The Ultimate Fighting Championship is back with us today, May 20, 2023, for UFC Vegas 73, coming down live from UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada.
The event is headlined by a light women’s meet between no. 8 on BJJ Sensation Mackenzie Dern (12-3) and no. 14th ranked kickboxer Angela Hill (15-12).
Leading the confrontation between Edman Shahbazian (12-3) and Anthony Hernandez (10-2).
Going down early on the night’s preliminary card was the lightweight debut of Chase Hooper (12-3-1), who decided to leave the featherweight division after the first knockout defeat of his young career. He faced teammate Nick Fury (6-2), who was also coming off a loss, in his UFC debut earlier this year in January.
Read on to see how this light showdown went down:
Official result: Chase Hopper defeated. Nick Fury via unanimous decision (30-26, 30-27, 30-27)
Hooper starts a grappling exchange early on and looks like he’s about to go deliver the banana split. But it loses the position but ends up at the bottom. Once he’s back on his feet, Hopper gets down to business with boxing, which is actually very effective.
The first round was a very rowdy fest with every man taking a hit, and Hooper started hitting Fury right at the end of the opening round. Had there been ten more seconds left in the first, Hooper might have walked away with a first-round knockout.
Fiore takes Hooper early in the second round and soon after lands the pinfall, which Hooper quickly escapes from. Hooper reverts to boxing, forehand kicks, and side kicks once he’s back in striking range, giving Fiore absolutely no space, building up pressure the whole time.
With 90 seconds left in the middle stretch, the stunning overall scores were 92-21 in favor of Hooper.
Fury catches one of Hooper’s kicks early in the third and final round and puts him on his back again, just as he did at the start of the second round. However, Hopper does not accept the situation and the two scramble to their feet.
Hooper did not let go of his pressure and continued to trap Fiore; He got caught here and there, but he ate everything Fury threw his way and landed nearly 150 headbutts by the time the last bell sounded.
Hooper secures a double leg takedown with about 60 seconds left in the contest and continues to control his punches from the top position until the fight is over.
Chase Hooper returns to his winning ways in his lightweight debut at UFC Vegas 73. He landed a total of 217 strikes tonight, the third most in UFC lightweight history (second most in a three-round fight).
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I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was browsing channels and landed on Versus, which is where WEC was on TV. Uriah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. This is the first fight I’ve ever seen, and I got addicted to it instantly. Eventually, I started covering the sport in the last quarter of 2018, and since then I’ve started writing about animals as well. If you’d like to see these pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!