On a night that was headlined by six top-10 fighters in their respective weight classes, it was an undercard bout between lightweights Evan Dunham and Nik Lentz which stole the show and won a decisive “Fight of the Night” bonus from the UFC on FOX 2 event.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Lentz stepped into the fight against Dunham on short notice, just a month and a half after his most recent bout against Mark Bocek at UFC 140. Lentz let his hands fly perhaps more than we have ever seen him do in his UFC career, but ended up on his back where he took a huge elbow from Dunham that opened up a large cut under his left eye.
The fight was eventually stopped between the second and third rounds as Dunham was declared the winner by TKO.
“I was surprised by it,” Dunham told MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani after the bout, regarding the stoppage. “Honestly, I wanted the fight to continue. I felt momentum was building majorly in my favor and I was very confident I was going to put him away in the third. I was a little bit disappointed when they stopped it because I wanted to keep fighting.”
Dunham did admit that he would have probably given the first round to Lentz if he was a judge, but it didn’t end up mattering whatsoever as he was able to finish the fight with the elbows. It will be interesting to see where this highly skilled and motivated lightweight goes in 2012.
“I’d really like to fight the winner of the [Joe] Lauzon and [Anthony] Pettis fight,” Dunham said.
Whoever his next fight is, Dunham will be riding some serious momentum after this impressive victory.
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