Brian Ebersole survived a few early scares both on the feet and the floor against TJ Waldburger at UFC On FX 4 tonight before digging deep and coming out on top in the later rounds to secure a unanimous decision victory.
Waldburger dropped Ebersole with a short left hand counter and quickly secured top control. Rather than going for a quick finish he looked to advance position and managed to pass through to the full mount.
It looked like being a very bad spot indeed for Ebersole so early in the fight, but he managed to escape and for a brief moment looked to have secured top position himself, but immediately Waldburger cinched in a d’arce choke attempt.
It looked very tight and Ebersole’s head turned a deep red, but he persevered and was able to eventually escape and get back to his feet.
He then did well to work his way back into the fight in the final minutes of the round in the striking exchanges, firstly landing a nice clean elbow as he broke away from the thai clinch position, and soon afterwards landed a nice three-piece combination to Waldburger’s head up against the cage.
A substantial part of the second round took place on the ground again, and while Ebersole was on top Waldburger was threatening with multiple submissions off his back.
In amongst it all was an omaplata and a couple of triangle choke attempts, but on each occasion Ebersole was able to work his way back out of danger, and towards the end of the round he was able to land some hard ground and pound strikes that left Waldburger bleeding from his nose.
In the third round Ebersole looked to be the fresher fighter and he was really bringng the fight to Waldburger in the striking department and looking confident while doing so.
He then reverted back to the ground game with an easily secured takedown. Waldburger wasn’t as active from his back now and so Ebersole was able to control him for the remainder of the round and surely secure it in his favor in the eyes of the judges.
How did they score the other two rounds though? The decision comes in and it’s unanimous in Ebersole’s favor, 29-28 on all three score cards.
All credit to Ebersole here for not being discouraged by his bad start in this fight and instead managing to chart a course to the win that leaves him with a perfect 4-0 record in the UFC to date.
