UFC on ESPN: Rodriguez vs. Waterson Results

Last night fight card suffered a lot of changes and a few fights was cancelled due to numerous reasons. Main event was supposed to be fight between former UFC Bantamweight Champion TJ Dillashaw and Cory Sandhagen. However, Dillashaw announced on April 27th that he had to pull out of the fight due to a cut. He and Sandhagen will be rescheduled at a future event.

Given that card lost main event, two strawweight contenders, Marina Rodriguez and Michelle Waterson accepted the fight on short notice and booked a fight in flyweight division. Fight between Ben Rothwell and Philipe Lins was also expected on this card, but Lins didn't show on weigh-ins and he pulled out due to an illness. Very interesting matchup in strawweight division, Amanda Ribas and Angela Hill, failed to happen due to an Covid-19 positive test from Ribas.

Bout between Diego Sanchez and Donald 'Cowboy' Cerrone was also scrapped because of Sanchez's cut from promotion, but Alex Morono stepped up on short notice to fight Cerrone. Fight Card proceeded with 9 bouts, 3 on prelims and 6 on main card.

On prelims, TUF: Undefeated Lightweight Tournament Winner, Michael Trizano earned unanimous decision victory over Ludovit Klein improving his record to 3-1 in UFC. Prior to this bout, we saw him last time in action on May 18th, 2019 at UFC Fight Night: dos Anjos vs. Lee event where he suffered his first career loss from Grant Dawson.

Moving quickly to main card action, Phil Hawes defeated Kyle Daukaus via unanimous decision. This is his 7th win in a row, 3rd in UFC. His last defeat was from another Dana White's Contender Series alumni, Julian Marquez, back in 2017 on DWCS 4.

Next on card, Gregor Gillespie is finally again in action after his devastating KO loss from Kevin Lee back in 2019 at UFC 244. That loss was his first in his pro carrer. Last night, he fought against Carlos Diego Ferreira and won via technical knockout in round 2. Ferreira, after 6 wins in a row, now finding himself on 2 loss skid with this TKO loss. It will be interesting to see who will be next opponents for these two.

Two fights that didn't offer much action was unanimous decision wins for Marcos Rogerio de Lima and Neil Magny. Rogerio de Lima defeated TUF alumni Maurice Greene in one very non interesting fight. Neil Magny was doing enough of controlling distance and having good volume of punches to earn a win over Geoff Neal.

Co-main event gave us first round TKO finish for Alex Morono against Donald Cerrone (now 0-5, 1NC in last six fights). Moron bounced back with this win after unanimous decision loss from Anthony Pettis in his last appearance.

Main event, as already mentioned, was scheduled in flyweight division, even though both Rodriguez and Waterson fight in strawweight. Really good fight from both, but Rodriguez deserved win and now she have back-to-back wins. On the other side, this was third loss in last four fights for Waterson.

Results:

Preliminary card

• Carlston Harris def. Christian Aguilera via Technical Submission (anaconda choke) in round 1

• Jun Yong Park def. Tafon Nchukwi via Decision (majority) (30–25, 29–26, 28–28) [a]

• Michael Trizano def. Ľudovít Klein via Decision (unanimous) (29–28, 29–28, 30–27)

Main card

• Phil Hawes def. Kyle Daukaus via Decision (unanimous) (30–26, 30–26, 29–27)

• Gregor Gillespie def. Carlos Diego Ferreira via TKO (punches) in round 2 [b]

• Marcos Rogério de Lima def. Maurice Greene via Decision (unanimous) (30–26, 30–26, 30–27)

• Neil Magny def. Geoff Neal via Decision (unanimous) (29–28, 29–28, 30–27)

• Alex Morono def. Donald Cerrone via TKO (punches) in round 1

• Marina Rodriguez def. Michelle Waterson via Decision (unanimous) (48–47, 49–46, 49–46)

[a] Nchukwi was deducted one point in round 2 due to repeated groin strikes.

[b] Ferreira missed weight