Valter Walker dug into his bag of tricks and took a small but not insignificant step forward in the Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight division.
The ex-Titan Fighting Championship titleholder disposed of Junior Tafa with a heel hook in the first round of their featured UFC 305 prelim on Saturday at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia. Tafa (5-3, 1-3 UFC) yelled in pain as his adversary isolated his leg and cranked, resulting in the verbal submission.
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Walker (12-1, 1-1 UFC) withstood power punches from the Soma Fight Club product, secured two takedowns, established a dominant position and eventually targeted a lower extremity. Tafa went nose to nose with the Brazilian in the aftermath and delivered a slap to the side of his head before he was physically escorted to the other side of the cage.
Meanwhile, Ricardo Ramos rode an opportunistic takedown and a near-finish to a contentious split decision over former Hex Fight Series champion Joshua Culibao in a three-round featherweight encounter. All three cageside judges scored it 29-28: Mark Christie and Mick Meany for Ramos, Ben Cartlidge for Culibao.
Ramos (17-6, 8-5 UFC) retreated to the fence after eating a crushing low kick in the first round but managed to power into top position after his counterpart slipped on a kick. From there, he progressed to the back and threatened with a rear-naked choke. Ramos adjusted his grip and tightened his squeeze several times but could not elicit the tapout. Culibao (11-4-1, 3-4-1 UFC) looked rejuvenated in the middle stanza, where he continued his assault on the lower lead leg with kicks—he knocked down the Brazilian at one point and forced him into a defensive shell in the butt scoot position—and crisp combination punching. Round 3 followed a similar narrative, but Ramos opened a cut near the Aussie’s right eye with a sneaky left hook and secured a takedown with roughly 75 seconds left on the clock. He maintained a dominant position for the remainder of the fight and exited the cage with his hand raised.
Culibao heads back to the drawing board after suffering his third consecutive defeat.
Further down the undercard, Fight Ready’s Casey O’Neill rebounded from a Dec. 16 submission defeat to Ariane Lipski with a clear-cut unanimous decision over Luana Santos in a three-round women’s flyweight scrap. O’Neill (10-2, 5-2 UFC) carried all three scorecards: 30-27, 30-27 and 30-26.
A short-notice substitution for Tereze Bleda, Luana (8-2, 3-1 UFC) never established a rhythm and proved to be out of her depth against a ranked opponent. O’Neill pursued her with pressure, popped her lead leg with kicks and uncorked two-, three- and four-punch combinations with regularity. She countered a head-and-arm throw from Santos in the third round, wheeled behind the Brazilian and secured position with a body triangle. Ground-and-pound followed, and O’Neill even made a pass at a rear-naked choke to salt away the decision.
The setback snapped a five-fight winning streak for Santos.
Elsewhere, onetime Eternal MMA titleholder Jack Jenkins put away Herbert Burns with an accumulation of punishment in the third round of their featherweight clash. A late replacement for Gavin Tucker, Burns (11-6, 2-4 UFC) bowed out 38 seconds into Round 3.
Related » UFC 305 Round-by-Round Scoring
Jenkins (13-3, 3-1 UFC) hammered the Kill Cliff Fight Club export with attritive body-head combinations and devasting leg kicks, slowly but surely driving the nails into the Brazilian’s coffin. Burns managed to answer with takedowns in the first and second rounds—he briefly threatened with an arm-triangle at one point—but had no way to close the massive gap that existed between the two men in the standup department. Jenkins floored him with an overhand right early in Round 3, swarmed with punches and returned to a standing position. Referee Marc Goddard motioned for Burns to do the same. He refused, necessitating the stoppage.
The 31-year-old Jenkins has won 10 of his past 11 bouts.
Finally, former Ultimate Warrior Challenge champion Jesus Santos Aguilar choked the previously unbeaten Stewart Nicoll unconscious with a guillotine in the first round of their flyweight pairing. Aguilar (11-2, 3-1 UFC), who missed weight for the match by a pound and a half, brought it to a close 2:39 into Round 1.
Nicoll (8-1, 0-1 UFC) paid for overzealousness in his organizational debut. He had Aguilar in genuine peril for much of the round, as he used a kimura to sweep to the back before battering him with punches, elbows, forearm strikes and hammerfists. However, Nicoll failed to control his position in his bid to finish. Aguilar set off a scramble, broke free and caught the Broz Martial Arts rep in the guillotine. Nicoll did all he could to extricate himself during an extended struggle, only to black out in his opponent’s clutches.
Aguilar has rattled off three straight victories.
In other action, Team Compton Training Centre rep Tom Nolan (8-1, 2-1 UFC) outstruck ex-King of the Cage titleholder Alex Reyes (13-5, 0-3 UFC) to a unanimous decision in a three-round lightweight affair, earning 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 scores from the judiciary; and Black Tiger Fight Club product Kenan Song (22-8, 6-4 UFC) brutalized onetime World Series of Fighting champion Ricky Glenn (22-9-2, 4-6-1 UFC) with high-impact standup on his way to a unanimous decision in their three-round welterweight tilt, sweeping the scorecards with 30-27, 30-26 and 29-28 marks from the cageside judges.
