Jonathan Martinez wins six-straight, batters Adrian Yanez with brutal leg kicks at UFC Vegas 81

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to us tonight, October 14, 2023, for UFC Vegas 81, going down live from the UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada.

Headlining the event is a featherweight bout between no. 11 ranked Sodiq Yusuff (13-2) and no. 13 ranked Edson Barboza (23-11).

Our co-main event of the evening came in flyweight division between no. 9 ranked former title challenger Jennifer Maia (21-9-1) and no. 11 ranked Viviane Araujo (11-5).

Tonight’s feature bout came at 135 lbs between no. 13 ranked Jonathan Martinez (19-4) and no. 14 ranked Adrian Yanez (16-5).

Martinez came into the bout on a five-fight win streak, while Yanez came in off the first defeat of his promotional tenure following a 5-0 start to his UFC journey.

Continue reading to see how this bantamweight affair went down:

Official Result: Jonathan Martinez def. Adrian Yanez via TKO (leg kicks) at 2:26 of round two

Martinez absolutely batters Yanez’ leg throughout the opening round, dropping him with it twice. Yanez bites down and lands a few good combinations in the midst, but his lead leg is severely compromised following the first five minutes.

Martinez continues battering the lead leg of Yanez in round two, and his hands begin to follow and piece Yanez up. Yanez eventually falls to the leg kick yet again, it happening multiple times in round two as well, and the referee is forced to stop the action.

Jonathan Martinez finishes Adrian Yanez round 2
The leg kicks!!!! 🔥 🔥 #UFCFightNight #UFC#JonathanMartinez#AdrianYanez pic.twitter.com/fAHZQvtTdn

— EloElChapelo (@EloElChapelo) October 15, 2023

15 UFC fights have now been stopped via leg kicks, and there were previously just two fighters that have two leg kick finishes inside the promotion, Edson Barboza and Chris Gutierrez. Ironically enough Barboza is in tonight’s main event and Gutierrez is Martinez’ teammate, who also fought and won earlier on the card tonight.

Nonetheless, Jonathan Martinez becomes the third fighter in UFC history with two different TKO victories via leg kicks, his first coming 364 days ago against Cub Swanson, and he improves his win streak to six-straight tonight at UFC Vegas 81.

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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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