It may not have been the barnburner they had hoped for, but for the hometown Denver crowd, Rose Namajunas could do no wrong.
In the flyweight main event of UFC on ESPN 59 at Ball Arena, former strawweight champ Namajunas looked to make her case for a title shot in her new division against rising contender. The first round went solidly in favor of “Thug Rose,” who sidestepped Cortez’s advances, denied her the clinch and shot takedown opportunities she sought, and caught her repeatedly with clean punches. One of those, a clean left hook, sat Cortez down in the middle of the round, but she recovered quickly.
As the fourth round opened, Cortez was in an obvious three-rounds-to-zero hole, and to her credit, she fought like it, wading forward with big power punches, willing herself into the clinch and working to bring Namajunas to the ground. It ended, as before, with Namajunas denying the takedown and sliding out of danger, but at least her foe could not leave things entirely on cruise control.
After five rounds, the cageside judges returned an unsurprising and well-deserved unanimous decision for Namajunas . The win put “Thug Rose” at two straight in her new division and leaves her an interested observer of flyweight champlooked surprisingly spry in the welterweight co-main event of “UFC Denver.
With the outcome very much in question, the welterweight veterans turned in another close round in the final frame, though the Denver crowd was not pleased by the moderate pace of the striking, nor by Ponzinibbio’s takedown attempts. The judges rendered their verdict in favor of Salikhov by split decision , who snapped a two-fight skid and elevated his record to 20-5 ; Ponzinibbio has now lost two straight and is 2-5 since returning in 2021 from a long injury layoff.
Referee Herb Dean called out the cageside physician to have a look at Dober’s right eye between rounds, but the fight was allowed to go on, to the delight of the Denver crowd. Likely down two rounds to none, Dober changed things up, shooting a takedown in the opening seconds of Round 3, but Silva defended with a guillotine.. This time, he opined that the fight should not go on in the interest of Dober’s safety.
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