Walter Walker has used his skills to take small but significant steps in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s heavyweight division.
The former Titan Fighting Championship titleholder dropped Junior Tafa with a heel hook in the first round of a featured prelim event at UFC 305 on Saturday at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia. Tafa (5-3 MMA, 1-3 UFC) cried out in pain as his opponent left his feet and twisted, resulting in a verbal submission.
UFC 305: du Plessis vs. Adesanya airs Saturday at 10 a.m. ET on ESPN+. Order now!
Walker (12-1, 1-1 UFC) withstood hard punches from the SoMa Fight Club native, scoring two takedowns and establishing advantageous position, eventually going for the lower leg before Tafa went nose-to-nose with the Brazilian and slapped him in the side of the head before physically whisking him away to the other side of the cage.
Meanwhile, Ricardo Ramos used an opportunistic takedown and near-finish to defeat former Hex Fight Series champion Joshua Curivao by controversial split decision in a three-round featherweight bout. All three cageside judges scored the bout 29-28, with Mark Christie and Mick Meaney scoring Ramos and Ben Cartlidge scoring Curivao.
Ramos (17-6 MMA, 8-5 UFC) was hit with a hard low kick in the first round that sent him back to the fence, but he powered up to top position after his opponent slipped on a kick. From there, he worked his way back and threatened a rear-naked choke. Ramos adjusted his grip and tightened it multiple times, but couldn’t draw a tapout. Clivaon (11-4-1 MMA, 3-4-1 UFC) seemed to regain his energy in the middle rounds, continuing his attack on the underside of his lead leg with kicks (he knocked the Brazilian down once, forcing him into a defensive shell in a buttscoot position) and crisp combination punches. The third round played out in a similar fashion, but Ramos used a neat left hook to create a cut near the Australian’s right eye and secure a takedown with about 75 seconds left. He maintained his advantage for the rest of the bout, coming out of the cage with his hands up.
Clibao suffered three straight losses and once again started off to plan.
Further down the undercard, fight-ready Kacey O’Neill bounced back from a submission loss to Ariane Lipski on Dec. 16 to win a clear, unanimous decision over Luana Santos in a three-round women’s flyweight bout. O’Neill (10-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC) won on all three scorecards: 30-27, 30-27 and 30-26.
Luana (8-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC), a last-minute replacement for Therese Breda, never found her rhythm and proved too much for her highly ranked opponent. O’Neal kept up the pressure, kicking the lead leg and landing two-, three- and four-punch combinations regularly. In the third round, she countered a head-and-arm throw from Santos, got behind the Brazilian and secured a body triangle position. Ground-and-pound ensued, and O’Neal went for the rear-naked choke to secure the decision.
The loss ended Santos’ five-game winning streak.
Meanwhile, former Eternal MMA titleholder Jack Jenkins used a combination of blows to knock out Herbert Burns in the third round of their featherweight clash. Burns (11-6 MMA, 2-4 UFC), who replaced Gavin Tucker, was eliminated 38 seconds into the third round.
Jenkins (13-3, 3-1 UFC) slowly but surely put the nail in the Brazilian’s coffin, battering the Kill Cliff Fight Club native with attritional body and head combinations and devastating leg kicks. Burns fought back with takedowns in the first and second rounds (and at one point threatened an arm triangle), but there was no way to close the huge gap between the two in the stand-up department. Jenkins took him down with an overhand right early in the third round and unleashed a flurry of punches to get back to a standing position. Referee Marc Goddard signaled for Burns to do the same, but when he refused, the bout was stopped.
Jenkins, 31, has won 10 of his last 11 fights.
Finally, former Ultimate Warrior Challenge champion Jesus Santos Aguilar rendered previously unbeaten Stewart Nicol unconscious with a guillotine choke in the first round of their flyweight pairing. Aguilar (11-2, 3-1 UFC), who missed weight by a pound and a half for the bout, ended the bout 2 minutes, 39 seconds into the first round.
Nicol (8-1, 0-1 UFC) paid the price for being overeager in his promotional debut. He swept Aguilar backwards with a kimura before attacking him with punches, elbows, forearm strikes and hammerfists, putting Aguilar in real danger for much of the round. But Nicol couldn’t control his position as he went for the finish. Aguilar began to scramble, broke free and caught the Bro’s Martial Arts representative in a guillotine. Nicol struggled to break free during the lengthy struggle, but fell unconscious in his opponent’s hands.
Aguilar has now won three straight matches.
In other bouts, Team Compton Training Center’s Tom Nolan (8-1, 2-1 UFC) defeated former King of the Cage titleholder Alex Reyes (13-5, 0-3 UFC) by unanimous decision in a three-round lightweight bout, earning scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 from the judges, and Black Tiger Fight Club’s Kenan Song (22-8, 6-4 UFC) brutally defeated former World Series of Fighting champion Ricky Glenn (22-9-2, 4-6-1 UFC) in a three-round welterweight bout with high-impact stand-up combat, earning a unanimous decision score of 30-27, 30-26 and 29-28 from the cageside judges.
