When someone new starts working with you, what do you do? I quite like “get to know them over a beer” approach but when you’re a mixed martial artist who has been training in Muay Thai for about 13 years, you tend to pick up a few things, such as devastating kicks and great movement. These are the tools that Thiago Alves used tonight to introduce Papy Abedi into the UFC. Well, Thiago traded the leg kicks for a blistering right hand for the night but I’m sure you know what I mean. I wouldn’t greet a new colleague like that anyway.
Abedi looked absolutely huge and clearly hired a voodoo priest to help him cut to welterweight. A sweet striking exchange punctuated by an Abedi front kick to the face of Alves started this fight and both men traded fairly but after 4 minutes, Alves put Abedi on stanky leg street with a left hand, dropped him with the right, ultimately getting the tap at 3:32 of round one by way of rear naked choke.
