Bantamweight Sergey Morozov, a participant in one of the best fights of 2022 against Douglas Silva de Andrade, took on Journey Newson at UFC Vegas 66 on Saturday.
After trading wins and losses for the first four fights of his UFC run, three of which were against ranked or formerly ranked fighters, Morozov looked to get on his first winning streak in the promotion. Meanwhile, Newson, had just picked up his first official win in the promotion earlier this year and was similarly intent on adding to it to create a winning streak.
Morozov came out backing Newson to the fence but both men had trouble landing strikes at first. The side to side movement of Newson were effective at avoiding the strikes of Morozov. Halfway into round one Morozov entered on a double leg and got Newson to his back. Newson was able to turn to his knees and get to his feet momentarily before getting tripped back down. He got back up again but Morozov maintained the rear body-lock in the clinch and just wore down Newson with knees until Newson separated with a minute left in the round. Morozov partially landed a flying knee to the chin towards the end of the first and then right before the buzzer there was a flurry where both men landed.
The second round began similarly to the first but Newson began to use the calf kick, which was effective. For his part, Morozov was focusing on body kicks as the head movement and footwork of Newson had been effective at avoiding most of the strikes to the head in round one. Still, Morozov had trouble doing much damage. Again it was halfway through the round when Morozov shot a takedown and again he ended up holding Newson in the rear body-lock while he landed knees to the legs and body. Every time that Sergey landed a takedown Newson was able to get back to his feet but he was unable to escape the clinch until the round ended.
Early in the final round Newson landed some good shots and was able to finally put Morozov on the back foot. This time it was one minute into the round that Morozov landed his takedown as he lifted and slammed his opponent to the floor. Unlike the first two rounds Morozov was able to actually get control, take the back, and get both hooks in. However one minute later Newson exploded to escape but right away Morozov level changed again and got back to the rear body-lock, though this time he did little to no damage from that position.
Newson eventually got to turn to face Morozov and he finally got back to range with forty seconds left in the round. Only twenty seconds later Morozov got to the rear body-lock again, lifted his foe, and pulled him to the mat once more right before the bell rang.
When the scorecards were read it was the wrestling of Morozov that won out as all three judges scored the fight for the Kazakh fighter, one judge giving him all three rounds and the others giving him two.
Official Result: Sergey Morozov def. Journey Newson by Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
