Chris Gutierrez picked up a hard-fought win over Andre Ewell on the UFC 258 prelims.
After being forced off of UFC Vegas 18 a week ago due to a positive COVID-19 test, Andre Ewell was back in action at UFC 258 on Saturday. Ewell, who had been expected to face Cody Stamann last week, instead was up against Chris Gutierrez in a planned 140lb catchweight bout. The fight opened up the televised preliminary portion of the card.
Gutierrez opened with pressure and tried to back Ewell up to the fence. Ewell responded by throwing some kicks to the legs of Gutierrez and trying to find his range. Ewell landed a big overhand left, and started to find some success with the aforementioned left hand, landing the strike a few times early. Gutierrez started slamming his kick to the body and tried to find a home for the right straight but couldn’t land anything upstairs. However, Gutierrez got into the clinch late in the round. In the final seconds Gutierrez landed a clean head kick as Ewell was ducking and dropped Ewell; Gutierrez jumped on with a huge combination but just barely ran out of time.
WOAH! 😱
RD 1️⃣ ends in a wild flurry after @CGutierrezMMA connects. #UFC258 pic.twitter.com/q2wu3ey3Ju
— UFC (@ufc) February 14, 2021
Gutierrez went right back on the attack to start round two, landing some heavy leg kicks and putting Ewell on the backfoot. Gutierrez hurt Ewell with a leg kick early and Ewell tried his best to play it off and landed some leg kicks of his own. Ewell would recover and start to pressure Gutierrez himself, however, it would be short-lived as Gutierrez went back on the attack again following a hard leg kick. Ewell started to find his rhythm late in the round, however, finding a home for his jab and throwing a couple of flashy spinning back kicks out there. Ewell would end the round by taking the fight to the ground and looking for a kneebar.
Gutierrez’s work across the opening two rounds would come back in spades in the final frame, as the leg kicks started to pile up and Ewell visibly had a rough time moving. That began to allow for the right hand that Gutierrez had been trying all night to land, to actually land. Gutierrez landed a hard right hand that rocked Ewell but Ewell survived, Gutierrez then responded with a flurry to the legs of Ewell and Ewell tried to respond by landing a spinning back fist, but that didn’t deter Gutierrez from smacking his legs. Ewell appeared to be in survival mode. Gutierrez landed a huge flurry to end the fight including a superman punch that landed clean to close out the fight.
Official Result: Chris Gutierrez def. Andre Ewell by unanimous decision (30-26, 29-28, 30-27)
