Michel Pereira achieved a feat in endurance at UFC Vegas 99 by nearly going the distance in the main event. The rest of the glory belonged to Anthony Hernandez.
“Fluffy” dominated his way to a fifth-round TKO win on Saturday, overwhelming Pereira on the ground before referee Herb Dean stepped in. As the fight ended, Pereira was bleeding out of a sizable gash on his brow, to say nothing of the exhaustion Hernandez inflicted on him.
The result snaps an eight-fight win streak for Pereira and extends a six-fight win streak for Hernandez.
Hernandez certainly looked like a middleweight contender by the end of it, and presented himself as such after the fight.
“I’m ready for my belt. I’m out of my own way. Just give me what it f*****g takes,” Hernandez said. “Give me someone that’s going to give me a title shot. I’m f*****g ready, I’ll prove it to you.”
Pereira opened the first round by landing multiple combinations, which seemed to have the potential to make it a short fight. In retrospect, that was easily his best chance. Hernandez held on and proceeded to throw as many takedown attempts as he could at Pereira, and eventually got the Brazilian down in the final minute — on his eighth attempt. It was a sign of things to come.
Pereira is a big middleweight and had to use all of his strength just to keep Hernandez at bay. It mostly worked in the first round, but that resistance wore down in the second, when Hernandez kept coming and made his life miserable on the ground.
Pereira’s corner was heard on the ESPN stream telling their fighter to try to use the third round as a recovery round, but they couldn’t have picked worse opponent on the card to use that advice against. Hernandez had Pereira down again within seconds. Pereira was gassed, and the best that could be said was he didn’t have to waste much energy on standing up for the rest of the round.
Hernandez went from out-striking Pereira on the ground 6-0 in the first, to 21-0 in the second, to 32-0 in the third, and so on. Hernandez secured the middleweight record for ground strikes in a single fight midway through the fourth round and the record for takedown attempts in the fifth.
The final numbers: A 219-29 advantage in total strikes for Hernandez, 152-24 in significant strikes (125 of Hernandez’s were to the head), 97-0 in ground strikes, and 15:42 of control time. Pereira won the first round on the scorecard of one judge, Derek Cleary. He had the next three frames all as 10-8s in favor of Hernandez.
Rob Font stuns Kyler Phillips in the co-main
The biggest underdog of the card Saturday was bantamweight veteran Rob Font, who had lost four of his past five fights and was positioned as a stepping stone for the younger Kyler Phillips.
The first round went about as expected, with Phillips leveraging a grappling advantage against the more boxing-focused Font. He out-struck him, he landed a takedown, he was operating at a good pace. But Font either found the fountain of youth or leveraged his experience to deliver a stunner by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28). In significant strikes, the 37-year-old proceeded to outproduce Phillips 54-28 over the final two rounds. Phillips still landed some takedowns but couldn’t do anything with them, and he paid dearly for some other gambits as Font figured out his timing.
Font’s pressure might not have worked against the top contenders who beat him recently, but it was too difficult a puzzle for Phillips to solve across 10 minutes.
For complete UFC Vegas 99 results, check out Uncrowned’s results event page.
