Quillan Salkilld capped off the UFC 321 preliminary card with one of the most vicious head kick knockouts you will ever see.
The touted 25-year-old from Australia put an exclamation mark on his short-notice bout with Nasrat Haqparast with the highlight-reel finish that occurred midway through the opening round of Saturday’s featured preliminary bout at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Salkilld timed a high kick perfectly that rendered Haqparast unconscious immediately. Haqparast remained unconscious on the canvas for several minutes after the KO before eventually coming to.
Haqparast, who had a five-fight winning streak snapped, is 4.5 years older than Salkilld and made his UFC debut before Salkilld had even begun training in mixed martial arts.
Salkilld lost his pro debut in 2021 but has since won 10 consecutive fights, including three at the UFC level, and is one of the more promising young fighters on the UFC roster.
Although he’s unranked at 155 pounds, Salkilld is quickly climbing the lightweight ladder and called for a ranked opponent in his next fight.
In other preliminary action, middleweights Ikram Aliskerov and Jun-yong Park had a gruelling 15-minute contest with Aliskerov getting his hand raised via unanimous decision. Aliskerov was successful on five of his seven takedown attempts in the fight, which was ultimately the difference on the scorecards.
Ludovit Klein earned a bittersweet majority decision win over Mateusz Rebecki in a bloody lightweight bout. Klein rocked and cut open Rebecki multiple times throughout first two rounds, however he sustained a gruesome ankle injury early in the final round.
Klein claimed he broke his ankle after it twisted underneath him during a Rebecki takedown attempt. Rebecki, 33 from Poland, inflicted a lot of damage in the third round but Klein, 30 from Slovakia, was able to hold on and make it to the final horn. Klein was up on the scorecards after 10 minutes and it was enough for him to squeak out a decision win to rebound from a May decision loss to Mateusz Gamrot. Rebecki has now lost two in a row and three of his past four.
Valter Walker extended his own UFC record by earning yet another heel hook submission win. The 27-year-old Brazilian heavyweight tapped out UFC newcomer Louie Sutherland in just 84 seconds. He has won each of his past four fights via first-round heel hook, which is a UFC record, and is now tied with former UFC middleweight Rousimar Palhares for the most total heel hook victories in UFC history.
Mizuki Inoue returned from a two-year layoff with a dominant showing against Jaqueline Amorim who had finished her past four opponents. Mizuki more than tripled Amorim’s output, landing 150 total strikes while absorbing just 48. Mizuki, 31, rocked Amorim with ground strikes at the end of the opening round and recorded a knockdown in the third round with a knee to the body en route to a unanimous decision in the strawweight division.
Mitch Raposo earned his first UFC win with a unanimous decision over Azat Maksum in a catchweight matchup. Raposo was a significant underdog heading into the matchup and the Fall River, Mass., native was clearly aware. “Plus-350 my ass!” Raposo said in response to the betting odds during a passionate post-fight interview.
Maksum, who has now lost three in a row in the UFC all by decision, was one of two prelim fighters that came in overweight at Friday’s weigh-in, missing the non-title flyweight limit by three pounds.
The other fighter to miss weight was featherweight Jose Delgado who was one pound overweight. Delgado went back and forth with Nathaniel Wood for three rounds and ended up on the wrong side of a close decision.
Delgado had Wood in trouble early after landing a knockdown courtesy of a spinning backfist, but Wood battled back and later in the round knocked Delgado down. Both fighters have recorded knockdowns in each of their past three UFC bouts. Rounds two and three were tightly contested with all three judges giving Wood the slight edge.
In a sloppy meeting of stocky heavyweights, Hamdy Abdelwahab picked up a one-sided unanimous decision win over Chris Barnett. The fight was slow and uneventful outside of Abdelwahab being deducted a point in the opening round for an illegal strike to the back of Barnett’s head. Abdelwahab is now 2-1 since returning to the UFC following a two-year suspension stemming from a failed drug test in 2022.
from Sportsnet.ca
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