Crazy Turnaround as Rodolfo Vieira Earns First Round Finish Despite Busting His Eye

UFC 248, a great night for the middleweight division. Ahead of the headliner where Israel Adesanya will be defending his title against Yoel Romero. The preliminaries saw some great matchups with Rodolfo Vieira bringing Saparbek Safarov down with a submission.

An action-packed event awaits us as we get into it at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Not the first submission of the night. The octagon witnessed Gerald Meerschaert submit his opponent Deron Winn.

Coming off an impressive 6-0 record and having fought in the UFC only once before against the Polish southpaw Oskar Piechota. Just like his bout against Safarov, Vieira got Piechota to tap out as well.

Safarov has seen more time in the octagon in the UFC compared to that of Vieira. Having fought 3 UFC fights the Russian striker has only managed one victory. It came against the Romanian fighter Nicolae Negumereanu by Unanimous decision.

Safarov made sure the win did not come easy to Vieira and he opened the fight with a kick to the leg and one to the head. The latter wounded the Brazilian right above the eye. These early blows caused his eye to completely swell shut. And possibly caused a serious injury before he was wrestled down to the mat.

Once on the mat, Vieira turned the attack up from Safarov’s back and transitioned to top control. Vieira then locked in the arm-triangle and guaranteed a submission in the first round itself.

Rodolfo Viera later explained that he needed to end the fight in the first round because his eye would have caused a lot of trouble. It would make continuing to fight a great challenge for The Black Belt Hunter.

History of Submissions By Rodolfo Vieira

More than half his wins have come from submissions throughout the course of his career. Vieira has claimed 63 wins out of his tally of 97 wins from submissions. Chokes from the back alone have made up 23% of these submissions.

The night has just begun and we have already had some exhilarating fights. We still have a lot of great matchups to go through before the headliner and the much-awaited bout between Israel “The Last Stylebender” Adesanya and Yoel “The Soldier of God” Romero. Who will come out on top?