Going into Saturday night’s UFC Vegas 102 main event of the evening, No. 7 contender Jared Cannonier (18-8 MMA, 11-8 UFC) was under some heat. The one nicknamed “The Killa Gorilla” came into the weekend on a two-fight losing streak with a 2-3 record in his last five fights.
Jared Cannonier’s assignment over the President’s Day holiday weekend at the UFC Apex in Enterprise, NV: Gregory Rodrigues (16-6 MMA, 7-3 UFC.) A loss on Saturday night could have sent Cannonier out of the top-10 at middleweight.
However, as MMA fans have seen countless times throughout the years in the sport, including earlier on during the main card of Saturday’s event with the lightweight fight between Nazim Sadykhov (10-1-1 MMA, 3-0-1 UFC) and Ismael Bonfim (20-5 MMA, 2-2 UFC), a contest that was waved off in the timeout between rounds one and two because of a doctor’s stoppage, one-way traffic took over.