After suffering back-to-back losses for the first time in his career, light heavyweight Kennedy Nzechukwu was looking to correct course when he faced Karl Roberson at Saturday’s UFC Vegas 58.
Roberson for his part had lost three straight, a skid that had started during his middleweight stint. For obvious reasons, Saturday was a must-win situation for “Baby K,” and very possibly for Nzechukwu as well.
Round one began with Roberson attempting to take Nzechukwu down, but with the lack of size to put the big man down he ended up defending submission attempts the entire round. Not much in terms of offense for either man other than Nzechukwu going for neck cranks constantly.
Round two and Roberson came out firing on the feet, but that didn’t last long as Nzechukwu took him down. As they went back to what round one looked like Nzechukwu elected to land shots from the back of Roberson. After a couple minutes of dominating him on the ground Nzechukwu was able to get to full mount landing bombs and forcing Roberson to defend constantly. Not much Roberson could do once he hit the ground and was forced to defend neck cranks and hammer fists from bottom position.
Round three Roberson tried to take the fight to Nzechukwu and had success for a moment, but was then taken down and mounted quickly. Roberson fought to scramble as much as he could, but Nzechukwu remained on top. More scrambling from Roberson, but it was for not as Nzechukwu landed massive elbows from top position and Herb Dean was forced to call the fight.
Official Result: Kennedy Nzechukwu def. Karl Roberson via R3 2:19 TKO
