Aspinall and Pereira make UFC history
With the heavy guys, everything can happen very quickly in MMA sport. One punch is often enough. At UFC 295, the new heavyweight and light heavyweight champions show the power of their punches.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has two new champions. At UFC 295 in New York, both the heavyweight and light heavyweight titles were reassigned due to injury. In the process, the two new best MMA fighters in their weight classes made history.
The main fight of the evening pitted Brazilian Alex Pereira and Czech Jiri Prochazka, two cage fighters with unique styles and former champions, against each other. Kickboxer Pereira already held the middleweight title, while Prochazka relinquished the light heavyweight title due to an injury.
Both fighters started the first round in a wait-and-see mode, with the Brazilian inflicting low kicks on his opponent, which quickly had an effect. Limping slightly, Prochazka tried to shift the fight to the ground. After a brief clinch on the cage fence, he succeeded. On the ground, the Czech was then able to land his first punches.
The swelling on his shin was already causing Prochazka problems in the second round. The former champion's movements were clearly restricted, but he continued to put pressure on Pereira without landing any effective punches. Instead, he again received kicks to the leg and upper body. After around two minutes, Prochazka shifted into forward gear and landed a beautiful left-right combination to push the Brazilian against the cage fence again. Pereira went back to keeping his distance, but the pattern remained.
Prochazka scored with a right hook that rang Pereira and drove him back to the edge of the cage again. There, out of nowhere, the Brazilian countered with a left uppercut that took Prochazka down. Pereira followed up with quick elbow strikes, the referee saw no resistance from the Czech and stopped the fight unusually early. Pereira won by technical knockout and is the eighth fighter after Randy Couture, B.J. Penn, Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Georges St-Pierre, Amanda Nunes and Henry Cejudo to become champion in two weight classes in the UFC.
Prochazka didn't want to stir up controversy after the referee's perhaps premature intervention and wasn't complaining. "I was gone," he said. However, he said it was a disappointment for him after working so hard to come back from injury. Pereira explained after the fight that he was not surprised that the referee had to intervene. "Winning the title is a great honor," said the Brazilian, who went on to challenge Israel Adesanya. Pereira won the middleweight title against the New Zealander in 2022, but lost it to him just one year later.
Aspinall makes short work of it
Following the injury to UFC legend and heavyweight champion Jon Jones, the elite promotion was looking for a new title holder at short notice - the opportunity for Britain's Tom Aspinall and Russia's Sergei Pavlovich, who were already being touted as Jones' challengers.
The Brit made short work of Pavlov. He won the interim gold with a spectacular knockout victory after just a few seconds. This marked the end of a turbulent 15 months for the 39-year-old. After tearing his cruciate ligament in a fight against Curtis Blaydes in July 2022, he successfully celebrated his comeback in the summer - and now he can be celebrated as the UFC's first British heavyweight champion.
"It's been a crazy two and a half weeks," said Aspinall in his post-fight interview. "If you ever get the chance to do something and you're scared to do it, you should fucking do it," said the Brit, who dedicated his title win to his father. Aspinall now faces a unification fight against champion Jon Jones or former champion Stipe Miocic.
Source: www.ntv.de
