Top light-heavyweight prospect Vitor Petrino beat Tyson Pedro in UFC Vegas 87’s co-main event, after which Pedro announced his surprise retirement.
Undefeated Brazilian Vitor Petrino took the 205-lb division by storm with three straight wins to start his UFC career, and showed his well-roundedness by winning each one with a different method: decision, submission, and then brutal knockout. He took on a prospect of the past, Australia’s Tyson Pedro, who is also well-rounded but has faced myriad ups and downs in his career, including a brutal injury which kept him out for four years. Now 3-1 since his return from that injury, he attempted to derail Petrino’s hype train like Ilir Latifi and Ovince St. Preux had once done to him.
Pedro began with his patented leg kicks in a fight that started slowly; Petrino tried to corral him but his poor cagecraft and Tyson’s own footwork kept him off the fence. Vitor had trouble getting into striking range but found the mark with a few good jabs. With one minute left he connected with a body kick to right hand, the biggest connections of the round. Still, the round ended with neither man really having gotten going.
The second round saw them begin to open up more at first, then Pedro shot for a takedown. The pair jockeyed for position against the fence and then Petrino went for his own takedown. That failed and they got back to center. Petrino worked with his jab but did not put anything behind it and Tyson did occasional good work with his kicks. Pedro failed another takedown with two minutes left. The round ended with little more happening, and even less damage done than the first round as a whole.
Petrino stunned Pedro with two big jabs and a right hand to start the third round as he turned up the pace by quite a bit. More volume followed in the form of leg kicks and jabs – jabs with quite a bit of power behind them that caught Tyson’s attention. However, the Brazilian then clinched up with double underhooks. He tried to muscle Pedro to the mat and got the back body-lock. That, he used to slam the Australian to the mat and slide a hook in as Pedro tried to get up again. He used his sheer strength to slam Tyson to the mat every time that Pedro tried to get up. Petrino hunted a choke a few times but never got that close until the final ten seconds, when there was not enough time left to finish his arm-triangle choke attempt.
The third round was the only round that was clear, but due to it being so dominant for Petrino he only needed to have won one of the first two on two judges’ scorecards in order to get the nod. In fact, when the scores were read out, two judges gave him all three rounds while the other one gave him two, so Vitor Petrino remained undefeated as a pro. At just twenty-six he has a bright future in front of him, though he will have to fix some of his tactical and strategic issues when he faces the top-fifteen light-heavyweights in the world.
After Petrino’s interview, Tyson Pedro announced his retirement from professional MMA, stating that his dreams have changed now and that all he ever wanted was to show his daughter that her dreams are possible, a beautiful sentiment.
Official Result: Vitor Petrino def. Tyson Pedro by Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
