Jonathan Pearce stops a fading Makwan Amirkhani at UFC London
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us today, July 23, 2022, for UFC Fight Night 208, going down live from the o2 Arena in London, England.
Headlining the event is a heavyweight clash of contenders between no. 4 Curtis Blaydes (16-3) and no. 6 Tom Aspinall (12-2), and co-headlining is a middleweight contest between Jack Hermansson (22-7) and Chris Curtis (29-8).
Our first preliminary feature bout went down in the featherweight division between Makwan Amirkhani (17-7) and Jonathan Pearce (12-4).
Amirkhani just snapped a three-fight losing skid earlier this year in March with his submission victory over former Olympian Mike Grundy, while Pearce has won three-straight since losing his promotional debut to Joe Lauzon.
Continue reading to see how this 145 lb encounter went down:
Official Result: Jonathan Pearce def. Makwan Amirkhani via TKO (punches) at 4:10 of round one
Amirkhani comes out with a furious pace and uses a lot of energy attempting a single leg takedown. He eats a lot of elbows for his troubles, opening up a nasty cut on the side of his head. He is able to get Pearce down a couple times, but not for long.
Pearce’s takedown defense is looking great thus far, he even used a kimura sweep to get on top of Amirkhani at the end of the round.
Amirkhani’s left cross is working very well for him, he lands it every time he throws it, but he doesn’t appear confident enough on the feet to continue striking, as he continues to shoot on takedowns.
Amirkhani tries to wrap up his trademark anaconda choke in the first, but Pearce is able to defend it and keep going.
Pearce takes Amirkhani down quite handily in the beginning of the second and remains on top until the fight is stopped late in the round. If there’s one critique people could have about Amirkhani, it’s that he always fades as the fight goes on. Well, it happened again today.
Nonetheless, Jonathan Pearce improves his record to 13-4 (9 knockouts) with this dominant and impressive victory, and he’s now on a four-fight win streak with three finishes.
If you enjoyed this piece, feel free to share it on social media!
