Jared Cannonier brutally stops Derek Brunson at UFC 271

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, February 12, 2022, for UFC 271, going down live at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas.

Headlining the event is a middleweight championship rematch between UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and No. 1 ranked former champion Robert Whittaker.

Since their first meeting, the champion has gone 3-1, his only defeat coming at 205 lbs whilst challenging for that belt, while the former champion has gone 3-0 since his defeat to Adesanya.

In fact, Whittaker is 11-1 at 185 lbs in the UFC, the only defeat coming to the champion. He was also coming off the longest layoff of his career going into that first encounter.

Our feature bout of the evening also came in the middleweight division, this one between No. 3 ranked Jared Cannonier, who’s looking to make it two-straight victories, and No. 4 ranked Derek Brunson, who comes into the bout on a five-fight win streak.

Continue reading to see how this epic middleweight clash went down:

Official Result: Jared Cannonier def. Derek Brunson via KO (elbows) at 4:29 of round two

Cannonier opens up the bout pressuring Brunson backward and is looking imposing with his strikes. It forces a shot out of Brunson, though it’s stuffed, until he tries again and secures it.

Cannonier is right back up to his feet, however, he’s taken down again and mounted for a short time.

Brunson drops Cannonier with a hook at the end of the first and jumps on a rear naked choke as Cannonier drops, though Cannonier is saved by the bell.

Brunson secures another takedown to start round two but is caught with a nasty punch once Cannonier returned to his feet, and the tide started to shift right then and there.

Cannonier starts to pick Brunson apart with his heavy punches and leg kicks and lands a nice combo that stuns Brunson badly.

After some follow up punches, Brunson falls to his back, where Cannonier follows him into his half guard, as he reigned down some elbows to get the KO stoppage. Cannonier would later call for his middleweight title shot following the win.

Calling his shot 🗣

[ @KillaGorillaMMA | #UFC271 ] pic.twitter.com/iT6Xf2fJlT

— UFC (@ufc) February 13, 2022

Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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