Prelims:

Jacqueline Cavalcanti def. Zarah Fairn via Unanimous Decision ( 30-27 x3 )

Fairn looks nervous while Cavalcanti looks comfortable. Cavalcanti has an impressive ability to maintain sound defense while being pressured. She is clearly a smart fighter when it comes to stand-up and doesn’t put herself into dangerous situations. She remained efficient in terms of energy through the fight. While Fairn’s performance was lackluster, I did like that she maintained urgency in a fight that she was losing; she never gave up the pressure she was putting on.

Farid Basharat def. Kleydson Rodrigues via Submission (Arm Triangle, Round 1)

Basharat shows excellent downward pressure in his BJJ and consistent effort to advance position. He shows that he can stay patient and slowly break down his opponent on the ground, with technical passes until he was able to make it to full mount and pull off an arm triangle after mixing in some ground strikes. Dominant performance by Basharat.

Nora Cornolle def. Joselyn Edwards via Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28 x2)

Both fighters showed good striking clinch work against the fence in the first round, but Edwards particularly stood out from maintaining control until she could get the takedown. Cornolle took a huge risk when being mounted and nearly gave up her back, but made it work and was able to get the reversal and turn into Edwards’ guard. Edwards got another nicely timed takedown at the beginning of the second round and worked to get her back, but Cornolle did well here to stay calm ad escape. Cornolle showed more of her impressive defensive abilities on the ground after reversing from a arm triangle lock to take Edwards back to end the round. Both fighter’s cardio seemed to be waning by the 3rd round. Cornolle does well at controlling Edwards in her guard, until she opens it, makes it to her back and attacks a rear naked choke that Cornolle just barely made it out of. Overall, Edwards showed great wrestling and clinch work, while Cornolle’s strongest showing was her defensive grappling abilities. Great scrap from these two women, but this was an awful decision. That should have been a clear win for Edwards. I am not sure what fight the judges were watching.

Ange Loosa def. Rhys McKee via Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28 x2)

These boys came out throwing. Rhys looks like he can’t keep up with Loosa’s speed and aggressiveness early, but does use his length to land a bit. Rhys’ combos and jabs look pretty good but he doesn’t get his guard back fast enough, leading to him getting countered often, which is a huge problem against a fighter that hits as hard as Loosa. When Loosa got the takedown in round 2, McKee’s guard was virtually non-existent and Loosa passed with ease, leading to an absolute onslaught of ground and standing strikes. For one thing, McKee’s chin is insane. Right when I thought the fight was over, McKee hurts him with a minute left and genuinely almost gets him out of there, truly showing what McKee is made of. While this was a close one, nonetheless, this fight really showed how big of a problem Loosa is. He showed that all aspects of his game is up to top contender caliber with powerful, fast boxing, beautiful takedowns, and dominant pressure and ground strikes on the canvas. Really impressive performance.

Taylor Lapilus def. Caolan Loughran via Unanimous Decision (29-28 x3)

Lapilus looked sharp on his feet early while fighting behind his jab and nice ability to escape Loughran’s clinch control and keep it standing for most of the round. Laughran found more success getting the fight to the canvas early in round 2 but Lapilus was able to work his way back to his feet before taking too much damage. Laughran doesn’t move his head much and Lapilus has a great ability to find the chin precisely and quickly, and it seemed like Laughran just couldn’t do much about it aside from clich and shoot. Loughran tried to turn the heat up a bit in the third round, but Lapilus slick boxing continued to shine through until the final bell.

Main Card:

Morgan Charriere def. Manolo Zecchini via TKO (body kicks, Round 1)

Zecchini looks aggressive early but Charriere is defensively sound. All was well until Charriere lands a perfect liver kick to hurt Zecchini and he was able to finish it with a couple more kicks to the same spot. Great ability by Charriere to stay patient against a pressure-heavy striker to find his shots, awesome finish.

William Gomis def. Yanis Ghemmouri via TKO (body kick, Round 3)

Gomis looks fast and sharp early. He does a great job at maintaining range and consistently moving, honestly kind of similar to how his teammate, Ciryl Gane does. Gomis seems to have an counter ready for anything that Ghemmouri throws at him. Ghemmouri tried to get some wrestling going in the second round and Gomis nearly snuck out a standing guillotine. Ghemmouri seemed to have some offense going in the clinch but just couldn’t keep it there. Gomis was outstriking Ghemmouri until he gets a TKO stoppage from a kick to the belt line and the ref calls it. To me it looked like a low blow. Weird stoppage, definitely early, but a great performance by Gomis nonetheless.

Volkan Oezdemir def. Bogdan Guskov via Submission (rear naked choke, Round 1)

Its clear how powerful Guskov is early in the fight. Oezdemir is smart enough to take him down but he can’t keep it there long. I was worried for Oezdemir until he absolutely cracks Guskov at about 3 minutes in and continues his damage until Guskov gives up his back on the ground and Oezdemir can finish it with a rear naked choke. Beautiful job by Oezdemir to not get intimidated by Guskov’s power early, trust his skill set and stay the course.

Benoit Saint-Denis def. Thiago Moises via TKO (ground strikes, Round 2)

Saint-Denis came out with a ton of urgency. He hurt Moises about 90 seconds into the fight, but decided to mix in his wrestling instead of keeping it standing. When it wasn’t on the ground, it was an absolute firefight because Moises wasn’t backing down easily. Lots of big ground strikes from Saint-Denis through the whole fight. In the clinch he looked dangerous offensively too, with plenty of elbows and knees. Sant-Denis was able to stop it in round 2 after Moises couldn’t take any more ground strikes. Moises looked tough, taking plenty of his damage, but Saint-Denis just looked dominant. Not a visible hole in his game. He kept the pressure up basically the whole fight and broke down Moises. I think he deserves to be a ranked fighter after this performance.

Manon Fiorot def. Rose Namajunas via Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28 x2)

Rose came out with some athletic kicks but Fiorot looked great early, landing counters and stuffing two takedowns and touching up Rose through the whole first round in the process. Fiorot just looks so fast and powerful on her feet. Even though Rose was losing up to theh halfway point of the round, she does drop Fiorot temporarily in the middle of the second round. There was a hard clash of heads towards the end of the second round that cut Fiorot badly, but the refs let them fight on. Overall such a great fight, Rose was moderately outstruck but stayed competitive until the end, even with probably a broken or dislocated pinky. Fiorot looked so fast and powerful that she could truly be a champion in the near future.

Ciryl Gane def. Sergei Spivac via TKO (punches, Round 2)

Ciryl came out confident. Like usual, he was moving well and just piecing Spivac up, who had no answers. Gane moves so quick that Spivac couldn’t even get much off before Gane was moving somewhere else. He truly never spends a moment of the fight sedentary. After a while the damage just built up on Spivac, particularly to the body. There was a point too where Gane had to defense a takedown and sprawled like he was a legitmate grappler. Great performance by Gane silences all questions about whether his such striking-dominant style can be effective against top 10 heavyweight talent consistently.