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Jack Hermansson entered the fight with Ronaldo Souza as an underdog. He left as a new candidate in the middleweight category after a decisive victory unanimously against one of the division's best fighters.
On the floor and feet, Hermansson (20-4 MMA, 7-2 UFC) outshot the Souza jiu-jitsu (26-7 MMA, 9-4 UFC), beating the scorecards with a volume approach while "Jacare" tried a big final. In the end, the three judges scored the bout for Hermansson, giving him the biggest win of his career with scores of 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47.
The middleweight fight was the main event of the UFC ESPN + 8 broadcast on Saturday at the BB & T Center in Sunrise, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale. He aired on ESPN + the following preliminaries on ESPN and ESPN2.
The five rounds were exhausting, but Hermansson almost ended the battle when he clung to his signature after punching Souza in the first.
Although he could not complete the unconventional unconventional guillotine on Souza as he did on others, he came close enough to demonstrate that he was there to win, whether another person was thinking or not have a chance to do it.
Hermansson ended up controlling most of the second round on the carpet after knocking out Souza, then taking on striking strikes, showing no real fear of Souza's dangerous ground game. After Souza came back strong with punches in the back and unbalanced rights in the third inning, it seemed that Hermansson was perhaps fading away.
But Hermansson rebounded with bursts of punch and a higher work rate on the fourth and fifth rounds, leaving Souza bloody and more and more desperate to follow him and looking, frustrated by Hermansson's refusal to stay at one place.
Instead, Hermansson flayed Souza with combinations of punches and took him to put an end to his progress, making a clear statement that the judges could not ignore at the end of the fight.
The unanimous decision to win gives Hermansson his highest victory to date, and he made it clear in his post-fight remarks that he was planning to continue moving towards the UFC middleweight title.
Hermansson has now won four straight victories at the UFC, his last defeat being total until 2017. Souza has lost two of his last three.
The most recent UFC results on ESPN + 8 include:
For full coverage of the UFC on ESPN + 8, see the UFC Events section of the site.
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