Guida upsets Pettis in TUF 13 finale
Posted June 5, 2011 1:05 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
LAS VEGAS — Anthony Pettis brought the style but Clay Guida brought the substance Saturday night.
Guida’s grind-it-out style, full of takedowns and positioning, helped him pulled off the upset in the co-main event of The Ultimate Fighter finale at the Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort.
Pettis — the former World Extreme Cagefighting champion and No. 1 lightweight contender — had no answer for the energetic Guida who took him down multiple times in all three rounds.
“I’m super pumped,” said a smiling Guida, who rolled off a “thank you” list so long that UFC announcer Joe Rogan finally had to cut him off in his post-fight speech.
“We showed him what wrestling was all about.”
Indeed, Guida (29-8), who with the victory has his longest win streak in the UFC at four in a row, took Pettis (11-2) down two minutes into the opening round much to the pro-Guida crowd’s delight.
Pettis pulled out his first acrobatic trick when he just missed a kick while bridging off his back.
Instead Guida scored another takedown and mounted him for the majority of the round.
Early in the second round, Pettis performed another jump off the cage and connected with a spinning kick. However, it was neither as flashy nor as effective as the “Showtime kick” he nailed in his WEC title fight against Ben Henderson in December.
Guida shook the spectacular move off and moments later slammed Pettis near the fence and again mounted the native of Milwaukee, Wisc.
Pettis, who was a +220 favourite at the Palms sports book, had a hold of an armbar as the round ended, but couldn’t lock it in.
Guida again took Pettis down early in the third much to the delight of Guida’s mother, Debbie, who was screaming in her front row seat. Pettis tried to pull out some last ditch punches, but as the seconds ticked off and crowd’s support grew for Guida, there was little he could do.
Pettis had asked UFC president Dana White for a fight with Guida for his UFC debut instead of waiting around for a title shot after the third fight between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard.
In the night’s other main event, Tony Ferguson knocked out Ramsey Nijem with a left hook at the 3:54 mark of the first round to become the winner of the 13th season of The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV and earned the accompanying six figure contract with the UFC.
“I learned a lot about myself. I kept a lot of stuff bottled up and had some inner demons,” said Ferguson, who, in the second-to-last episode of The Ultimate Fighter, attacked fellow fighter Charlie Rader after he revealed he hadn’t seen his son in more than a year after missing child-support payments.
“But in all my fights I tried to leave it all out there, and that’s what I did tonight.”
Ed Herman made his return to the UFC a speedy one, finishing Tim Credeur in less than a minute.
The 30-year-old Herman — who hadn’t seen action in the Octagon since UFC 102 in August of 2009 due to a pair of knee surgeries — clipped Credeur (who also hadn’t fought since 2009 after an unusual mark appeared on a brain scan), with two upper cuts in the clinch before jumping on him with a right-left-right combo before ref Herb Dean stepped in just 48 seconds into the first round.
“It’s unbelievable. To come out and win like that is so awesome, I can’t describe it,” said Herman, who recently opened a gym in Fort Collins, Colo.
Earlier on the preliminary portion of the card, Edmonton native Ryan McGillivray dropped his first UFC fight, losing a unanimous decision to Shamar Bailey as all three judges scored the bout 30-27.
The 25-year-old welterweight — who got emotional on the reality TV show when he talked about being away from his two-year-old daughter, Peighton — had his daughter in Las Vegas (she held a sign at Friday’s weigh-in that read “My daddy kicks butt”), but she couldn’t bring him enough luck to pull out a victory.
McGillivray, who was a +220 underdog at the Palms sports book, was actually lucky to get out of the first round as Bailey rocked him with several power punches and knees that opened a cut over his left eye and bloodied his nose.
The second round featured more of the same as McGillivray got off a couple quick shots early, but the Chicago-born Bailey controlled the round with his superior wrestling and powerful striking.
McGillvray couldn’t gain momentum in the third round, even when the crowd clearly took his side after he waved his hands trying to bait Bailey into a slug-fest and despite landing a flurry of punches.
Bailey’s takedowns and dominant positioning forced a bloodied McGillivray to walk away from the Octagon with his head down and a loss that dropped his MMA record to 11-5-1.
“I didn’t work on any wrestling. You need to be well-rounded to fight in the UFC and I wanted to show my standup,” said Bailey, who improved to 12-3. “My take downs come easy off my standups. I just try to put pressure on my opponent and try to break them.”
