly it would have been fun to see it continue into the second round, but the ref made the right call for Browne’s sake – he’d been rocked on multiple occasions in less than five minutes.
Hats off to Arlovski though. Not so long ago he seemed like he was just biding time until his retirement from the sport, but now he’s putting together a very nice run in the UFC and showing that he’s still got big power and can take a punch.
