UFC Fortaleza bonuses: Oliveira chokes out Teymur for POTN honors

Bloodyelbow.com

The Centro de Formação Olímpica do Nordeste in Fortaleza, Brazil was home to a fantastic night of fights, marking the second ESPN+ event of the year. The card saw four (T)KOs, four submissions, five decisions, including four split-decisions.

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Performances of the Night: Jose Aldo, Charles Oliveira, Johnny Walker, Marlon Moraes

Justin Ledet didn’t stand a chance against the wildly charismatic Johnny Walker tonight. The fight went a little something like this: Ledet comes straight forward out the gate, Walker fires off a hook kick and a spinning backfist, then follows Justin to the canvas where he missed with an illegal kick but landed three huge punches. Ledet is flattened, as if the earth decided that for just that moment, it would allow his theory.

Johnny Walker gets the win and $50K for his spectacular performance

Charles Oliveira had no idea he’d end up fighting blind, but after several eyepokes from David Teymur in round one, that was almost the case. The first one was a Shemp Howard special that saw a Teymur finger in each of Oliveira’s eyes. The ref takes a point and the round finally gets underway after four minutes or so. Teymur pokes Do Bronx again, and after a brief pause, they get back to it. Teymur then drops Oliveira with a hard left. Charles complains of another eyepoke, but the ref isn’t having it and tells them to continue. Oliveira lands a huge jumping knee to Teymur’s chin and then lands over the top. Another knee from Do Bronx and a hard combo from Teymur closes out the longest round ever.

Round two sees the two men immediately going hard in the paint. A step-in elbow from Oliveira hurts Teymur. An uppercut spins David and Oliveira is beating him up. Charles takes him down and chokes him to a tap.

Oliveira gets the W and $50 Gs for a future eye surgery

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The great Jose Aldo might have looked a little timid in the first round, going tit-for-tat with Renato Moicano, content to counter for the most part, but round two erased the illusion of a gunshy pound-for-pound great. Moicano managed to land one jab before Aldo cracked him with a thunderous right that wobbled him. Aldo was like a shark in chummed waters, chasing Moicano across the cage, throwing bombs the whole time and landing a huge knee followed by a pair of uppercuts and hooks that finally forced the ref to stop the action.

Jose Aldo gets the W, the undying love of the fans and $50,000 smackers for a job well done

Most expected the main event between Marlon Moraes and Raphael Assuncao to go the distance, but “Magic” Marlon had other ideas. Moraes controlled the fight from the start, landing a stiff jab and feinting. Two hard rights from Marlon and Assuncao is on the canvas with his rival in his guard posturing up and raining down shots. Moraes grabs a guillotine, rolls into mount and Assuncao taps.

Marlon Moraes gets the win, hopefully a title shot and $50,000 big ones for some Immodium AD stock

Fight of the Night: Despite Thiago Alves and Max Griffin putting on a cracking good fight, they were snubbed. No FOTN bonus was awarded tonight.

Attendance: 10,040