INDIANAPOLIS — UFC newcomer Brandon (Rukus) Thatch lived up to the hype Wednesday, battering welterweight Justin (Fast Eddy) Edwards en route to a first-round stoppage on a televised card.
Thatch (10-1) used kicks and knees to subdue the smaller Edwards (9-3). Referee Rob Hinds stepped in at one minute 23 seconds to save the game Edwards from further punishment.
All of Thatch’s wins have come in the first round.
The main event at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, home to the Indiana Pacers, featured a matchup of welterweight contenders in No. 2 Carlos (The Natural Born Killer) Condit and No. 6 Martin (The Hitman) Kampmann.
The next major piece of the welterweight puzzle will fall into place at UFC 167 in November when champion Georges St-Pierre of Montreal meets No. 1 contender Johnny (Bigg Rigg) Hendricks. On the same Las Vegas card, No. 3 Rory (Ares) MacDonald of Montreal faces No. 9 (Ruthless) Robbie Lawler.
Thatch’s previous nine wins took a combined time of 11 minutes 10 seconds. Three of those came in Montreal’s Instinct MMA promotion, lasting a total of two minutes 28 seconds.
His last Instinct MMA performance prompted St-Pierre to request the 28-year-old from Denver as a training partner.
Thatch’s six previous knockout wins each took less than a minute, including a 15-second stoppage of Patrick Vallee in December 2011. Only one of his fights has gone beyond the first round and that was the lone blemish on his record, a split-decision loss to Brandon Magana on a 2008 Strikeforce card at the Playboy Mansion.
He started martial arts at the age of three under his father Clarence Thatch, a fourth-degree black belt in karate who was a world champion in Sabaki (bare knuckle, full-contact karate) and kickboxing and also boxed professionally. Clarence’s father also boxed.
Earlier, Indiana’s Darren (The Damage) Elkins improved to 6-1 as a featherweight with a 29-28, 29-28, 29-28 decision over veteran Hatsu Hioki of Japan. Elkins (18-3) was hurt by a kick to the liver in the first round but rallied to take the third round, hurting Hioki (26-7-2) with ground and pound.
The card started in bizarre fashion when the lightweight bout between Roger (Relentless) Bowling (11-4) and Abel (Killa) Trujillo (10-5) was stopped at 4:57 of the second round and declared a no contest because of what was deemed an unintentional foul.
The foul in question was a pair of Trujillo knees delivered to a kneeling Bowling at the fence. The knees were followed by a punch which left Bowling dazed on the ground as a doctor looked him over. Bowling raised his arms in disbelief when the fight was stopped. Boos followed since most thought Trujillo, who was deducted a point for the infraction, knew what he was doing when he launched the knees.
"I got hit with an illegal knee," said Bowling.
Trujillo predictably saw it differently.
"Both of those knees were legal," he said. "I saw he was breaking and I hit the second knee at the top of his chest. The punch is what really hurt him. He acted his way to a no contest."
UFC president Dana White agreed.
"Both those knees were legal!!! Trujillo should have won," he tweeted.
Welterweight Jason (The Kansas City Bandit) High (18-4) stopped James Head (9-4) via guillotine choke at 1:41 of the first round for his first UFC win. At six foot one, Head had five inches on Head.
"I’m ready to celebrate now," said High. "Doughnuts, barbecue and beer."
"Sickest guillotine in mma!" tweeted former WEC featherweight champion Mike Brown, a training partner at American Top Team.
Zak Cummings (16-3) defeated Australian welterweight Benny (Blanco) Alloway (13-6) via d’Arce choke at 4:19 of the first round.
Note: Bellator has signed former UFC heavyweight Cheick Kongo. The chiselled French fighter is due to make his debut next month and will be featured in the Season 9 heavyweight tournament.
