In his last five fights, Martin Kampmann has seen the pre-fight odds stacked against him in all but one of those contests. When those five fights came to their conclusion, Kampmann stood in the center of the Octagon and had his hand raised in victory three times.
According to some, it would not have been out of line for him to have been awarded the other two victories as well.
Kampmann’s fight on Friday night was not the fight he was favored in. In fact, many saw Kampmann getting stopped early by Jake “The Juggernaut” Ellenberger. Ellenberger was on a six-fight UFC winning streak entering his main event bout with Kampmann, with four of those wins coming via KO or TKO.
With than in mind, the thinking that Ellenberger was going to add another victim to his ever-growing list of vanquished opponents was forgivable.
30 seconds into the fight, Ellenberger dropped Kampmann with a left and proceeded to tee off on the downed fighter, but Kampmann weathered the storm, regaining his composure and making it into the second round.
Early in the second round, Ellenberger again rocked Kampmann, leaving him with a badly damaged nose. Kampmann was obviously concerned about the damage he had sustained, as he kept touching his bloodied beak, but he didn’t let him distract him from the task at hand, which was moving past Ellenberger.
Kampmann delivered three knees from the clinch that sent Ellenberger to the ground and brought the referee in for the stoppage.
If we have learned one lesson about Martin Kampmann, it’s that he’s a resilient fighter and oh, yeah, if the odds are against him, you could do much worse than to put your money on “The Hitman.”
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