It proved to be a hard night in the cage for Rob Wilkinson as he suffered a TKO loss to Siyar Bahadurzada in his Octagon debut.
The contest was the co-main event at UFC Fight Night 115, which took place in Rotterdam, Netherlands on Sunday morning AEST.
Wilkinson started aggressively as he took the fight to his opponent early, throwing kicks and landing an early takedown from which Bahadurzada was able to escape from. Bahadurzada finished the round strong as he unsuccessfully looked to lock up a D’arce choke late in the round.
The tide turned in the second round with Bahadurzada coming out on the front foot, throwing punches assertively and ultimately dropped Wilkinson with an overhand. Wilkinson staggered back to his feet as the barrage of strikes came down only to get dropped again. This time there was no coming back for Wilkinson with the referee stopping the contest shortly after.
The official time came at 3:10 of round two as Bahadurzada moves his record to 23-6-1 (UFC 3-2). Wilkinson loses for the first time to drop to 11-1 (UFC 0-1).
In the main event, Russian heavyweight Alexander Volkov took his win streak to five, stopping veteran Stefan Struve with punches in the third round.
Results
- Alexander Volkov def. Stefan Struve via TKO (Punches), Rd 3, 3:30
- Siyar Bahadurzada def. Rob Wilkinson (Australia) via TKO (Punches), Rd 2, 3:10
- Marion Reneau def. Talita Bernardo via TKO (Punches), Rd 3, 4:54
- Leon Edwards def. Bryan Barberena via Decision (Unanimous)
- Darren Till def. Bojan Velickovic via Decision (Unanimous)
- Mairbek Taisumov def. Felipe Silva via KO (Punch), Rd 1, 1:24
- Michel Prazeres def. Mads Burnell via Submission (North-South Choke), Rd 3, 1:26
- Rustam Khabilov def. Desmond Green via Decision (Unanimous)
- Aleksandar Rakic def. Francimar Barroso via Decision (Unanimous)
- Zabit Magomedsharipov def. Mike Santiago via Submission (Rear-Naked Choke), Rd 2, 4:22
- Abdul-Kerim Edilov def. Bojan Mihajlovic via TKO (Punches), Rd 2, 2:32
- Thibault Gouti def. Andrew Holbrook via TKO (Punches), Rd 1, 4:28
