Middleweights Cesar Almeida and Ihor Potieria faced off on the preliminary card of UFC 307 in Salt Lake City, Utah on Saturday night.
A former GLORY kickboxer, Almeida was 1-1 in his UFC run to date, and coming off a loss against Roman Kopylov. Potieria was 2-3 in his last five, and entering off his own loss to Michel “Demolidor” Pereira.
The start of the first round was a battle of technical kickboxing. Potieria had a lot of success early in the fight going to the body against Almeida which opened up some nice left hands. Almeida had a lot of success of his own using his kicks and countering Potieria in the first round. Potieria decided to mix in his grappling landing a takedown after a couple of tries. Almeida however showed that he had worked on that part of his game after his last time out against Kopylov.
The start of the second round wasn’t off to the best start. Almeida eye poked Potieria but the ref dismissed it and then shortly after, Almeida followed that foul with a shot to the groin area. Right after that Almeida seemed to have poked Potieria again with no point deduction. The fight resumed, inexplicably a third eye poke followed, but wasn’t called. Potieria went back to his grappling but Almeida was able to get back to his feet and do some grappling of his own with a tight mounted guillotine. He was able to use it to mount Potieria and land some nasty ground and pound from the top position.
Most people didn’t expect the middleweight pair to make it to round three but they were able to get there. The third round started with another eye poke that the ref didn’t pay any mind to. Ultimate Finger-poking Championship was in full swing. The two fighters were extremely tired throughout this final round but that was to be expected with the high altitude in Salt Lake City. Ultimately, Almeida was able to kick box his way to victory and counter the grappling approach of Potieria. Despite roughly five eye pokes and a groin shot, Almeida did what he’s known for with his kickboxing.
Almeida is now 2-1 in the UFC and can look to build off of this win. He did a lot of things better in comparison to his last outing, and made tons of improvements for this fight that showed. This was a huge win for his MMA career at UFC 307.
Official Result: Cesar Almeida def. Ihor Potieria by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
