by Dr. Octagon, J.D.
This undercard didn’t look great on paper, but was hot shit from top to bottom, with the exception of the obligatory shit sandwich from main event team members Artem Lobov and Chris Avila and a bit of a boring victory for Raquel Pennington. It’s a fucking travesty that these guys are on the roster, let alone on national television while Monsoon-Magny was relegated to the internets.
In the preliminary main event, Cody “No Love” Garbrandt did as expected and showed that you shouldn’t fuck with guys with neck tattoos. He basically took off Takeya Mizugaki’s head in the first round, winning by TKO. Cody then called out Dominick Cruz, who praised Garbrandt from the booth, but also talked some shit, as is typical of the Dominator. It will be interesting to see if Cody can land some serious leather on Cruz, because no one has really been able to in the past.
The Raquel Pennington fight sucked, but she won a pretty clear decision over Elizabeth Phillips. Pennington wasn’t really able to fight her fight and ended up wrestling. I’m a fan of hers, so hopefully she’ll have a little more action in her next fight.
Artem Lobov and Chris Avila put on one of the worst fights I’ve seen that’s not on the very beginning of a Fight Pass undercard. It really sucked the air out of the prelims, which were great up until then.
Lorenz Larkin basically walked through Neil Magny. Both of these fighters are great and the bout shouldn’t have been on the internet. Larkin put on a striking clinic, kicking Magny’s lead leg to the point that he could barely stand on it and also landing some fantastic oblique kicks.
Finally Magny shot a McGregore-sque desperation takedown, ate a bunch of elbows and crumpled to the mat for the first-round stoppage. They should really try to plug this fight into the PPV telecast if there’s an early stoppage because it was short and excellent.
Randa Markos did not look impressive and I was glad that she was submitted in the first round with a slick armbar by Cortney Casey.
In the first fight of the night, 22-year old Marvin Vettori tapped BJJ blackbelt Alberto Uda with a head and arm guillotine in the first round.
