Bantamweights Alatengheili and Kleydson Rodrigues were the second fight in at UFC Vegas 92 on Saturday, with both fighters looking to bounce back from setbacks in their last outings.
Rodrigues had been submitted by Farid Basharat, while Heili had dropped a decision to Chris Gutierrez.
The bout began with both fighters measuring the distance and Rodrigues circling the outside throwing stinging kicks. Half a minute in, and Rodrigues threw a leg kick that took Alatengheili off of his feet. Rodrigues was able to quickly slap on a guillotine, but Alatengheili initiated a scramble and ended up on top in his opponent’s guard, in the center of the octagon.
Midway through the opening round and Alatengheili was landing short strikes in his opponent’s guard with Rodriguez occasionally returning with a few elbows of his own from bottom. There were a couple of times throughout the second half of the round where Kleydson looked to shift his hips and escape from the bottom but was ultimately unable to. The round ended with Alatengheili having secured around four minutes of ground control.
The second round began with Rodrigues again throwing multiple kicks and landing, hard. Alatengheili was continually moving forward trying to close the distance but the threat of the kicks were temporarily backing him off. A minute in and multiple calf kicks landed from Rodrigues and the redness on Alatengheli’s shin was very noticeable. Alatengheili finally scored with a couple of shots in there. With two minutes left in the round, Alatengheili scooped up a single leg and dumped his opponent to the ground close to the cage. Toward the end of the round Rodrigues temporarily looked at isolating the arm for a submission attempt but wasn’t able to secure it.
To open the final round Rodriges landed a hard spinning back fist and then a jumping knee but his opponent barely looked affected by it. Alatengheili was still inching forward, always pressuring as he had the entire fight and looking to throw punches while his opponent was still mixing up various hard kicks beautifully. With three minutes left in the round, Alatengheili still had Rodrigues moving laterally and throwing kicks with his extreme pressure. With nearly two minutes left in the round Rodrigues looked for a double leg takedown against the cage but was reversed and taken down himself by Alatengheili. From Kleydson’s closed guard, Alatengheili was landing meaningful short strikes as his opponent again was looking to isolate his arm for a submission. And that is where the fight would stay for the sound of the final bell.
Official Result: Alatengheili def. Kleydson Rodrigues by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
