UFC Lincoln’s prelims saw a battle of bantamweights Iuri Alcantra and Cory Sandhagen, that turned into an early contender for Fight of the Night.
Cory Sandhagen went from fighting a young bantamweight in Austin Arnett in his first UFC fight, to fighting 44 fight veteran Iuri Alcantra in his second. That was the situation at UFC Lincoln on Saturday. Sandhagen won his last time out, and was only nine fights into his career. Going into his fight against Iuri Alcantra, he was well behind in terms of experience — but there’s always the matter of heart. Alcantra, meanwhile, had been in there with some of the best the UFC has to offer at 135 pounds.
We saw that experience doesn’t always matter in this case. Alcantra had some early success in round one, looking to secure an arm-bar in the opening minute of round one. However, holding on with his arm bending at an insane angle, Sandhagen reversed and ended up on top after escaping the submission. How he ever survived that will be talked about the rest of the week. Sandhagen then spent the rest of the round on top dropping elbows and punches on the Brazilian. It was ugly. Alcantara was bloodied. His mouthpiece was out. The ref stood by watching, however, and allowed it to continue.
No doubt still rocked in the second, Alcantara’s time was up. Sandhagen got the upper hand and the dominant position again and landed more ground. Still the ref looked on, with Sandhagen even motioning as if to say “how badly do I need to beat him?” Then, mercifully, the ref waved it off.
What a CRAZY 30 seconds between @Cors_Life and @IuriMarajo! #UFCLincoln pic.twitter.com/G7ms6Hgm04
— UFC (@ufc) August 26, 2018
Sandhagen has had two fights in the UFC so far and has completely destroyed the opposition, after defeating a top 15 bantamweight tonight we can see he has tons of potential and it’ll be fun to see where he goes from here at 135 pounds.
Cory Sandhagen def. Iuri Alcantara by TKO, Round 2, 1:01
