Hector Lombard gave Rousimar Palhares no opportunity to work his submission game tonight, blasting him with big power punches that floored him three times in the space of 3.38mins, resulting in a TKO victory.
Palhares tentatively worked a few leg kicks in the early stages of the first round, while Lombard stalked his opponent and looked to land big winging shots.
At first they were missing the mark, but then a punch connected and Palhares dropped to the ground, but got right back up.
That encouraged Lombard and he began to move forward with confidence. A flurry of strikes up against the cage followed soon afterwards and Palhares wilted, falling to the floor.
Lombard followed into his guard, but well aware of his opponent’s deadly submission skills he decided to give him little room to operate and waited for the right moment to get away and back up to his feet.
That he did and they went back to the striking battle. Lombard again backed Palhares up against the cage and began to unload massive punches.
Several landed hard, but one big right hand in particular took the wind out of Palhares sails, then a left buckled his legs completely and he was back on the canvas.
Lombard followed up with a few lefts to his grounded opponent and Palhares looked out, with the referee jumping in to save him from further damage with 3.38mins on the clock.
Personally I thought it looked like a KO, but the official ruling is that it’s a TKO, and a brutal one at that.
So after a disappointing debut Lombard’s now let everyone know just how dangerous he can be, and the middleweight division just became more interesting as a result.
