(All gifs courtesy of Zombie Prophet.)
SPOILER ALERT: Despite being one of the only fighters to actually make weight yesterday, it’s safe to say that Phil Baroni’s bout with Nobutatsu Suzuki didn’t go quite as planned at ONE FC ‘Rise to Power’ earlier today.
After getting backed into the cage by a series of knees around the four minute mark of the first round, Baroni was dropped by a Suzuki right hand that appeared to put him down for the count. A few follow up punches wrote this notion home and the referee was forced to step in. Unfortunately, said ref didn’t appear to notice that Baroni’s foot was trying to break free from the rest of his leg and provided little comfort for “The New York Bad Ass,” who now falls to 15-17 in his professional MMA career. At this point in his career, Baroni should consider challenging James “Why Me?” Irvin for the right to be called the most cursed man in MMA.
Of course, Baroni wasn’t the only former UFC star to suffer a tough loss this morning…
Yes, former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia suffered a(nother) setback in his quest to end his career in the UFC, and we’re not talking about the fact that he showed up to yesterday’s weigh-ins 7 pounds over the heavyweight limit. After being spared a loss against rival Andrei Arlovski in his last ONE FC appearance via a loosely-defined technicality, “The Maine-Iac” was outgunned by young prospect Tony Johnson earlier this morning.
Sylvia simply had no answers for the speed and wrestling prowess of Johnson, who worked Sylvia over for three rounds before opening a fight-ending cut above the eye of the former champ with a minute and a half left in the fight. No word yet on whether or not Sylvia will combat this latest setback by calling out one of those “overrated” UFC heavyweights we keep hearing him talk about.
Speaking of UFC veterans, Koji Oishi — best known as the guy who tried to block Nick Diaz’s punches with punches in a bizarre octagon appearance back at UFC 53 – successfully captured the ONE FC featherweight title in this morning’s main event with a second round knockout of Honorio Banario. It was Oishi’s first win under the ONE FC banner, and improved his overall record to 23-9-10.
A full list of results from ONE FC ‘Rise to Power’ is below.
Main Card:
-Koji Oishi def. Honorio Banario by KO (punches) at 1:45 of Round Two
-Bibiano Fernandes def. Koetsu Okazaki by unanimous decision
-Masakatsu Ueda def. Kevin Belingon by unanimous decision
-Yasuhiro Urushitani def. Rey Docyogen by split decision
-Nobutatsu Suzuki def. Phil Baroni by TKO (strikes/injury) at 4:17 of Round One
-Kamal Shalorus def. Eduard Folayang by unanimous decision
-Andrew Leone def. Geje Estaquio by unanimous decision
Under Card:
-Lowen Tynanes def. Felipe Enomoto by TKO (elbows) at 2:41 of Round One
-Yusup Saadulaev def. Ryan Diaz by submission (D’arce choke) at 2:57 of Round Two
-Tony Johnson def. Tim Sylvia by TKO (cut) at 3:25 of Round Three