Stephen Thompson put on a slick display of striking tonight in the main event of the TUF 21 Finale, knocking out Jake Ellenberger with a spinning back kick to the head after having dropped him with another one just moments earlier.
Round One:
The main event of the evening is underway. Kick to the body for Thompson. Side kick to the body from him now. A leg kick now from him.
Now it’s a left hand that gets through for Thompson. Ellenberger presses forward and Thompson connects with a few counters, but then Thompson drops down to the mat stung by a punch from his opponent. He gets quickly up though and clinches with Ellenberger, pressing him to the mat.
That’s a good move to give Thompson some time to recover, though he seems to be doing ok to be fair to him. He lands a few punches from the clinch, thinks about a takedown and then opts to back away.
Ellenberger trips Thompson to the mat, but Thompson scrambles and ends up on top with Ellenberger turtled up on his knees. He stands, but is taken back down by Thompson who cuffs his head with a few hard punches then Ellenberger is upright and eats a kick for his troubles on the way back to his feet.
High kick attempt from Thompson. Left hand lands for ‘Wonderboy’ and tries to follow-up with more strikes against the cage.
They separate and Thompson floors Ellenberger with a flush spinning back kick to the face. Great strike!
Ellenberger back up but doesn’t look steady. Stephens again with the spinning kick that connects on the forehead and Ellenberger topples awkwardly to the mat. He’s met with a couple more punches on the mat and that’ll do it, ‘Wonderboy’ lives up to his nickname with a highlight-reel KO finish at 4.29mins of the opening round.
Great display of striking from Thompson and that takes him to five fights unbeaten in his biggest bout to date. As for Ellenberger, the 30 year-old has now lost four of his last five fights and looks to be a shadow of his former self.
