Gregory Rodrigues survives violent assault and breaks Chidi Njokuani at UFC Vegas 60
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, September 17, 2022, for UFC Vegas 60, going down live from the Apex Center in Enterprise, Nevada.
Headlining the event is a bantamweight clash, as no. 4 ranked Cory Sandhagen (14-4) faces no. 10 ranked Song Yadong (19-5-1-1) in the main event of the evening.
Co-headlining the event is a middleweight encounter between Chidi Njokuani (22-7) and Gregory Rodrigues (12-4).
Njokuani, following some recent hiccups under the Bellator banner, had won his last four-straight, all via knockout, including two-straight inside the octagon. Rodrigues on the other hand is an elite level black belt in BJJ with some nasty kickboxing of his own (Njokuani is a former professional kickboxer), winning five of his last six victories via KO.
Continue reading to see how this epic preliminary main event went down:
Official Result: Gregory Rodrigues def. Chidi Njokuani via TKO (punches) at 1:27 of round two
Njokuani lands three nice front snap kicks up the middle to start the bout, before timing a vicious knee off a takedown attempt from Rodrigues. The knee cracks Rodrigues right square in his face and immediately backs him up, but he stays in there swinging back heavy leather himself.
Rodrigues’ face is busted up bad just one minute into the fight. Njokuani drops him again, but is unable to secure the finish, and ends up eating some vicious shots that drop him not long thereafter.
This fight is insane!
This is the first fight of Njokuani’s UFC career that’s made it past the first round. And, that’s what appears to be his downfall, as Rodrigues gets right back in his grill and continues to wear on him with a variety of hard shots.
Njokuani is becoming more and more exhausted with every second that passes, and Rodrigues secures a beautiful takedown en route to a TKO finish courtesy of his ground-and-pound early on in round two.
A world BJJ champion, and six of his last seven wins come via knockout, this one over a kickboxing champion.
Gregory Rodrigues went through absolute hell tonight, and the doctor nearly stopped the fight after round one due to that nasty gash on the bridge of his nose. The referee was told to stop the fight should it be reopened. Of his four defeats, two come via split decision, and he’s now 13-4 (11 finishes) as a professional (4-1 UFC).
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