Kicking off the UFC Vegas 76 main card on Saturday was debuting middleweight Nursulton Ruziboev, who had drawn undefeated Brazilian Brunno Ferreira for his welcome party.
While Ferreira was 10-0 entering the night, Ruziboev had an insane amount of experience for a debuting athlete, with well over 40 fights to his name.
The initial visuals for this fight were hard to believe as Ruziboev’s size looked huge in comparison to the deceivingly small “Hulk.” You could see early on that Ferreira was calculating how to nullify the range of Ruziboev. The Brazilian looked to land a big low calf kick and it landed relatively heavily. After a few more moments of calculation, he looked to land it again almost directly after, but this time it was caught by the Uzbek. Ruziboev landed a huge right hand after catching the leg of Ferreira, knocking him out clean with one shot.
Dropped him then followed up with vicious ground strikes 😳 #UFCVegas76 pic.twitter.com/7jVWKkEQMv
— UFC (@ufc) July 1, 2023
In his UFC debut, the 29-year-old scored his 20th first round finish, putting a stop to the hype of the Brazilian, Ferreira.
An emotional Ruziboev admitted in his Octagon interview that “I’ve been waiting for this for 10 years, I’ve fought every week, every month to get into the UFC; this is huge for me. I thank God for everything.
“Thank you so much to the president of my country and my parents, I really owe everything to my parents.”
Official Result: Nursulton Ruziboev def. Brunno Ferreira by KO, Round 1, 1:17
