Dos Santos Stops Tuivasa At UFC Adelaide
Competing in enemy territory, Junior dos Santos came through and got a finish, defeating the previously undefeated Tai Tuivasa in Tuivasa’s home country of Australia in the main event of UFC Adelaide.
Tuivasa came out firing from the opening bell, charging at dos Santos with heavy haymakers. Dos Santos managed to keep Tuivasa at distance by avoiding his charges and throwing a couple of high kicks. Tuivasa came on the attack in the second half of the round, however, stunning JDS with an elbow to the head against the cage before rocking and swarming the former UFC champion again until the horn.
Tuivasaa got JDS back against the cage in the second and looked to continue to do damage, but dos Santos escaped things by landing a kick out of nowhere. JDS then landed a counterpunch that dropped Tuivasa, and JDS delivered ground-and-pound from the top until referee Herb Dean stepped in.
In the co-main event of the evening, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua scored a third-round TKO of Tyson Pedro, while Mark Hunt’s UFC swan song ends in a unanimous decision loss to Justin Willis.
UFC Adelaide Main Card:
Heavyweight: Junior Dos Santos def. Tai Tuivasa via TKO (Rd. 2, 2:30)
Light Heavyweight: Mauricio “Shogun” Rua def. Tyson Pedro via TKO (Rd. 3, 0:43)
Heavyweight: Justin Willis def. Mark Hunt via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Welterweight: Tony Martin def. Jake Matthews via submission (anaconda choke) (Rd. 3, 1:19)
Featherweight: Sodiq Yussuf def. Suman Mokhtarian via TKO (Rd. 1, 2:14)
Light Heavyweight: Jim Crute def. Paul Craig via submission (kimura) (Rd. 3, 4:51)UFC Adelaide Preliminary Card:
Welterweight: Alexey Kunchenko def. Yushin Okami via unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-27)
Flyweight: Wilson Reis def. Ben Nguyen via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Welterweight: Keita Nakamura def. Salim Touahri via split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)
Flyweight: Kai Kara-France def. Elias Garcia via unanimous decision (30-25, 30-25, 30-26UFC Adelaide Early Prelim Card:
Lightweight:Christos Giagos def. Mizuto Hirota via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-27, 30-28)
Lightweight: Damir Ismagulov def. Alex Gorgees via unanimous decision (30-25, 30-26, 30-26)