Sean Strickland survives early onslaught, TKO’s Abus Magomedov in UFC Vegas 76 main event

The Ultimate Fighting Championships returns to us tonight for UFC Vegas 76, going down live from the UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada.

Headlining the event was a middleweight showdown between no. 7 ranked former KOTC middleweight champion Sean Strickland (27-5) and Russian finisher Abus Magomedov (25-5-1).

Strickland had gone 6-2 since returning to 185 lbs, though many believed he should’ve been 7-1 in those eight fights with victories over no. 10 ranked Jack Hermansson, no. 11 ranked Brendan Allen, and no. 13 ranked Nassourdine Imavov.

Magomedov on the other hand had gone 12-1-1 since 2016 with wins over 2022 PFL welterweight champion Sadibou Sy, as well as Dustin Stoltzfus in his UFC debut, who he dispatched of in a mere 19 seconds.

Continue reading to see how this middleweight main event of the evening went down:

Official Result: Sean Strickland def. Abus Magomedov via TKO (punches) at 4:20 of round two

Magomedov has a strong opening round, flustering Strickland with the diversity in his attack.

The most successful strike he lands throughout round one is his front snap kick, which he landed over 10 times in the first five minutes. He also took Strickland down and took his back momentarily.

Magomedov looks really good early on.

The second round couldn’t have gone more differently however.

Strickland lands a solid combination in the beginning of the second, and Magomedov’s gas tank immediately goes down with Strickland continues to just tee off on him. Eventually, toward the end of the round Strickland drops Magomedov and secures the finish.

https://twitter.com/FireMMAVid/status/1675322529156612096?s=20

Sean Strickland just improved his streak to two-straight with this victory over Abus Magomedov at UFC Vegas 76.

Sean Strickland 🇺🇸 def. Abus Magomedov 🇩🇪 via TKO in the round 2! Very, very bad cardio of Abus.#UFC #UFCVegas75 pic.twitter.com/zLHZUmgtlo

— C H A M P 🏆 (@shadowxwulfik) July 2, 2023

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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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