Marcin Tybura beats down and submits Tai Tuivasa in UFC Vegas 88 main event
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to us tonight, March 16, 2024, for UFC Vegas 88, going down live from the UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada.
Headlining the event was a heavyweight bout between no. 9 ranked former AFC heavyweight champion Tai Tuivasa (14-7) and no. 10 ranked former M-1 Challenge heavyweight champion Marcin Tybura (25-8).
Following a five-fight win streak from 2020 to 2022 with victories over Stefan Struve (KO), Harry Hunsucker (TKO), Greg Hardy (KO), Augusto Sakai (KO), and Derrick Lewis (KO), Tuivasa came into tonight’s main event on a losing skid, suffering defeats to Ciryl Gane, Sergei Pavlovich, and Alexander Volkov over the course of his last three fights.
Tybura also rode a five-fight win streak during 2020 and 2021 with victories over the likes of Serghei Spivac (UD), Maxim Grishin (UD), Ben Rothwell (UD), Greg Hardy (TKO), and Walt Harris (TKO). He’d have that win streak snapped by Alexander Volkov (UD) in 2021, before winning back-to-back fights against Alexandr Romanov (MD) and Blagoy Ivanov (UD). He did however, like Tuivasa, come in tonight off a defeat, his coming to interim champion Tom Aspinall (TKO) last July.
Continue reading to see how our heavyweight main event of the evening went down:
Official Result: Marcin Tybura def. Tai Tuivasa via technical submission (rear naked choke) at 4:08 of round one
Tuivasa landed a good series of elbows that opened up a cut on Tybura’s head early, and also landed a few good punches and leg kicks through the first two minutes of the round. Tybura however secured a double leg takedown and proceeded to take Tuivasa’s back, where he landed an absurd amount of heavy punches from back mount.
Tuivasa attempted to escape the position eventually, but was unsuccessful and continued to get mauled.
Tybura went for a rear naked choke toward the end of the round, Tuivasa of which held on longer than most perhaps would’ve with a rear naked choke fully sunk in on them. He couldn’t hold on forever however and was stopped just over four minutes into the opening round.
MARCIN TYBURA PUTS TAI TUIVASA OUT COLD #UFCVegas88 pic.twitter.com/5YaQkJ0LGu
— Spinnin Backfist (@SpinninBackfist) March 17, 2024
Tai Tuivasa had one other three-fight losing skid prior in his career, which followed a three-fight win streak to open up his UFC tenure. He snapped that skid with his knockout win over Stefan Struve, but he couldn’t this time and has now lost four-straight fights for the first time in his career.
Marcin Tybura on the other hand improves to 8-2 in his last 10 following UFC Vegas 88’s main event.
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