Highly-touted welterweight prospects Erick Silva and Luis Ramos locked horns on the UFC 134 undercard after Silva’s original opponent, Mike Swick, was forced off the card due to a knee injury.
Silva became the first Jungle Fight champion last October and was signed to the UFC earlier in the year. The X-Gym and Team Nogueira fighter has never been finished in his career and the Brazilian holds black belts in both jiu-jitsu and judo.
With Swick’s injury, Ramos was tabbed as a replacement just three weeks prior to the fight. The Nova Uniao product entered with an experience advantage, but has faced lesser competition than Silva.
Silva opened looking for a takedown, but Ramos stuffed it and chased with strikes. A huge right hand from Silva dropped Ramos and a flurry of punches forced referee Herb Dean to stop the fight.
With the victory, Silva moves to 13-1. In his post fight interview Silva was thankful of the opportunity to fight in the promotion. He credited his teammates for his performance.
Official result: Erick Silva def. Luis Ramos via TKO (strikes) at 0:40 of Round 1.
Rob Tatum is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA. You can also find Rob’s work at TheMMACorner.com. For anything related to MMA, you can follow Rob on Twitter @RobTatumMMA.