Jack Hermansson Upsets Jacare Souza, Former UFC Champions Compete At UFC Ft. Lauderdale
UFC Fort Lauderdale had no shortage of ranked fights on Saturday night, and no shortage of controversy.
#10 Jack Hermansson had the opportunity of a lifetime with a short notice fight against Jacare Souza. He made the most of it by dropping Souza early. Round two saw Hermansson on top of Jacare, before having his body ripped away by Souza in the third. Hermansson battled back and landed heavy combos in the fourth stanza. The fifth was more of an even round, but ended with Hermansson scoring a major upset victory.
Ion Cutelaba came in unranked, and left that way. He looked promising at times against #11 Glover Teixeira, even hurting him with a big knee. However, Teixeira’s experience proved too much against the youngster, and led to a rear naked choke submission in round 2.
#9 Carla Esparza welcomed Virna Jandiroba to the UFC by taking her to the scorecards. The former UFC Champion in Esparza retained some of that relevance and derailed the hype train along the way, wrestling the newcomer.
Augusto Sakai defeated #15 Andrei Arlovski, the latter another former UFC Heavyweight Champion. However, the split decision was not a popular one, with media unanimously scoring the fight either a draw or in favor of Arlovski.
Another controversial decision saw Corey Sandhagen take down #8 John Lineker via split decision. A back and forth striking battle led to Sandhagen winning on the scorecards officially, but Lineker earning the W in the hearts of 52 percent of fan scoring and slightly over half of media scoring.
Fightful had full, live coverage of UFC Fort Lauderdale, as well as a live post-show podcast. We’ll also talk about the event at length Tuesday at 2 PM EST on the Fightful MMA Podcast.
