A former Strikeforce and K-1 kickboxing champion, Overeem (41-15) dropped Miocic with a left hand in the opening moments and immediately went for a guillotine.
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Miocic has been very respectful of Overeem in the lead-up to their fight, giving the No. 1 contender the rightful due he’s earned over the course of his legendary career.
The main event was what the sold-out crowd came to see, but there were several other matchups of interest.
However, Miocic says that he has trained even harder for his title defense than he did when he knocked out Fabricio Werdum in the first round at UFC 198.
That’s when it got weird.
It was the fourth straight win for Miocic and third consecutive first-round knockout, but Overeem had a slight issue with the outcome.
“Stipe was the better man today”, Overeem said. “He’s a great athlete”.
Miocic will be hoping that his reign as UFC Heavyweight Champion will last more than one fight, “I worked so hard to get this belt, why wouldn’t I want to keep it?” he said. However, to Browne’s credit, he continued to fight despite the injury. But in my opinion, he tapped and it’s a bummer and we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board.
Earlier on in the evening, the prelim fights saw UFC veteran Nik Lentz win with a second-round KO of Michael McBride, a late stand-in for up and coming Chechen Mairbek Taisumov, who had to pull out because of problems with his visa. You would think that, anyway. “I thought he tapped”. It was a career moment for the OH native, who was forced to win the title inside the unfriendly confines of Curitiba, Brazil, against Fabricio Werdum at UFC 198.
Soon after Overeem made the accusation in his post-fight speech with color commentator Joe Rogan, the UFC’s production team replayed the choke sequence from different angles, and from what was shown it didn’t look like Miocic tapped out.
Overeem elected to pursue a guillotine choke instead of trying to finish Miocic with punches on the ground.
Overeem claimed that since winning the title, Miocic has been living the high life and not preparing properly for their upcoming match-up.
‘He came in hot so I took him down, ‘ Gall said. Yep, there’s the courageous new world of mixed martial arts matchmaking for you: A WWE pro wrestler with a 0-0 record in nonscripted combat sports will be stepping into the octagon as part of the UFC 203 pay-per-view.
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His engagement this weekend with Overeem has some parallels to his fight against Werdum. He put me on my ass, I felt fine.
