All-action veterans Andre Fili and Cub Swanson turned in a enjoyable 15-minute scrap that break up the judges.
The featherweight bout was a part of the UFC 303 preliminary card at T-Cellular Area in Las Vegas. When the mud settled, two judges noticed the bout in favor of Fili (24-11 MMA, 12-10 UFC) over Swanson (29-14 MMA, 14-10 UFC) with dueling scores of 29-28.
The texture-out course of noticed each fighters gentle on their ft, bouncing across the octagon, trying to find a gap. As they settled in, the preliminary exchanges had been single, darting strikes from each fighters.
Fili discovered a house for a head kick and a tough kick to the physique to get Swanson’s consideration. Regardless, Swanson continued his ahead stress, finally connecting with a pointy punch down the center, which Fili performed off by taunting.
Simply as Swanson seemed to select up his stress on the ft in Spherical 2, Fili switched issues up along with his grappling recreation by hitting an early takedown adopted by clinch work towards the fence. Swanson separated halfway via the spherical and linked with one other clear punch. Swanson defended one other takedown try and let his fingers go in a pleasant flurry, getting the group riled up.
With the battle seemingly up for grabs on the scorecards, each got here out firing and touchdown effectively early in Spherical 3.
Fili was profitable with a takedown, however Swanson didn’t permit the battle to remain on the canvas. Again on the ft, Swanson continued to stress as Fili circled on the skin, with each touchdown in heated placing exchanges till the ultimate horn.
The judges did have the battle tied going into the ultimate spherical, through which two of them, Mike Bell and Ron McCarthy favored Fili’s work, whereas Adalaide Byrd scored Spherical 3 for Swanson.
Backwards and forwards battle from the beginning 👊@TouchyFili pulls out the break up choice victory at #UFC303! pic.twitter.com/IGbNE05pgj
— UFC (@ufc) June 30, 2024
With the win, Fili bounces again from a first-round end by the hands of Dan Ige in February. The 34-year-old California-based fighter has produced combined outcomes over his previous six fights, having not put collectively back-to-back wins since 2019.
Up-to-the-minute UFC 303 outcomes embody:
- Andre Fili def. Cub Swanson through break up choice (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
- Jean Silva def. Charles Jourdain through knockout (punch) – Spherical 2, 1:22
- Payton Talbott def. Yanis Ghemmouri through knockout (punches) – Spherical 1, 0:19
- Gillian Robertson def. Michelle Waterson-Gomez through unanimous choice (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
- Martin Buday def. Andrei Arlovski through break up choice (29-28, 28-29, 30-27)
- Rei Tsuruya def. Carlos Hernandez through unanimous choice (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- Vinicius Oliveira def. Ricky Simon through unanimous choice (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
For extra on the cardboard, go to MMA Junkie’s occasion hub for UFC 303.
Make sure to go to the MMA Junkie Instagram web page and YouTube channel to debate this and extra content material with followers of combined martial arts.