Michael Chiesa became the first ever Ultimate Fighter Live champion as he choked Al Iaquinta unconscious at the TUF Live finale on Friday.
The two men, who were teammates under Urijah Faber during the show, came out aggressive and traded shots. Midway through the opening round, the fight hit the mat and Chiesa quick took Iaquinta’s back.
After some hand fighting, Chiesa was able to sink in a rear-naked choke and at 2:47 of the first round referee Herb Dean saw that Iaquinta was out cold and stopped the fight.
It was yet another emotional win for the 24-year-old, whose father passed away of leukemia while production of the popular reality show was ongoing.
“This is exactly what I wanted. This is such a dream,” Chiesa said after the fight. “There’s no way I was losing this fight. I overcame a lot of things to win this fight.”
Chiesa, who became the 22nd TUF champ in UFC history, improved to 8-0 as a professional with six of those wins coming by way of submission.
Also on the main card, Justin Lawrence thrilled the crowd with a violent third-round knockout of John Cofer. The first two rounds were tightly contested with Cofer landing a higher number of strikes, but Lawrence landed the more powerful ones.
Just 19 seconds into round three, as Cofer was disengaging from a combination, Lawrence landed a right kick flush to the face of Cofer that put him to sleep.
Lawrence, at just 22 years old, is a highly touted prospect who often trains with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva as part of Team Black House and showed he could have the potential to be a force in the UFC lightweight division.
In action seen on Sportsnet ONE, Team Faber’s Joe Proctor started off the televised preliminary card with a huge first-round knockout of Team Cruz’s Jeremy Larsen. As Larsen came forward throwing a combination Proctor grabbed the back of his opponent’s head and landed a flush knee to the chin, followed up with some hammer-fists and the fight was halted at the 1:59 mark.
One of Chiesa’s best friends and training partners, Sam Sicilia, picked up a second-round TKO win over Brazilian veteran Cristiano Marcello. It was not a technical affair as the two exchanged haymakers for the majority of the bout with Sicilia landing the harder strikes. In the second round, Sicilia appeared fatigued and Marcello landed several flush combinations. However Sicilia landed a left hook that staggered the jiu-jitsu expert. He followed up with knees and punches and the fight was stopped.
Myles Jury remained unbeaten in his professional MMA career — the fights while in the TUF house are classified as amateur bouts — as he submitted Chris Saunders with a first-round guillotine choke. After the two stood for a while, Jury found his range and Saunders went for a single-leg takedown, but as this was happening Jury locked up an arm-in guillotine and Saunders eventually tapped.
Plus, Daron Cruickshank defeated Chris Tickle by unanimous decision. The bout began with Tickle immediately attempting a guillotine, but Cruickshank was able to escape and end up in top position for the majority of the round. Tickle was also deducted a point for an illegal up-kick to a grounded opponent while Cruickshank was in his guard.
In the second stanza, Tickle went for another choke early, this time an anaconda choke, but ended up on his back again. The fight ended up back on the feet midway through the round where Cruickshank landed a huge lead left head kick. Tickle, however, ate it, threw out his arms, yelled at his opponent and proceeded to drop Cruickshank with a one-two combination and stayed in top position.
The third saw both men hold dominant positions but it was Cruickshank that did more to win the round and come away with a decision. It was the only preliminary fight to go the distance.
