Exciting Korean middleweight Jun-Yong Park, aka “The Iron Turtle,” took on fresh-faced Russian Denis Tiuliulin on the prelims of UFC Vegas 68.
Tiuliulin looked thoroughly outclassed in his debut in the UFC but in his second and most recent performance, he beat Jamie Pickett up before TKOing him in the second round. Meanwhile, Park had a stellar record of 5-2 in the UFC since his debut in 2019, meaning a win could find him close to a ranking in his next fight.
Tiuliulin advanced out of the gate and seemed to have a hands advantage early on. Park mostly worked the jab and actually seemed to damage his face quite quickly. Then the Iron Turtle shot a takedown and after a bit of a struggle against the cage, he got Tiuliulin down. Park settled into a dominant full mount position with Tiuliulin’s head up against the fence.
Park wrapped up a potential guillotine, though it may have been more to control the posture of the Russian. Park had trouble finding room to strike down, but after two minutes of control time and with two minutes left in the round he opened up with elbows, which had Tiuliulin cut open quickly.
Denis did not appear to be doing the things he needed to be doing to escape or defend himself. With one minute left in the round he turned to his back after receiving a warning from Mark Smith. This was exactly what ‘The Iron Turtle’ wanted as he locked up a rear-naked choke on the battered Tiuliulin, who was out after about three seconds of the choke being locked in.
Official Result: Jun-Yong Park def. Denis Tiuliulin by submission (rear-naked choke), Round 1, 4:05
