Welterweights Wellington Turman and Jared Gooden were in action early at Saturday’s UFC Austin Fight Night card, held at the Moody Center in Austin, TX.
Both fighters were looking to return to the win column, with Brazil’s Turman entering the night off back-to-back defeats at the hands of Andre Petroski and Randy Brown. As for Gooden, he was in search of the first win of his second UFC stint.
The fight began with Gooden looking to put on the forward pressure where he let his hands start flying straightaway. Turman moved laterally whilst trying to land some counter shots as Gooden pushed forward. After the initial exchanges, Turman caught Gooden a few times with some hard shots, but it didn’t deter “NiteTrain” from coming forward. Through the first half of round one, both men had their moments of good work. The Brazilian started to ramp it up though and landed a solid flying knee which momentarily wobbled Gooden. Not long after, “The Prodigy” caught a leg of Gooden’s and took him for a big ride as he secured a slam takedown. For the final minute of the round, Turman did well to advance his positions on the ground where he looked for a guillotine, but couldn’t quite find it.
As round two began, Wellington Turman looked to keep his foot on the gas after an impressive first round. Within the first few punches, he hurt Gooden and had him on wobbly legs. Gooden returned a huge barrage of punches of his own which then wobbled the Brazilian and had him clearly dazed. The 29-year-old knew that he had to put Turman away as he was likely still hurt himself. From there he secured the clinch and landed a powerful hip toss where he transitioned to the back of Turman. He sunk in the rear-naked-choke and Turman had to tap.
Despite it only having been the second fight of the night, it would be hard for it to be beat for Fight of the Night.
