Auckland’s City Kickboxing’s first three of six fighters at UFC 293 in Sydney have started with a win and two losses.
Welterweight debutant Kevin ‘Air’ Jousset kicked off the early preliminaries against Ireland’s Kiefer Crosbie, forcing a submission from the Irishman with a rear-naked choke, to extend his win streak and first-round finishes to four-a-piece
Despite ‘eating’ a few good hits from Crosbie, Jousset’s jab proved pivotal enabling him to deliver the decisive chokehold just before the first round ended.
Shane Young was next up. The Kiwi featherweight lost to Brazillian opponent Gabriel Miranda by submission inside a minute of the first round.
It was Young’s fourth-straight UFC loss after the referee called it in Miranda’s favour, who won via a rear-naked choke.
The Ngāti Kahungunu fighter missed weight by a few pounds, meaning he passed on 30 per cent of his fight money to Miranda as a penalty.
Zimbabwe-born Mike Mathetha, aka ‘Blood Diamond’, closed out the early prelims against American Charles Radtke in the welterweight competition.
Despite Diamond landing more strikes than his opponent - even after being rocked in the second round - Radtke’s wrestling skills proved too much, earning the American a unanimous 29-27 victory. Diamond’s UFC record is now 0-3.
Still to come is light-heavyweight knockout supremo, Carlos Ulberg, whose matchup with South Korea’s Da Woon Jung is the featured preliminary fight.
Later, Tyson Pedro opens the main card from 2pm (NZT), with middleweight champion Israel Adesanya defending his gold against the USA’s Sean Strickland in the main event.
