UFC on Fox 20 prelims results: Cowboy, Knight pick up wins

The UFC on Fox 20 prelims featured one three-round war, one dominating finish, and one pretty big shot to the pills. Check out the winners and losers below.

Alex Oliveira defeated James Moontasri by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-25)

The real story of this bout was a nasty ball shot in the first round. It looked like Moontasri wouldn’t be able to continue, but he managed to shake it off and keep fighting. That showed a lot of heart, but Cowboy continued to be all over him for the rest of the fight. He throw more debatable knees in the clinch and beat him up on the ground, never giving Moontasri room to work. Oliveira brutalized his ribs with punches in the second and third, putting a stamp on the unanimous decision win.

Jason Knight defeated Jim Alers by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

This fight was a ton of fun, mostly because of Knight. Making his UFC debut didn’t seem to bother him at all, as he smack-talked his way though a very exciting three rounds. He kept daring Alers to try for takedowns, which he actually got a couple of times. But Knight got his own takedowns as well, and pieced Alers up on the feet for the most part. Alers did hurt him once in the third, but it wasn’t really enough. The scores are a bit charitable towards Alers, as it seemed that Knight definitely won two rounds. It was an early fight of the night candidate though.

Luiz Henrique defeated Dmitry Smolyakov by submission (rear naked choke), 3:58 of round 2

The two big men started well, battering each other with big strikes. But the Russian got tired pretty quickly and wasn’t able to do a lot after that. He gave Henrique trouble with his takedown defense but when it did end up on the ground, he ate a lot of shots at the end of the first. In the second, he sat on his knees turtled up for a loooong time, just eating shots. Finally Henrique opened up his tired opponent and sunk a choke. Smolyakov tapped immediately.

Check out the finish: