Randy Brown defeats Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos in UFC 302 main card opener
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, June 1, 2024, for UFC 302, going down live from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Headlining the event is a lightweight championship affair showcasing no. 1 pound-for-pound ranked Islam Makhachev (25-1), who attempts to make the third defense of his title tonight opposing no. 4 ranked former interim champion Dustin Poirier (30-8) in the main event of the evening.
Co-headlining the event is a middleweight bout between no. 1 ranked former champion Sean Strickland (28-6) and no. 7 ranked former title challenger Paulo Costa (14-3).
Our main card opener came at 170 lbs between Randy Brown (19-5) and Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos (24-8-1).
Brown came into the bout on a two-fight win streak, having gone 6-1 over his last seven (12-5 UFC), while dos Santos, following a seven-fight win streak from 2016 to 2019, had since gone 3-2-1 over his last six (10-3-1 UFC), going undefeated through his latest three appearances since 2021.
Continue reading to see how this welterweight encounter went down:
Official Result: Randy Brown def. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Brown got to work with his boxing early, keeping dos Santos at range with his punches and movement. Dos Santos was unfortunately poked in the eye twice in the opening round, the first time of which the referee gave him about 10 seconds to recover before restarting the action, and the second he didn’t pause the action at all.
Brown soon after landed a heavy punch combination that wobbled dos Santos. The Brazilian returned with some heavy combinations of his own, but ate a nasty flying knee in the final seconds of round one.
Dos Santos landed a hard right hand in the second and soon after secured a takedown, eventually taking Brown’s back and searching for the rear naked choke. He held the position for a time, before Brown spun into his guard in the final 30 seconds of the second. Brown then took his back and attempted a rear naked choke of his own, also landing some vicious punches from back control as the clock ran down.
Brown landed that nasty right knee up the middle once more midway through round three, opening a cut on dos Santos’ head in doing so, and defending dos Santos’ takedown attempt following.
Randy Brown is now 7-1 in his last eight, and he called out no. 10 ranked Geoff Neal for a fight in the near future.
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