Mariusz Pudzianowski had to use all facets of his game to claim a majority decision victory over Jay Silva in the main event of KSW 40 in Dublin’s 3 Arena on Sunday.
Initially slated to meet James McSweeney, KSW was forced to remove the British fighter from the card when his medical status was still pending the day before the event.
Pudzianowski threw the kitchen sink at Silva from the first bell, swinging big overhand rights and looking to score a takedown. When Silva attempted to land a flying knee, Pudzian took him to the ground and tried to attack a rear naked choke before the round ended.
The Polish icon pushed forward in the second and sprawled as Silva looked for a double leg. From top position, he controlled the round comfortably.
In the third round, Pudzianowski had visibly tired and Silva threw punches in bunches as he looked to close the distance. As Silva continued his onslaught, Pudzianowski caught a double leg and immediately began to press home his advantage from top position.
In the final 90 seconds, Silva somehow managed to take top position and immediately started to lay into Pudzianowski with ground and pound. Just when it seemed like he could be finished, Pudzianowski swept Silva and began to land shots from Silva’s open guard.
In the co-feature bout, Norman Parke and Mateusz Gamrot ended in a no contest after Parke suffered two pokes to his eye over the opening two rounds.
Parke was initially slated to meet Gamrot in a five-round title fight, but having failed to hit the scales at 155 lbs, the fight was changed to a three-round, non-title.
The bad blood between the two was evident as they launched themselves into the exchanges. The action had to be stopped twice in the opening round when Parke was hit low and later poked.
In the second round, Parke fell to the ground after he was poked for a second time. Marc Goddard waved the fight off to the disgust of the fans in attendance. After the fight was stopped, one of Gamrot’s corner men appeared to punch Parke, prompting security to get involved and separate the two camps.
Michal Materla turned down an opportunity to fight at UFC Gdansk to take on Paulo Thiago in Dublin. The Polish middleweight threatened with a kimura after conceding two takedowns in the first round and managed to catch the Brazilian with a short uppercut.
Materla came out fast in the second and buckled Thiago with a right hand that sent him down inside the first minute. Materla gave him no time to recover and poured on strikes before the referee stepped in to stop the action.
Ariane Lipski proved why she is garnering so much attention in Poland when she defended her flyweight title in less than a minute against Mariana Morais. After striking in the early exchanges, Lipski pounced on her opponent’s back when she saw a gap. Seconds after applying the rear-naked choke, Morais tapped to secure Lipski’s first title defense.
David Zawada had former KSW lightweight champion Maciej Jewtuszko in real trouble in the first round when he dropped him on two occasions with his powerful punches. Although Jewtuszko got his legs back under him in the second, he was unable to close the gap on Zawada after his early dominance.
Irishmen Chris Fields and Paul Redmond took wins in their promotional debuts. Despite being two of the bigger names in Irish MMA, the Dublin duo were serenaded to a chant of ‘Polska’ from the vocal crowd as they went at it against Polish opposition.
Redmond hopes to have aligned himself with European title fights with both KSW and BAMMA with his split decision win over Lukasz Chiewicki. Fields revealed he had suffered a broken hand in the lead-up to his KSW bow following his unanimous decision win over Michal Fijalka.
Check out the full results from KSW 40.
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