Rounding out the early prelims at UFC 298 were Josh Quinlan and Danny Barlow, paired up in a welterweight fight.
Barlow, a Contender Series alum making his promotional debut, was undefeated coming in while Quinlan was looking to bounce back from his first career loss.
Kicking things off, Barlow immediately took the centre of the Octagon where he landed a calf kick on the lead leg of Quinlan. Barlow continued the forward pressure where he landed a nice slip left hand, shortly followed by a jumping knee that just narrowly missed. Quinlan tried to work himself into this fight around two minutes into the first round, where he landed his first real shot of note, a body kick. “Bushido” then started to dictate the tempo a bit more where it was him he was pushing forward, landing a few quick jabs.
That didn’t last long for Quinlan though, as Barlow once again started leading the exchanges, landing another nice left hand. Quinlan then did well to regain some respect from Barlow as he landed a great right hand. After a boxing exchange, Herzog paused the fight as Barlow accidentally poked the eye of Quinlan, but the fight resumed shortly after. To finish the round, Barlow tried to land another jumping knee, but again he narrowly missed the target.
To begin round two, Quinlan decided to work on the front foot where he looked to walk down Barlow with a high guard. Not much action to note throughout the first half of round two, as the two just took it in turns to exchange boxing combinations, with neither really landing much. Again Herzog stopped the action as Quinlan landed an unintentional low blow. That brought a little bit of fire out of Barlow as he once again landed a few heavy right hands, as the blood started to leak down the eye of Quinlan. Again he landed another sharp and fast left hand to finish another close round.
The final round began with Quinlan likely two rounds down, but he was in no way out of the fight. Barlow continued to apply pressure though, early in the final round, and he once again attempted a flying knee that was narrowly off target. Despite narrowly missing the knee, he landed another huge left hand that dropped Quinlan to his back. From there Quinlan’s toughness showed as he sprung back to his feet momentarily. But Barlow didn’t let up. He continued with ferocity and landed a barrage of strikes that dropped Quinlan again, and Herzog decided that was enough and put a stop to the fight.
Official result: Danny Barlow def. Josh Quinlan by TKO, Round 3, 1:18
