A battle of ‘Contender Series’ vs. ‘Road to UFC’ alumns went down between bantamweights Cortavious Romious and Chang Ho Lee at UFC Vegas 105 on Saturday night.
Romious (9-3) came into the fight still looking for his first promotional victory coming off a tough decision loss in his debut last November. He got a shot against Lee, but came in heavy on the scale 3.5 pounds overweight. Fortunately for him Lee agreed to go ahead with the bout.
Lee (10-1) won his UFC debut via split-decision last June after a successful run on Road To UFC. He looked to begin a win streak at the UFC APEX against Romious.
Round 1 Romious worked the jab early, but Lee went after him with flurries of strikes not letting him breathe. Romious landed a nice uppercut, but found himself defending a takedown from Lee.
Lee got the takedown after it seemed Romious would get away. Lee began working the handcuffs and legs laced, but Romious found his way back to his feet. Instead of looking to get back to striking he used his strength to get Lee to the ground. Not what fighters usually want to do with Lee.
Romious started working on the back take, transitioned to an arm bar attempt, but Lee got loose and landed some damage on him. Then he went in and took the back with a body triangle.
Lee landed a shot that busted Romious open, forced him belly down, and then went off landing shots on him. Romious used all of his strength to top position and helped him survive the round.
Round 2 Lee flew in close on Romious and landed an incidental knee to the groin forcing a time out from the ref. Romious got time to rest.
After just a couple minutes the action began again and the two got right after it landing on each other. Romious got the back position again after a quick takedown. Lee went belly down, but Romious seemed a bit too high on the back.
Lee slammed him down, but Romious went arm bar. Lee defended it and took top position. Romious once again was able to power out of the position and put Lee on the fence before going for the arm bar once again. Lee was able to get his arm out of danger and took the position.
Lee landed plenty of damage in back position with the body triangle forcing the referee to call the fight.
Another win for South Korea’s Chang Ho Lee.
Official Result: Chang Ho Lee def. Cortavious Romious via R2 TKO, 3:48
