Joe Pyfer got the better of an intense striking battle with former middleweight champion Israel Adesanya tonight at UFC Fight Night 271 and then took him down to seal the deal with ground-and-pound.
Round One
The middleweight main event is underway in Seattle!
Adesanya ignores the glove tap over from Pyfer as they start. Adesanya with a leg kick. Pyfer reaches for a single-leg and then switches to the body lock. He has to settle for pressuring the former champ up against the cage.
Adesanya starting to escape and does break free with Pyfer landing a punch on the way.
Leg kick for Adesanya. Now one to the body. Power punch from Pyfer grazes past the target as Adesanya just gets out of the way of the brunt of that.
Adesanya able to step in and land a knee upstairs, but Pyfer eats it. Another dangerous straight punch from Pyfer.
Pyfer fires off another couple of punches. Now he threatens with an elbow. Adesany has to be very careful defensively here.
Pyfer clinches up. Not for long though. Question mark kick from Adesanya. He lands a low kick. Now a solid calf kick from Pyfer.
One-two from Adesanya and now a low kick. Pyfer fires off a one-two, but doesn’t quite connect.
Low kick for Adesanya. Pyfer gets in on a knee-tap takedown and lands it, but there’s not a lot of time left in the round and Adesanya emerges unscathed.
Round Two
Body kick for Adesanya. He blasts another one of those. Adesanya threatens with a right hand. Now a nice calf kick, but Adesanya then catches Pyfer with an eye-poke that forces a brief time-out.
Back to it they go. Jab to the body and then a knee there too from Adesanya. Pyfer punches into the clinch and presses Adesanya into the cage. Adesanya able to break away though.
Good left hand and a right from Pyfer, but Adesanya lands a solid counter.
Adesanya blasts Pyfer with another big punch. They clinch and Adesanya tries to trip Pyfer without success.
Left hook from Pyfer and another punch. Adesanya firing back. Pyfer with another punch.
Right hand and an uppercut from Adesanya. Uppercut for Pyfer seems to wobble Adesanya for a moment. Pyfer really troubling the former champ here, but Adesanya tries to fire back. It’s all a bit reckless though and then Pyfer is able to take him down in the center of the Octagon.
Pyfer gets Adesanya’s back and has the body triangle in. Adesanya defending against a potential choke set-up. Pyfer rolls into mount. Now he’s onto the back again and has Adesanya flattened out.
Adesanya is trapped face-down as Pyfer rains down big ground-and-pound punches. He’s not getting out from this and is forced to just cover up until the ref steps in to wave the fight off and hand Pyfer a major TKO victory at 4.18mins of the 2nd round.
Adesanya played with fire in this fight by looking to keep the fight at a range that suited Pyfer, and ended up getting drawn into a brawl against a heavier-handed opponent that didn’t end well for him.
Still, Adesanya says afterwards that he’s going to fight on, while Pyfer could now move into the middleweight top 5 after the biggest win of his career.
